Slut Shaming By Christina Harlin, your Fearless Young Orphan Marked Woman (1937) Directed by Lloyd Bacon

1937 is about a decade too early for high-grade film noir. Marked Woman is far more a crime drama than film noir, and its message about organized crime is sometimes presented ponderously, with dialog that feels a little too melodramatic for comfort. Still, it’s overall quite an interesting story with strong legs to stand on, especially when the stars are out (Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart here!). The movie is dramatically suspenseful too, if you can forgive it a bit of legal leap-frogging1. Watching it, I found myself reminded more than once of Brian DePalma’s film The Untouchables, as Bogart’s DA tries to bring down the local crime lord any way he can, and must ultimately turn to the unlikely source of a prostitute with an axe to grind. Said call-girl is Mary (Davis) and she’s not actually named as a “prostitute” – nobody ever says the women in this movie are hookers. They are referred to as “hostesses.” They work at a clip joint, which is an impressive underground

1 What the hell is legal leapfrogging? When I wrote down the phrase, it made perfect sense in my head. But perhaps I should invite you to join me in this magical place I call my brains. A large part of this movie takes place in a courtroom. Like many movies set in courtrooms, the proceedings are utterly preposterous and would not fly in a real courtroom. The plot allows “leaps” to be made for the sake of expediency and drama – for example, while Betty’s character Mary takes a dive for the mob boss in a previous criminal lawsuit, allowing herself to be “caught” committing perjury, she is later the star witness in the DA’s major case against the mobster without her previous behavior called in question in any way. gambling establishment meant to show wealthy, if naïve, out-of-towners a real good time while fleecing them for their money. Mary and her four friends, dressed in elegant clothes provided by their employer, are there to encourage the male patrons to spend more: on booze, on tips, at the roulette wheel or cards. The women, in turn, “keep the men happy.” At the end of the evening, Mary and friends are shown innocently walking home together to their shared apartment, like “keeping the men happy” always ends with a friendly handshake even though these guys are handing out hundred-dollar bills for “taxi money.” There were a lot of quotations in this paragraph, weren’t there? That’s because Marked Woman is about prostitutes but cannot just come out and say the word “prostitute.” And Bette Davis certainly wasn’t going to play a hooker, my goodness no, she’s a hostess and, what’s more, she only does this disgraceful job because she’s putting her kid sister through college. Now, I say that being a hostess is a disgraceful job not because I think so, but because the movie thinks so, and everybody says it a lot. In courtroom scenes, Humphrey Bogart goes out of his way to compliment these women for testifying in spite of their disgusting, degrading careers in hostessing. Hostessery. Hostalating. You’ve never heard so many back-handed compliments. “As revolting tramps go, you’re one of the good ones.” I’m paraphrasing. You’re thinking to yourself that I’m taking my time getting around to the actual story of the film, but the truth is, I’m telling you quite a bit. A lot of this movie is comprised of helping us know and like the five hostesses who have gotten themselves into this line of work because, frankly, waitressing doesn’t cut it when you’re trying to put a sister through college. We do like them, actually. The women stick together, stick up for each other, and have a surprising support system that almost makes up for the shabby way that the men in the movie treat them. They’re willing (reluctantly, or perhaps hopelessly, in some Sometimes it looks like a production of Stage Door. cases) to be loyal to Johnny Vanning, the ruthless mobster who has taken over every shady business in town. He protects them, for a cut of their earnings. There are worse places for a girl to end up, or so it may seem. Then Mary’s sister Betty comes for a visit. Betty thinks her sister works as a dress-shop model, without knowing that the salary of a dress-shop model is not enough to put a young woman through college. Luck is not on Mary’s side. During Betty’s visit, Johnny Vanning is accused of ordering the murder of a patron whose check bounced. The poor chump was Mary’s customer (of note, she does try to warn him how much danger he is in). Mary is coerced into the perjury-subplot by Vanning, and she complies, convincing Bogart’s DA that her testimony is valuable when, in fact, it destroys the entire case. Little sister Betty finds that the humiliation of having a “clip joint hostess” for a sister is