The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

Directed by Mervyn LeRoy with a story by John Bright and Kubec Glasmon and a screenplay by Lucien Hubbard, this 60+ minute drama features many of the actors and actresses who would become Warner Bros.'s biggest stars early in their careers. The story moves so quickly, utilizing several film montages of newspaper headlines to mark the passage of time from 1919 to 1932, that many of these stars' roles barely exceed that of a cameo appearance. Its pre-code subject matter is noteworthy though, and given the small time investment to watch it, most viewers will "leave" satisfied.It's 1919 at public school #62: Mary Keaton (Virginia Davis; Clara Blandick, uncredited, appears briefly as her mother), the preteen that smokes with the boys, doesn't graduate, and goes to reform school, grows up to be chorus girl Mary Bernard (Joan Blondell). The school's most popular girl Vivian Revere (a young, unrecognizable Anne Shirley, as Dawn O'Day) wears pink bloomers, does better in school, and has wealthy parents that can afford to send her to the best boarding school, eventually marries a successful lawyer Robert Kirkwood (Warren William) and has a son. Ruth Wescott (Betty Carse), who graduated valedictorian and can only afford to go to trade school, becomes a stenographer (Bette Davis).All three childhood "friends" end up meeting 9 years later (1921 is the year they left the public school) in 1930. While it appears that Vivian, who treats the other two to lunch, has done the best, her life feels empty since she's accomplished nothing on her own. Her busy husband has given her everything she has. Realizing she's not happy, Kirkwood offers to take a trip with her to a foreign locale; she accepts, but only if she can "get away" from everything including her husband, but except for their 5 year old son (Buster Phelps, uncredited).So, Vivian and her son board a cruise ship. Kirkwood is interrupted by a message, and then called away on business before its scheduled midnight sailing time. He excuses himself with his regrets. Coincidentally, Mary and a couple of her male friends are onboard to help celebrate another couple's sendoff. They run into Vivian and convince her to join them later, after her son is asleep such that he can be watched by an attendant. When she does, she gets to know Michael Loftus (Lyle Talbot), one of Mary's friends, so much better that, in the span of less than 90 minutes, she decides to hurried leave the ship with him, and her son, before it sails.The newspapers report that Robert Kirkwood's wife and son are missing, and the lawyer urges the police (and hires others?) to find her. Mary soon learns where Vivian is, shacked up with Loftus, and discusses the deplorable conditions in which Vivian's son is living with Ruth. Ruth has a sister who's a widow with a young child of her own, so the two friends decide to offer Vivian a chance to let them take care of her son. When Vivian refuses Mary's offer, she goes to Kirkwood such that the boy is rescued from a near passed out Vivian.After many months, with both Vivian's and Ruth's assistance, things are back to normal for Kirkwood's boy such that he's fallen in love with Vivian, whom he marries, and hires Ruth as his son's nanny. A destitute Vivian (later, it becomes even more clear that she's addicted to drugs) approaches the recently wed Mary when she exits the beauty parlor and asks her for money. Mary gives them all she has, $80. Vivian and Loftus have pawned her jewelry and the $80 isn't enough to satisfy the $2,000 debt he owes a loan shark named Ace (Edward Arnold).Ace, with heavies Harve (Humphrey Bogart), Dick (Allen Jenkins), and another (Jack La Rue, uncredited) threatens Loftus that he has to pay or else. Desperate, Loftus uses an assumed name and goes to Kirkwood, threatening to expose Mary's reform school past to the press. Kirkwood says that no newspaper would print the libelous story but, if one should, he'll break every bone in "Loftus's" body. As Loftus is leaving Kirkwood's office, he notices Ruth bringing the lawyer's son into the office. So, he hatches a plan to kidnap the boy, intending on ransoming him for the $2,000 he owes Ace.Vivian is horrified when Loftus returns to their squalid apartment with her son, but not as much as she is when Harve (and company) knocks on the door and takes over the operation. Having heard of the kidnapping on a police radio, Ace figures Kirkwood's boy is worth a lot more than $2,000 and ransoms him for $25,000 instead.However, the police have a pretty good idea, because of witnesses, where the boy is being held. So, as the search gets closer and closer to the apartment, the hoods get desperate. Loftus is killed because he won't kill the boy. Vivian "comes to" in time to realize what is going on, so she hides the boy under her bed. She then writes a message using lipstick on her dress as to the location (4th floor) of the Kirkwood boy. When La Rue's character enters the room, she jumps out the window to her death.Presumably the bad guys are caught, and the boy is rescued, because the last scene has the two remaining childhood friends sharing a match to light their cigarettes.

