Product Details

• Actors: Virginia Davis, Joan Blondell, Anne Shirley, Ann Dvorak, Betty Carse
• Directors: Mervyn LeRoy
• Writers: John Bright, Kubec Glasmon, Lucien Hubbard
• Producers: Darryl F. Zanuck, Raymond Griffith, Samuel Bischoff
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rating: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Warner)
• VHS Release Date: September 1, 1998
• Run Time: 63 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302041104
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #19,011 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
If three people light cigarettes from the same match, one will die soon, or at least that's how the old superstition had it. Three childhood friends (Joan Blondell, Bette Davis, Ann Dvorak) laugh it off as they all light up from the same match. Vivian (Dvorak) is married to a wealthy attorney (played by Warren William, in a sympathetic role for once). Bored and stifled in her life, she decides on a walk on the wild side; absconding with their 4-year-old son, she falls in with gangsters and takes a nosedive. Soon she's living the life of a slattern, hooked on cocaine and bootleg liquor, neglecting her son like he's so much excess baggage. Meanwhile her husband and friends are frantic to get the little boy back and set things right again. In this movie's 64-minute running time, director Mervyn LeRoy managed to include Depression-era social commentary, drugs, crime, sex, violence, and some surprisingly well-fleshed-out characterizations. The young Bette Davis is beautiful (even playing one scene in her lingerie), and Blondell and Dvorak are both great in their roles. Even more remarkable, though, is the number of future stars that can be spotted in Three on a Match: Lyle Talbot, a young Anne Shirley, Edward Arnold, and Humphrey Bogart in a great role as a menacing hood. This is entertaining fare that's still potent today in all its pre-censorship seediness. --Jerry Renshaw

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars OUTSTANDING VINTAGE FILM..., January 20, 2002

By	Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

I absolutely loved this 1932 movie which had me riveted to the screen. As it is a pre-Hays code film, it has not had the life sucked out of it and, consequently, tells a decidedly juicy story, brilliantly directed by the legendary Mervyn LeRoy.

The film tells of three young women who went to public school together as children and, meeting again ten years later, become friends. All three appear to have done well for themselves. Mary (Joan Blondell), who had been wild as a child, has grown up to be a vivacious, good hearted showgirl, while Ruth (Bette Davis), the smartest, went on to business school and is now a stenographer. Vivian (Ann Dvorak), the most popular as a child, is now married to a handsome, prominent and wealthy attorney (Warren William), with whom she has an adorable little boy. Yet, with so much, Vivian, the envy of the other two, is disatisfied with her gilded life. As all three reminisce over lunch one day, they light their cigarettes from one match, laughingly defying the supersition that three on a match means one of the three will die.

Soon after, the dissatisfied Vivian goes on a cruise with her young son, leaving her husband behind. At a bon voyage party on the ship, she hooks up with good looking Mike Loftus (Lyle Talbot), and her life spirals out of control. She soon gets more excitement than she bargained for. Her new life style impacts on Mary and Ruth in ways that they could not have imagined. It also ultimately brings her into contact with a brutal mobster, Harve (Humphrey Bogart), as the movie draws to its climax. If you want to know what kind of excitement the viewer is in for, think the following: booze, crime, drugs, gambling, sex, and violence. All this is crammed into a film that runs for sixty four action packed minutes.

Mervyn Leroy managed to tell a full blooded, three dimensional story, using film montages and film clips of national and world events to move the film along in time. He exacted bravura, stellar performances from the entire cast, and turned out a film with a shocking and surprising ending that is still riveting in today's day and age. This is a remarkably fine film that those who love classic movies, as well as a great story, will enjoy.

The video also provides some brief, but interesting, commentary by film historian Leonard Maltin.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A melodrama of three young women tempting fate, July 4, 2001

By	Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

In this 1932 film directed by Mervyn LeRoy, three old girl friends from school meet and bring each other up to date. Mary Keaton (Joan Blondell), is a former tomboy who left reform school to become an entertainer. Vivian Revere (Ann Dvorak), is married to a prominent attorney and has a son. Ruth Westcott (Bette Davis), has graduated from secretarial school and has a job as a stenographer. While the girls talk, they light their cigarettes from a single match and laugh off the old superstition that the third person to use the match, Vivian, will soon die. Vivian decides to take her son on a cruise and invites Mary and Ruth to the bon voyage party. But Vivian is attracted to mobster Mike Loftus (Lyle Talbot), who shows up with Mary and ends up running off with him. Vivian's husband, Robert Kirkwood (Warren William), finds Vivian with Mary's help, divorces his wife, gets custody of his son (Buster Phelps), hires Ruth as the boy's companion, and asks Mary to marry him. Meanwhile, Vivian has turned to drinking and drugs, while Loftus ends up hiring three thugs (one of whom is Humphrey Bogart) to kidnap Vivian's son.

Bette Davis' name is used to sell this film on videotape, but she has the least of the three female leads to do in this story, which is excessively melodramatic to say the least. Actually, Bogart's bit part is more important to the plot. What makes this film notable is that it was made before the Hays Office established the code that cleaned up the movies. "Three on a Match" was remade by Warners in 1938 as "Broadway Musketeers," with Ann Sheridan, Margaret Lindsay and Marie Wilson playing the three friends.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How'd They Pack So Much into a Short Movie??, November 10, 2000

By	"alixy" (USA) - See all my reviews

This movie may be short, but it has a lot of action packed into it! Beautiful Ann Dvorak plays a discontented wife who leaves her wealthy husband and runs off with a 1930's type sleeze-ball. Her best friends from school, Joan Blondell and Bette Davis comfort her heartbroken husband, played by Warren William, and Joan ends up as wife #2. Bette Davis' talents are completely wasted in this movie, and it's odd to see Warren William in a role where he isn't a seducer or leacherous boss. The story steamrolls to it's conclusion, as Dvorak's son is kidnapped by her lover's gang and the repentant mother must act quickly to save his young life. When this movie ends, somewhat predictably, you kind of breathe out a heavy sigh! It's hard to believe that the whole movie plays out in a little over an hour! THREE ON A MATCH is an enjoyable movie, and a slice of movie nostalgia you can't pass up.