Mulher Marcada

Back to Hollywood and this is Warners 30s black & white highly dramatic fare starring Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart. Not much of Bogart's work from around this time is all that strong but here he almost already seems the big star he would become, most comfortable in the forthright and caring lawyer. He takes nothing away from Davis, of course, though who still shines through a film that is clearly centred around her. It is a very good performance throughout from the not quite dizzy blonde to the pioneering and ruthless dame. The film begins with great scenes inside the clip-joint where the girls work and money and drinks flow as the girls flirt and the gangsters prowl. The film doesn't exactly lose its way in the middle but it just seemed to me that it might be going to lapse into some moralising crusade. Not at all, this really gets into another gear and the violence surprises. Good low key ending too. Impressive with good script, stirring music and fine performances all round.

Bette Davis looks as though she was rested (after her hiatus involving litigation) and raring to sink her teeth in a juicy part. Well, she got her wish in this finely directed Lloyd Bacon gangster drama.

Davis is alert, focused, and driven here, putting her all into the dance hall hostess. It's one of her best roles in a film unfamiliar to many movie goers.

The film is notable for some fine work by most talented character actors, and for an unusual "good guy" role for Humphrey Bogart. This crusading D.A. on a mission is skillfully etched by Mr. B. and his scenes with Davis are particularly engaging.

Everyone knows the true life basis for this drama, and the exclaimer at the start doesn't fool anyone. This is a mean expose of some very callus criminals, and has the feel of that period's current newspaper headlines.

A well made drama, worth checking out.

I thought this was a pretty interesting tale of a sassy escort service-type woman (women, plural, if you include all her roommates) who work for a nightclub owner who was supposedly portraying famous gangster "Lucky" Luciano.

The woman featured is the famous Bette Davis, who never looked better. She was "hot" in the 1930s. After 1940 I can't say that, but she was always a great actress. She, as so many in the classic-era period, was also a recipient of soft- lens shots on all closeups.

Eduardo Cianelli plays the gangster does an effective job. Unlike Davis, his is a name that never became well-known. This film also has an up-and-coming actor by the name of Humphrey Bogart along with his soon-to-be-real-life-wife Mayo Methot. Get a load of some of the other female names in the cast: Lola Lane, Isabel Jewell and Rosalind Marquis - all "marked" women!

Lloyd Bacon directed this movie, which should tell you something. This guy was responsible for a ton of entertaining films.

Bette Davis plays Mary Strauber, a nightclub hostess working in club 'Intime' which gets taken over by a gangster Johnny Vanning (Eduardo Ciannelli) who soon changes the decor and the name to 'Intimate'. Mary stands up to the gangster right from the start,defending a friend he tries to fire, and letting him know he won't intimidate her. Her resolve is tested to the limit after her younger sister comes to stay, who unwittingly crosses Vanning's path, leading to tragedy. Davis gives a commanding performance and Eduardo Ciannelli is effective as the ruthless gangster. Humphrey Bogart also puts in an appearance - cast against type as an earnest DA. They don't make movies like this any more - enjoy!

'Marked Woman' was most interesting to see acting legends Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart together and in early roles against type. Before their careers properly took off, so a large part of me was really interested in seeing how they would fare. Seeing as when somebody does something different from the moment, it can either be great or out of their depth-like. The idea for the film, actually based upon a true story, sounded great and gave the impression that it would be an intriguing and investable film.

It was to my relief that 'Marked Woman' works well as a film. Neither Davis and Bogart deliver work that is among their best and both went on to much better things, the best of which iconic work in film history. This is before either of them, well certainly Bogart as Davis was already showing some versatility if not quite had perfected it, had properly found their footing and found what they were best at in terms of namely types of roles. That is not to say that 'Marked Woman' is a bad film, in my view it is an interesting and good one that packs a punch, and Davis is served well.

For my tastes though, in an atypically non-gritty role with the gritty type of roles being one that he would embody later, Bogart is a little too subdued (one of the exceptions though being the closing speech which is very powerful) and doesn't seem as fully engaged. He is still watchable and the dynamic presence with Davis works very nicely.

Perhaps at times, 'Marked Woman' is a bit slow in the early stages with the set up taking a little too long to do so. The prison scene with Davis and Eduardo Ciannelli was a slight missed opportunity, that could have been a scene that wrenched the gut and chilled if it stayed with the film's overall uncompromising approach. But it took too much of an easy way out and censorship restrictions may have played some part in this.

However, Davis goes full throttle and gives a performance of intensity and poignancy. Ciannelli is persuasively sinister, while Isabell Jewel lives up to her surname and Allan Jenkins has a fun small role that doesn't jar. The production values are not audacious but to me they weren't that cheap, while the film is beautifully directed, never going too heavy handed or trivialising the subject. The music is haunting without being melodramatic.

The script is taut and thoughtful, also remarkably explicit for back then and not that tame now. Bogart's dialogue towards the end is quite powerful. The story is always absorbing, exploring a bold topic not covered to this much an extent at this particular time in a pulling no punches way. Did appreciate that there wasn't a romance as such, that may have had potential of slowing the film down and taking away from the tautness. When 'Marked Woman' gets going, it is swift in pace.

Summing up, very well done on the whole. 7/10