Watch Three on a Match For Free

Absolutely Fantastic

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

Three women who were childhood schoolmates take different paths in life. Vivian marries a very wealthy lawyer and has an adorable boy. Mary, on the other hand, takes the hard road through reform school. After a superstitious faux pas, Vivian's luck turns. She strays from her steadfast husband to a life of debauchery and alcoholism. Meanwhile, Mary turns her life around and not only wins the heart of Vivian's ex-husband, but also becomes a loving step-mother to Vivian's only child. Then Vivian's worthless boyfriend makes a desperate move.Quite simply, this movie is horrible. I kept re-reading the plot, thinking I was watching a different film. But no. The film really sucks. Poorly written and even more poorly directed. The entire first half seems like a comedy.The only thing interesting are Bette Davis's pre code bazookas. Other than that it's a bore

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.

Director Mervyn LeRoy, who helmed "Little Caesar" and "I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang," directed this seamy but above-average urban saga about three women who attended the same grammar school Public School No. 62 and then departed to got their separate ways in life. Fun-loving Mary Keaton wound up in reform school. Academically gifted Ruth Westcott, who graduated with highest honors, entered a business college to learn how to become both a stenographer and a typist. Finally, Vivian Revere went to an elite boarding school. Ultimately, Vivian (Ann Dvorak of "G-Men") wedded a wealthy lawyer Robert Kirkwood(Warren William of "Midnight Madonna") and they have a little boy. Mary (Joan Blondell) survives the reformatory and becomes a chlorine in the chorus line. Ruth (Bette Davis of "Waterloo Bridge") works in a business office as a secretary. Although it may not appear to be a seamy, unsavory proletarian melodrama, "Three on a Match" presents images of child abuse, suicide, alcoholism, and despicable debauchery.The problem with poor Vivian is that she does not appreciate all the good fortune that she has achieved. She does not love her husband, refuses to kiss him on the mouth, and wants to separate from him. Robert Kirkwood agrees to send her and his son on a cruise. After Kirkwood leaves the ship to attend to legal matters, Vivian runs into Mary aboard the ship before it heaves anchor. Mary is enjoying a party with several people, one of whom is a shady character (Lyle Talbot) who eventually gets Vivian drunk and preys on her weakness for alcohol. Vivian leaves the ship under mysterious circumstances and Kirkwood sends out detectives to find her with no luck. Mary realizes the wrong that she has done and worries about the welfare of Vivian's child. Eventually, Vivian turns into an alcohol and there is the implication that she is snorting cocaine. She divorces Kirkwood and he remarries. He takes Mary Keaton has his wife and they live happily until Vivian needs money and her evil boyfriend kidnaps her son to pay off his debts to a gangster (Edward Arnold) who employs a nasty thug (Humphrey Bogart in a minor role). Meantime, the cops close in on the kidnappers and a desperate Vivian writes a note on her gown about the whereabouts of her son and crashes through an upstairs window and dies when she strikes the stairs outside the apartment building. Mervyn LeRoy does a good job with this trim 64 minute drama. He establishes the historical setting of the events and that adds to the realism. This is an example of Pre-Code Hollywood entertainment and it is well above average. Bette Davis exposes more of her flesh that she ever would in later pictures, and Warren William (who went on to play the first Perry Mason) is cast ironically as a sympathetic character.

The plot is a little thin and kind of predictable but the movie has a good feel to it and is a precursor of films to come with it's style of using the childhood to adulthood buildup and does it well. Bette Davis looks very pretty but is under used and the other female leads give good performances especially Joan Blondell. Bogart is good as a tough guy but his line delivery is still in it's early stages. The heroin (some say cocaine but are wrong. She just snorted it instead of shooting it and then the guy scratches his arm asking for some, plus she is moaning in the next room, cocaine addicts don't moan) reference is cool but it's a little hard to believe this upstanding citizen and good mother turns into a drug and alcohol addicted trollop within a couple weeks. A good romp to the past before the coding system toned it all down.