Starring: Joan Blondell, Ann Dvorak, Bette Davis, Warren William, Lyle Talbot, Humphrey Bogart

Called “distasteful” by New York Times critic Mourdant Hall, pre-Code workhorse Mervyn LeRoy’s Three on a Match ranks among the era’s most lascivious and uncompromising women’s pictures.

Grade school pals Mary, Vivian and Ruth’s personalities seemed to have already calcified on the playground, hinting at the shades of womanhood in their respective futures. Shameless flirt Mary (Joan Blondell) ripens into a happy-go-lucky showgirl. Brainy bookworm Ruth (Bette Davis) parlays her studiousness into a secure office job. But it is Vivian (Ann Dvorak), a snobbish beauty with a rich husband, whose life takes the most drastic turn. Reunited during a chance meeting, Vivian can only marvel at her companions’ independence and self-sufficiency. Bored with marriage and motherhood, she soon falls under the sway of a no-good gangster, sending her tumbling into a void of addiction and child neglect.