Three on a Match

Three on a Match is a 1932 American pre-Code crime drama film released by Warner Bros. It was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and stars Joan Blondell, Warren William, Ann Dvorak, and Bette Davis. The film also features Lyle Talbot, Humphrey Bogart, Allen Jenkins, and Edward Arnold.

Three women who went to the same New York City elementary school (P.S. 62), Mary, Ruth, and Vivian, meet again ten years later. They each light a cigarette from the same match and discuss the superstition that such an act is unlucky, and will lead to Vivian, the last to light her cigarette, being the first to die.

Mary is a showgirl who has established stability in her life after spending some time in a reform school, while Ruth works as a stenographer. Vivian is the best-off of the three, married to a prominent lawyer, Robert Kirkwood, and with a young son, Robert Jr., but she has grown dissatisfied with her life, and decides to take a trip to Europe.

Shortly before Vivian and Junior are about to set sail, Mary boards the ocean liner with two men to attend a bon voyage party for some friends. Gambler Michael Loftus, one of the two men, flirts with Vivian, and ends up persuading her to run away with him. Minutes before the ship leaves port, Vivian gets Junior and her luggage and disembarks.

Vivian and Michael live a very shabby and rather dissolute life, causing Mary concern about Vivian's neglect of Junior. Mary tells Robert, nearly mad over the disappearance of the boy, where to find him. Both Mary and Ruth are very fond of Junior, and Robert falls in love with Mary. He proposes to her, and hires Ruth to be Junior's governess. Mary and Robert marry the same day his divorce from Vivian becomes final.

By the next year, Vivian has become a hopeless drug addict and spent all of her money. Additionally, Michael owes $2,000 to gangster Ace, who tells him to pay up—or else. Michael tries to blackmail Robert by threatening to inform the press about Mary's criminal background, but Robert refuses to pay because he is already aware of Mary's checkered past. Desperate, Michael kidnaps Junior, intending to pay his debt with the ransom money. Ace learns of Michael's plan, however, and sends his thugs to take over and up the ransom demand to $25,000.

The search for Junior is intense, and the police dragnet closes in on Vivian and Michael's apartment. Harve, Ace's chief henchman, does not pick up the ransom money when he notices several officers near the drop point. There is no further progress, so, on the tenth day, the decision is made to abandon the plan. Michael is ordered to kill Junior so the boy cannot identify the kidnappers, but Michael refuses, and one of the gangsters knocks him out when his protestations become hysterical.

Meanwhile, Vivian, who is suffering from drug withdrawals, has overheard the plot to kill Junior, and is determined to save his life at all costs. She tells Junior to hide under the bed, then uses lipstick to scrawl a message giving the boy's whereabouts on her nightgown. Just as the gangsters come through the door, she jumps out of the fourth-floor window, drawing attention and resulting in Junior's rescue. At home after all is resolved, Mary and Ruth light their cigarettes from the same match and then throw it down onto the hearthstone, where the flame goes out.