Mary Dwight (Bette Davis) works as a hostess in a nightclub, but when the club is taken over by notorious gangster Johnny Vanning (Eduardo Ciannelli), he wants to turn it into a not-so-legitimate clip joint. Mary and the other hostesses are not happy about their new boss, but Vanning is very powerful and crossing him could be dangerous, so try to be as cooperative as possible with him.
One night, Mary spends the evening with Ralph Krawford (Damian O’Flynn), who thinks he’s pulling a fast one on the club owners by running up a big debt at the casino and paying it off with a bad check. Mary warns him about the danger he’s in and advises him to leave town right away. But Vanning wasn’t born yesterday and has Krawford killed before he can even make it to the train station. The police find out Mary had been with Krawford the night he was killed and arrest Mary.
Prosecutor David Graham (Humphrey Bogart) tries to convince Mary to rat on Vanning, but although she eventually starts to seem cooperative, she’s too afraid of what could happen to her if she does and her testimony helps him go free again. Meanwhile, Mary’s sister Betty (Jane Bryan) is visiting from school and is too scandalized by the incident to go back. Mary loves her sister and doesn’t want Betty getting involved with her lifestyle, but one night, Betty joins fellow hostess Emmy Lou (Isabel Jewell) for a party, where she ends up getting on the bad side of one of Vanning’s cohorts and Vanning kills her. Now Mary is more eager than ever testify against Vanning, even if it puts her life on the line.
Marked Woman has all the hallmarks that 1930s Warner Brothers movies were famous for. Gangsters? Check. Fast pacing? Yep, it’s got that. Snappy dialogue? Oh, yeah. Stars like Humphrey Bogart and Bette Davis? Check and check! This is just a good old fashioned gangster movie, but unlike most other gangster movies, Marked Woman focuses on the nightclub hostesses, who often tend to be relegated to supporting character status. When you hear about a 1930s Warner Brothers movie that involves gangsters and stars Humphrey Bogart, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that Bogart will be playing the gangster. Instead, he’s fully on the side of law and order here. So although Marked Woman is, in many ways, a classic Warner Brothers gangster flick, it does shake things up in a couple of ways, which I found refreshing. It’s a great movie.
