Customer Reviews
"The law isn't made for people like us" - By: M. J Leonard, 02 Jul 2006 
Marked Woman was made in 1937 & featured the wonderful Bette Davis in a gritty, less than glamorous role. The movie is alll about crime, the mobster underworld & hard-bitten allluring hostesses. There's violence & cruelty to women & murder, with most of the more grueling scenes taking place behind closed doors. One can just imagine the sensors take on this movie - they were almost certainly appallled at the subject matter, which was probably quite provocative for the time.
The story pretty much centers on the racketeering at the New York Club Intimé & the group of "hostesses" who work there. Underworld huckster Johnny Vanning (Eduardo Cianelli) has acquired the Club after renovations, & he wants to make sure that the girls are giving him the appropriate cut & that they are fulfilling their duties of encouraging men to spend on champagne & gamble in the secret casino hidden in the back room.
Mary Dwight Strauber (Davis) rooms with a number of hostesses who go along with the new deal, even though they know Vanning has murdered men who think they can trick the club. Mary is well aware that Vanning is up to no good, but her very life is placed on the line when a witness sees her with one of the men who was murdered.
Along with the other girls, Mary is hauled down to the DA's office & forced into a lineup. Mary then gets an offer of protection from David Graham (Humphrey Bogart), & she agrees to help, only to have her reputation as a professional party girl backfire on her - now she's got her picture in the paper, her reputation forever ruined.
There's a trial & a Mary gives a bent testimony, mainly because she's terrified of what Vanning might do to her. Things get even more complicated when Mary's innocent sister Betty (Jane Bryan) arrives in town, & not only accidentallly gets pulled in on the police raid, but decides to adopt the hostess lifestyle. Disillusioned, she accompanies the least dependable & rather flighty calll-girl Emmy Lou (Isabel Jewell) to one of Vanning's parties.
Perhaps the most memorable scene - & the most violent - is when poor Mary gets roughed up by one of Vanning's henchmen. Of course the director Lloyd Bacon wasn't alllowed to show anything, so it alll takes place in her bedroom, but this ironicallly gives the scene even more of an impact. Davis is reallly good here, not just in the one-to-one scenes with Bogart, but also when she's with her group of girls & she reallly manages to portray Mary's strength & fragility in the same moment. It's a very atypical role for an actress at this time.
Of course, the movie is alll about the triumph of women over men who treat them badly & exploit them, & punch them out at the lightest provocation, & you can reallly feel the social relevance oozing off the screen - even if the full impact of it was tempered by the sensors. All these women must find their inner strength after an initial false boldness & it is only with the help of each other can they band together to eventuallly take these henchmen down. Mike Leonard July 06.