What is amazing about this movie is how it is dominated by the baddies. Harve (Humphrey Bogart in his FIRST Movie @ Warner Brothers), in perhaps his most evil role. Why? Wanting to kill a kid that is why, and Vivian Revere-Kirkwood (Ann Dvorak), who abandons her husband Attorney Robert Kirkwood (Warren William) and puts her son in danger, not once but twice, are the standouts. Its basically about the bad good girl(Dvorak), the good bad girl Mary Keaton (Joan Blondell), and the average girl Ruth Wescott (Bette Davis in perhaps her most subdued performance (and actually looking beautiful for a change (see her and Blondell on the beach, very interesting comparison to what those two usually show)). They all go to PS 62 and end up with different outcomes. Dvorak, Finishing School, Davis, Business School, and Blondell, Boarding School. Spoilers ahead: The drug use, suicide, and sleeping around by Dvorak (as well as early Bogart and Davis) are what this Pre-Code movie is known for. One interesting point about Blondell. You will see how different she is then in 'Night Nurse' (another movie about kids in danger). You will see how much she really cares for the boy: First she tries to get Vivian to give him to Ruth, then she goes to Kirkwood when she does not. She is not in it for the money she does it because it was the right thing to do. She says "I don't care what happened between you and Vivian I care about the boy." The movie is not perfect, that kid is obnoxious but the rest of it makes it 10/10 stars.

***SPOILERS*** The movie follows the lives of three classmate from P.S 62 in New York Ciy from the time they graduated in 1921 to the present which in this case is 1932 at the depths of the Great Depression and how fate treated them during that period of time in their lives.The three girls now all grown ups Mary Keaton,Joan Blondell, Ruth Westcott, Bette Davis, and Vivian Revere, Ann Dvorak, would later after having lunch light up a cigarette. But with only one match between then it's Vivian who get the short end of the match or last light which is to mean in superstitious circles that she's the one who'll ends up dead before the other three. Now that we know all that ironically of the three girls who seemed to have the biggest piece of the pie in life is the one who's not going to finish eating it Vivian Revere!Vivian has it all money family and a loving husband Robert Kirkwood, Warren William, who's not only sweet kind and handsome but loaded with cash in him being one of the top defense lawyers, those are the guys who make all the money in court system , in New York Cty. Vivian also has a beautiful and sweet, just like his daddy, boy Bobby Jr, Buster Phelps, who makes everything just perfect in her life. As for Mary she's been in and out of jail since high school and Ruth she's just a plain Jane working girl office worker trying to make ends meet during the Great Depression with the meager salary she earns.It's seems that by being the last of the three girls to get her cigarette lighted with one match turned Vivivan's life around for the worst as we soon see when she and little Bobby Jr go on a cruise to France and she meets the gigolo like smooth talking Mike Loftus, Lyle Talbot, who sweeps her off her feet and has her check out with him to this sleazy hotel together with the confused 5 year old Bobby Jr who's not quite sure,because of his young age, what's exactly going on!Meanwhile back home Vivivan's hubby Robert Sr. is doing everything he can to track her and Bobby Jr. down and bring them home and in the case of Vivian have her treated for whatever mental illness, in how she's been behaving lately, she's suffering from. After tracking down Vivian and Bobby Jr in some dump in downtown Manhattan Robert finally set Vivian free, by divorcing her, but takes custody of his son Bobby Jr and,this must have really killed her, marries Vivivan's classmate the ex-con, who among her crimes served time for grand larceny, Mary Keaton! After cutting his wife loose Robert's life together with Bobby Jr and Mary really picks up but as for the by now alcoholic and coke sniffing Vivian her's goes straight down the rat hole. It's Vivian's now live-in boyfriend Mike Loftus who's in hot water with the mob, which he's a member of, in welching on a $2,000.00 loan from his boss Ace, Edward Arnold, whom were