Marked Woman

Marked Woman is a 1937 Warner Bros. crime drama set in Manhattan's nightlife underworld. Mary Dwight works as a hostess at a club that a powerful gangster, Johnny Vanning, takes over and turns into a profitable operation built on the women who work there. When a customer who cannot pay his bill is killed, Mary and her co-workers are arrested as accessories to the murder. An ambitious district attorney, David Graham, wants Mary's testimony to bring Vanning to trial, and she has to weigh the risk of speaking against a man who controls the city around her. The story draws on the case of mobster Lucky Luciano.

Lloyd Bacon directed, working from a screenplay by Robert Rossen and Abem Finkel. The film sits between Frisco Kid and Brother Orchid in Bacon's filmography, which includes earlier hits such as 42nd Street and Footlight Parade. Bette Davis plays Mary, with Humphrey Bogart as David Graham; Lola Lane, Isabel Jewell, Rosalind Marquis and Mayo Methot appear among the club's hostesses, and 81 cast members are credited in all.

Released in April 1937 and running 96 minutes, the film holds a 7.1 rating on IMDb from about 5,500 votes, while on TMDB it has a 6.6 from 79 votes. A critics' rating of 6.5 from five reviews falls close to the audience scores, suggesting a solidly received, if not exceptional, genre entry.