***The Girl With The Bette Davis Eyes-Part II-Marked Woman  

DVD Review

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Marked Woman, starring Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, 1937

Guys, guys like me from old-time working class neighborhoods whatever their take on the situation learned early on that you did not cross the local tough guys, the corner boys, the nickel and dime hoodlums who inevitably populated such neighborhoods and held them in check. Guys, guys like me, also figured the angles a little, made a decision, one way or the other, to either lean into the criminal life, the life of the drifter, grifter, midnight sifter or break out and try some other way, some other life. So some guys who figured all the angles a little toward those dark midnight stars figured a couple of easy scores, maybe with a little luck thrown, although they really believed that you made your own luck, and they would be on easy street. Or face down in some rain-soaked back alley with a couple of errant slugs in their kissers for having played the angles a little too closely. The other guys, guy like me, dipped our fingers in for a minute, drawn by the lure of easy street (compared to the “from hunger” street staring us in the face) and backed off, although that back off was a close thing for guys, guys like me, with big wanting habits. Apparently, at least going by the story-line in the film under review reputed to be based on the case of the then fallen mobster Lucky Luciano, Marked Woman, some gals from the “wrong side of the tracks” also had some decisions to make, had some dreams to make some fast dough and then step out onto easy street, or die trying.            

Here is how the female version goes. Well a girl, a girl from the “wrong side of the tracks” has got to look out for herself especially if she has no great skills other than dressing and dancing well. And that is what corralled five women who made their way in the world as “hostesses,” you know party girls and I don’t to spell out what was expected of them do I, besides dancing and looking beautiful although the film leaves that part, the sex part, rather vague, in a clip joint recently taken over by one hard-nosed, no holds barred mobster, Johnny Vanning (the Lucky Luciano-based figure) who made his decisions strictly by the signs of the cash nexus and of keeping himself out of jail by any means necessary. Of course all the hostesses had dreams, soft, small dreams, but the ones here knew the score and figured easy street was not coming their way. Except Mary (played by the girl with the Bette Davis eyes). See Mary was smart, not school smart but “street smart,” the kind of smart that matters if you are running your dreams toward easy street. She figured a few more bumps and then easy street, no problem.  

What Mary didn’t figure on was one of her “dates,” a guy who ran afoul of Johnny Vanning, and you do not run afoul of Johnny and live to a ripe old age, was found face down in the river. And what Mary also did not figure on was that she was going to be collared for the crime while her kid sister was in town, was right in the room when the coppers pinched her. See Mary had been supporting that kid sister, had sent her to college, and the sister was clueless about how Mary made her dough. So things begin to fall apart in Mary’s well-ordered know all the angles life.  And the number one thing that broke her up, made her see some light, was that her sister, caught in the middle all confused about her future now that Mary’s house of cards world had tumbled, had attended a party at Johnny’s, had squawked when some guy thought she really was a party girl and wound up very dead in Johnny’s favorite spot, the river.           

So Mary, with the same determination that drove her easy street dreams made Johnny V. a marked man and turned to an up and coming assistant district attorney, Graham (played by Humphrey Bogart) who had been put in charge of that “date” murder case and  now was going to nail Johnny for Mary’s sister’s murder. But it was not so easy because a guy like Johnny Vanning knew a few angles too, had a smart mouthpiece who had kept him out of jail for a long time, and had not become a major crime boss by being nice. Worse, worse for Mary’s case, was that her fellow hostesses initially would not come forward against Johnny. Would not come forward until Johnny tried to kill the hostess who had actually seen what Johnny had done to Mary’s sister at the party. Then Mary rallied the other hostesses and between them and our up and coming assistant district attorney Johnny Vanning was going to do some very hard time. And Mary? Well Mary, like all the Marys, hell, like all the guys and gals from the wrong side of the tracks, guys like me, was going to have to reevaluate the kind of angles that she knew about, and her easy street dreams too.