NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

ADDITION: Warner Archive Blu-ray (November 2026): Warner Archive have transferred Lloyd Bacon's Marked Woman to Blu-ray. It is is a dual-layered disc with a max’ed out bitrate. The video bitrate is over 6X that of the 2006 Warner DVD, reviewed HERE. The 1080P image is presented in the original 1.37:1 aspect ratio, and the frame shows a sliver more information on all four edges than the DVD, most noticeably on the left and right. The DVD looked respectable for its era. The Blu-ray is a big upgrade, likely from a new scan of the best surviving elements. The DVD’s heavy, digital-looking grain is replaced by a fine, natural film texture, and the damage the DVD showed is cleaned up with no sign of excessive noise reduction. Detail is the most obvious improvement. You can see it in the weave of Bogart’s tweed jacket, the fur stole and strands of pearls in the courtroom, the polka dots on Davis’s blouse, and the individual slats of the office blinds. Even the scar makeup on Davis’s cheek in the later close-ups is clearly visible. Contrast is deeper and better layered, with rich, solid blacks that suit George Barnes’s low-key nightclub and apartment lighting. Some shots keep the slightly diffused look of soft focus and vintage lenses, which belongs to the original photography. The DVD’s image was impressive for a 70-year-old film, but the Blu-ray finally shows how handsome Barnes’s cinematography was. There is no comparison here, and this is a strong 1080P presentation.

NOTE: We have added 52 more large resolution Blu-ray captures (in lossless PNG format) for DVDBeaver Patrons HERE.

On their Blu-ray, Warner Archive use a DTS-HD Master dual-mono track (24-bit) in the original English language. It’s actually the original mono, upgraded from the DVD’s lossy Dolby. There’s only so much range in a 1937 Warner recording, so don’t expect much dynamism. But the track is clean and consistent, with no hiss or crackle that I noticed. The rapid-fire dialogue, full of period slang, is always clear, and the modest score by Bernhard Kaun and Heinz Roemheld comes through with a little more body than before. Optional English subtitles are included. The DVD’s French DUB and Spanish and French subtitles are not carried over. The Blu-ray is Region FREE.

The extras on the Warner Archive Blu-ray are carried over from the 2006 DVD. Marked Woman: Ripped from the Headlines (a dozen minutes, in SD) is a well-made featurette on the Lucky Luciano case and how the studio adapted it under the Production Code. It covers Davis’s return to Warners after her legal fight in England and Bogart’s position on the edge of stardom. Then come two 1937 Warner cartoons, Porky’s Hero Agency and She Was an Acrobat’s Daughter, both fun period pieces that show the studio’s animation department in its early, inventive years. The theatrical trailer (in SD) rounds out the package. 

Marked Woman is a sharp, bitter and surprisingly unsentimental Warner Bros. crime melodrama, loosely based on Thomas E. Dewey's prosecution of Lucky Luciano. Lloyd Bacon (San Quentin, A Slight Case of Murder, 42nd Street, Alias the Doctor, Invisible Stripes, The Frogmen, Action in the North Atlantic, The Office Wife, Miss Pinkerton,) directs at Warners' usual brisk clip, with an uncredited assist from Michael Curtiz (Casablanca.) The film stands apart from the studio's other mob pictures because it stays with the women, the clip-joint "hostesses" who know exactly where they stand. Bette Davis (The Letter, Dark Victory, Jezebel, Connecting Rooms, Beyond the Forest, Dangerous, Another Man's Poison, Now, Voyager, The Virgin Queen, Of Human Bondage, The Man Who Came to Dinner, Old Acquaintance, Scream, Pretty Peggy, Payment on Demand, Storm Center, Hush... Hush, Sweet Charlotte, Dead Ringer, The Whales of August, The Little Foxes, Madame Sin,) is excellent as Mary Dwight, moving from guarded self-interest to rage and finally to a quiet, battered resolve. In the bandaged courtroom finale she carries more weight than the D.A.'s closing argument. Humphrey Bogart (In a Lonely Place, The Harder They Fall, Dead Reckoning, Conflict, The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Sahara, Key Largo, Deadline - U.S.A., Dark Passage, The Desperate Hours, The African Queen, The Caine Mutiny, To Have and Have Not, Casablanca, The Big Sleep, Beat the Devil, They Drive by Night,) is solid, if a bit stiff, in a rare "good guy" role as the crusading D.A. David Graham, on the brink of the stardom that was just a few years away. Among the women, Isabel Jewell (Man in the Attic, The Snake Pit, The Bishop's Wife, Born to Kill, The Seventh Victim, The Leopard Man, High Sierra, Gone with the Wind, Go West Young Man, Mad Love, Design for Living, Counsellor at Law,) stands out as the fragile, frightened Emmy Lou. George Barnes' (The War of the Worlds (1953), Something to Live For (1952), Samson and Delilah (1949), The File on Thelma Jordon (1950), Force of Evil (1948), The Boy with Green Hair (1948), Spellbound (1945), Meet John Doe (1941), Hudson's Bay (1941), The Return of Frank James (1940), Rebecca (1940), Jesse James (1939), Devil's Island (1939), Black Legion (1937), Gold Diggers of 1935 (1935), Ladies in Retirement (1941),) hard-edged, low-key photography gives the nightclub, apartment and courtroom scenes a severity that comes close to film noir. Bernhard Kaun (Dangerous, 1931's Frankenstein, The Story of Temple Drake,) shares credit with Heinz Roemheld (The Roaring Twenties, The Scarlet Letter, O.S.S., Four Frightened People, Ruby Gentry, I, Jane Doe, Dangerous, The Monster that Challenged The World, The Land Unknown, The Mole People, 1933's The Invisible Man, Union Station,) for the functional score, which stays out of the way of the fast, slang-heavy dialogue. The final image of the women walking off into the fog, with nothing promised to them, is about as unsentimental as Warners got in 1937. The Warner Archive Blu-ray is a highly pleasing upgrade over the 2006 DVD. It has a max'ed out bitrate, fine natural grain, far superior detail and contrast, lossless audio, a slightly wider frame, and all of the DVD extras carried over. Key early Davis / Bogie performances - both looking better than ever. Fans should absolutely pick this up.

Gary Tooze