introduced to in his office trimming his facial, mostly in his nose, hair. Desperate to get the money that he owes Ace Mike at first tries to blackmails Vivian's ex,Robert Kirkwood,in threatening to expose to the media that his new old lady Mary is an ex-jailbird! That has Mike almost get his clock cleaned by the outraged defense lawyer who ends up throwing him out of his office. Finally in desperation Mike comes up with this bright idea of kidnapping Bobby Jr and holding him hostage for the $2,000.00 he owes Ace.This turns out to be the worst mistake that Mike made in his entire life leading to not only his murder but that of his by now totally out of it girlfriend, the years of booze & coke has finally gotten to her, Vivian!***SPOILERS*** Finally getting down to brass tracts Ace sends his goons lead by "Harv the Hammer", Humphrey Bogart, to work Mike over in not being able to get Vivian's ex, Robert Kirkwood Sr,to pay up the now, due to inflation, $25,000.00 in ransom money to get his son Bobby Jr back: As for Kirkwood's ex-old lady Vivian he, Mike & Co, can keep her as far as he's concerned. Really getting nowhere with the ransom money Ace orders "Harve the Hammer" to ice, or murder, little Bobby which has the by now ready for the city morgue Mike Loftus get religion and refused to,like the excuse the Nazi bigwigs at Nuremberg used for the crimes that they committed, follow orders! Blasting Mike away "Harve the Hammer" and his goons were now ready to do the same to both Vivian and Bobby Jr but Vivian despite being totally strung out on coke had enough smarts and lipstick to prevent them, killing little Bobby, from doing it! But as it turned out her heroic and selfless actions ended up costing Vivian her life!P.S Check out the future Sgt. Joe, "Just the facts Mame", Friday actor Jack Webb as an 11 year old classmate of Mary Ruth & Vivian at the very start of the movie.

The tragic consequences following a young woman (Ann Dvorak, sensational) who impulsively leaves her rich, successful lawyer husband (Warren William) for a no-good gambler (Lyle Talbot) who owe thousands to a menacing loan shark (Edward Arnold, very bullish). When Talbot fears for his life he first approaches William for the dough, threatening to expose his wife's provocative activities to the newspapers, turning so desperate he kidnaps his and Dvorak's child. Arnold enlists his hoods (led by a thuggish Humphrey Bogart in one of his standard issue Warner Bros gangster parts, bullying and intimidating) to hold sway over Talbot and Dvorak, demanding a far greater ransom than what was first asked for. Dvorak makes a startling decision only a mother could do for a child, the ultimate sacrifice in a potent, shocking finale, produced during the Pre-Code era of the 30s. Joan Blondell (who seems to have star treatment—and she is quite beautiful—but has the less interesting part opposite Dvorak) is one of Dvorak's childhood friends, along with Bette Davis (who has an underwritten part as a secretary). Watching Dvorak's life unravel and diminish is haunting and sad, as Blondell (who would marry the betrayed William after Dvorak divorces him), once in prison for grand larceny, rises from a difficult predicament to secure a better life. Dvorak, unhappy with William, despite the luxury and comfortable trappings of wealth and family, finds excitement and worldly pleasure with Talbot, missing from the married life, selfish in her own desires, not thinking about the repercussions of her behavior, particularly in regards to her son, who Blondell cares deeply for. The film, directed by Mervyn LeRoy (The Bad Seed; Mister Roberts), establishes time and place and how the city is affected by what was going on at the time, such as the Depression and rise in gangster activity. Very quickly paced and doesn't have a lot of fat, "Three on a Match" is mostly melodrama, using images just as importantly as dialogue and performance, with plenty of subtlety. The film does a fine job of making us aware of Dvorak's plight, as each scene she reappears after time away from the screen, she looks more and more worse for wear, such as the fidgeting while waiting on a street corner for Blondell (by this time married to her ex-husband) for some money or the dark circles under her eyes--the worsening state reminds us of those who fall under the spell of meth or crack.