A great story, if short, which was normal for the time period. However there was a goof in the law that messes of the reasons that lead to the end of the story.When villain Loftus (lover of Kirkwood's first wife Vivian) goes to lawyer Kirkwood to ask for money or Loftus would go to press with story of how Kirkwood's second wife (Keaton) had served time in reformatory, Kirkwood refused and threatened to sue any publication that printed the story for libel. This is not correct because a true statement isn't libelous as Keaton had been in a reformatory for some minor crime under another name. At best, Kirkwood might have tried to have Loftus arrested for attempted blackmail, but then the true story would still have come out. A lawyer would have known this.But without the rejection, Loftus wouldn't have needed to kidnap Kirkwood's son to pay his gambling debts to Ace (Harve's boss) which led to end of story.Also, story didn't explain (but could be assumed) about whether Harve and associates escaped from police or not after apparently killing Loftus, but forcing Vivian to jump out window with message on night gown of boy's location that police used to rescue the boy.

Copyright 25 October 1932 by First National Pictures, Inc. New York opening at the Warners' Strand: 28 October 1932. 7 reels. 64 minutes. SYNOPSIS: Ten years after graduating from public school, three girls meet again. Mary, the tomboy, has been through reform school and is now on the stage. Vivian, the snob, is married to Henry Kirkwood, a rich lawyer. Ruth, the honor student, is a business girl. Reminiscing, the girls light their cigarettes from a single match and laugh off the superstition that bad luck will befall the third person (Vivian) to use the said match. Vivian, suddenly bored with her life, decides to take her son, Junior, on an ocean cruise, and invites her girl friends to her bon voyage party. Mary arrives with a gambler, Mike Loftus, to whom Vivian is immediately attracted, and instead of sailing, she runs off with him.NOTES: Re-made in 1938 as Broadway Musketeers. COMMENT: Is this the only teaming of Bogart and Davis? Both, alas, have very small roles. But this fact is the movie's only disappointing aspect. It's a fast-moving gangster yarn, superbly photographed, with a great music score and admirably lively direction from Mervyn LeRoy. I loved the montage cuts of newspapers and events which not only give the proceedings a realistic topicality but add to the marvellous rapidity of the pace. It is Dvorak who walks away with the acting honors, but what a great cast! Curiosity-value plus. The story obviously inspired The Group and later similar studies, but the original Match is far more entertaining. No padding, no boring marking-time, but solid, believable drama all the way.

Very entertaining. To start with you have Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, and Warren William all delivering great performances. Add to that a 24-year-old Bette Davis in a supporting role showing off her legs in addition to her beautiful face, Humphrey Bogart working on his tough guy character 9 years before 'The Maltese Falcon', and a number of cute performances by child actors, most notably 6-year- old Buster Phelps. There are shots of newspapers headlines over the years of the previous decade, including the 'amazing feat of the new wireless telephone' (radio), and the trend of wearing 'sun suits', the 'new brief attire greatly favored for bathing resorts' for the 'fad of sun-bathing'. You see Joan Blondell in prison, listening to a stories read out of a steamy book, and then later connected to a giant hair-curling machine with wires descending from the ceiling to her metallic skullcap. The pre-Code script is a little over-the- top but that's part of the fun. It has three girls growing up into very 'types' of women, and then Dvorak's character getting so bored with her life of luxury that she slips into alcohol, drugs, and adultery, imperiling her little boy. Director Mervyn LeRoy keeps things moving and I liked how it was both short, at 63 minutes, but also packed with content. It's not "high art" or anything, but there are so many bits of interest that this is one that I would recommend to people who aren't normally interested in old movies, and I round up my review score a bit.

Anne Dvorak is a nice married lady. Her husband is the wealthy, older Warren William, also a nice guy but perhaps a little stuffy. They have a cute little boy, about four, who whines all the time, whether he's happy or unhappy, and should be stomped like a roach. The problem is that Dvorak is bored with it all. She itches for something new. This is always a bad sign in a wife.William arranges for her and that nettlesome child to have a vacation in Europe but before boarding she meets a handsome young seducer and, well, they shack up in the Warwick Hotel without leaving New York. Her paramour seems to lack anything in the way of frontal lobes because he can not plan for the future. He gives a rubber check to gangster Edward Arnold, introduced by being first seen plucking nose hairs out of his nostrils with a pair of tweezers. Mervyn LeRoy directed. Of the check, goon Humphrey Bogart says, "If you drop a golf ball off the top of the Chrysler Building, does it bounce?" The seducer, Lyle Talbot, tries to get the money he owes by blackmailing Dvorak's husband. If William doesn't fork it over, Talbot will sell the scandalous story of Dvorak's loose morals to the tabloids. William throws him out.Well, I'll tell you. It gets worse and worse as Dvorak slips deeper into immorality. When the kid, in filthy clothes, asks for something to eat, she gestures from the couch to a tray of half-eaten bon bons. She goes beyond being a simple drunk and gets into cocaine.Arnold and his henchmen kidnap the kid and try to ransom him off to William. At that point, seeing her own little boy in danger (sob), she undergoes an epiphany, scribbles a description of the situation on her nightie in lipstick, then jumps out the window. The police arrive and twig immediately. The end.I'd like to point out a refulgent display of perspicacity on the part of another reviewer, who has seen depths in this film that my own poor sensibilities have kept from my mental grasp. The reviewer's handle is "Howdymax." He's a beacon to all of us.None of that is true, of course, but he's my brother and I owe him a lot of money and his agents are beginning to follow me around. One is a dead ringer for Humphrey Bogart.