Three on a Match

Good melodrama.

Always gritty and slightly sleazy pre-production code melodrama. Blondell, Bogart and Davis are all good, and Dvorak is excellent.

I had heard about this flick for years before finally managing to see it, and...not quite what I expected (more high melodrama, for starters). It's very much Ann Dvorak's show as the good girl who destroys herself with booze and dope, and she just doesn't have the screen presence to carry it off memorably. Joan Blondell fares much better. Bette Davis's character is the least developed of the 3 friends--industrious and slightly dull. This is before Hollywood really knew what to do with her.

I guess I really expected a "ladies get together" sort of movie from the logline. Instead, this turned into an almost scary crime drama where the wife that has everything throws it all away for a different adventure. It's a memorable (if terse) story with a strong cast, but it might have been a real winner if the two parts were combined more tightly.

The two biggest stars in this (Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart) have the two smallest roles this early on in their career but it's exciting seeing them so young and baby-faced. Three on a Match starts off splendidly but gets more and more hysterical as time goes by until you almost can't believe what is happening before you.

Not bad.

That's one of the most peculiar endings to a film I've seen for a long while.

very straight-forward for the 30's

I watched this and forgot I had seen it before until I saw I had rated it here, which is never a great sign. Tons of star power, though it wasn't quite as much at the time as it seems now. This was before both Davis and Bogart hit it big, and they both have relatively small roles, with Blondell and Dvorak doing the heavy lifting. It's pretty good but feels very rushed by the run time, as what appears to be a melodrama or romance abruptly becomes a crime thriller with nowhere much to go..

Solid as can be for a First National programmer, but as a filler doesn't have the time to go deeper into the dilemmas. It does have a lot of interesting elements like Ann Dvorak putting on a strong performance as a drug addict. Small role for Humphrey Bogart bringing the laugh of the film when outing Dvorak's problem. Small role for Bette Davis as well looking super pretty. This also featured one of Lyle Talbot's better performances as Dvorak's slum equal. And the end was quite spectacular too.

You never know where you have this movie. The first 15 minutes you think it's a light comedy and by the end (only 45 minutes later) there's drugs, kidnappings and suicide. It doesn't all work (Bette Davis might as well be Ms. Not-Appearing-In-This-Film) but it's a wild pre-code ride.