more than she can bear at college. She refuses to go back, instead moving in with Mary and her friends. Rebelliously, one night, Betty goes to a party with the ambitious, ditzy Emmy Lou and finds herself on the deadly end of Johnny Vanning’s ire. So the question is this: will Mary finally stand up to the evil man who controls her life, and the lives of her friends? Will Humphrey Bogart believe her? Will she live long enough to make it matter? The Noir Scoire: Our anti-hero: Mary, the clip joint girl with a heart of gold, who does whatever the mob boss tells her to do until it gets her little sister killed. Then, all bets are off. Mary puts her life on the line to testify against the evil man, with the help of a gallant young District Attorney. A cheesier movie would have romanced the pair of them together, but it didn’t happen here. Mary’s not immune to the charms of a good guy, but she’s not stupid, either. 9/10 As played by: Bette Davis. She’s marvelous and a bit heartbreaking to watch. There is a reason why she was a huge star: she draws attention away from everything else on the screen. Not many actresses can pull the focus off Humphrey Bogart, but she surely does so. Oh – how was her performance as Mary specifically? It was tender, tough, and a bit rote at times, when the dialog was clunky. 9/10 The femme fatale: Seems to me that, usually, when the Noir Scoire serves up a woman as the anti-hero, she tends to be the femme fatale too. But that is not the case here. Mary is surrounded by femme fatales: all her roommates and girlfriends who are scared to death of the mob boss, afraid to tell the truth, willing to sell their souls to stay safe and well-paid. And Mary’s own sister, silly kid, fails to understand the danger of Mary’s lifestyle and ends up dead at the bottom of a long staircase. Dangerous women, all – each one of them getting her Come-to-Jesus moment, one way or another. 7/10 As played by: a variety of likable actresses. We take some note of the brassy Lola Lane as the seen-it-all, done-it- all gal Gabby, but the rest never seem to really distinguish themselves from each other. They are Isabel Jewell, Rosalind Marquis, Mayo Methot and Jane Bryan. For the lot of them, and for the “Lady, you are one brave and noble trollop. I’d introduce fact that we end up rooting for you to my mother, but come on.” them all, 8/10. The villain: That would be Johnny Vanning, bootlegger, mobster, crime boss. He takes over every criminal industry in town but never gets his hands dirty. He takes care of his own, it’s true. But don’t cross him, or things can get ugly, fast. We see Johnny Vanning kill Mary’s younger sister Betty, but the scariest thing he does is order his tough guys to beat Mary senseless when it seems she might talk to the DA. He makes sure the other women wait outside the door, and listen. 9/10 As played by: Eduardo Ciannelli, who is not menacing enough for this part by half, leaving us to infer his menace by everyone else’s reactions rather than by acting the part. He’s playing it like the Continental when he should be Robert DeNiro. His lousy dialog has him monologuing out his nefarious plans. It’s not his fault it’s a poorly written part, but we’ve gotta take the points away somewhere. 5/10. The crime: The actual crime that brings down the mob boss is the murder of Betty Strauber, but of course, this is the criminal underworld. There’s nary a thing happening that isn’t illegal. It’s just toned down for the tender sensibilities of the audience, I reckon. 9/10. The mood: Mary and her friends feel trapped in a lifestyle that seemed, at first, like a good idea until they realized they were living in a gilded, and dangerous, cage. It takes them a great deal of nerve and pain to finally break loose from the fear that has held them captive. Their lives are on the line. A very nice touch here: at the end of the film, we aren’t spoon-fed a happy ending. In fact, it was more bittersweet and uncertain than I ever expected from 1937. 9/10 The location: Quite a bit of time in spent in the courtroom, which gives the movie the feel of a biopic. We also visit the police station, the jail, the women’s shared apartment and the clip joint itself. So our locations are mostly solid. There are some moments that later film noir would be proud to own: a creepy police lineup from a darkened room, for example, where our witnesses stand in stark silhouette. 8/10 The sex factor: Sex, which is the unspoken lifestyle of these women, does not factor into the plot much. Like all the other crimes, sex is just one more dirty job that must be done. I would like to say that sparks fly between Bogart and Davis, but they really don’t, and really they weren’t meant to. Lola Lane shows more passion when her character Gabby talks about the young man she lost years before. 2/10. Overall Noir Scoire: 75%