• Source: Three on a match

Three on a match (also known as third on a match or unlucky third light) is a purported superstition among soldiers during the Crimean War to World War II. The superstition goes that if three soldiers lit their cigarettes from the same match, one of the three would be killed or that the man who was third on the match would be shot. Since then, it has been considered bad luck for three people to share a light from the same match. This superstition has become part of popular Western culture in films, novels and other art forms.




The putative basis of the superstition


The belief was that when the first soldier lit his cigarette, the enemy would see the light; when the second soldier lit his cigarette from the same match, the enemy would take aim at the target; and when the third soldier lit his cigarette from the match, the enemy would fire, and that soldier would be shot.




Possible origins






= First World War theory

=
No references have been found to the superstition during the First World War, though its first known appearance in the United States was a year after the end of the war. An editorial in the Grand Rapids Leader, 17 December 1919, muses, "Why should we be superstitious? Three on a match, or a black cat crossing the road in front of us, or looking [at] the moon over the left shoulder, have not altered results in anyone's case." A cartoon two years later portrayed an insect attempting to climb on to a floating match already occupied by two beetles. The caption reads, "Get off of here! Don't you know that three on a match is unlucky?"




= The "Ivar Kreuger" theory

=
The superstition is popularly alleged to have been invented in the mid- to late 1920s by the Swedish match tycoon Ivar Kreuger in an attempt to get people to use more matches, but it appears he merely made very shrewd use of the already existing belief, which may date to the Boer War.




= Russian funeral rite theory

=
In the 1916 novel The Wonderful Year, the following explanation is given: "It arises out of the Russian funeral ritual in which the three altar candles are lit by the same taper. To apply the same method of illumination to three worldly things, like cigars or cigarettes, is regarded as an act of impiety and hence as unlucky."




= Mexican superstition theory

=
An article by John G. Bourke, January 5, 1894, describes the superstition among the Mexican population of the Rio Grande region in the southern United States near Fort Ringgold, Texas: "Numbers—If three men light their cigarillos from the same match, bad luck will surely overtake one of them soon. (Alberto Leal.)"




Usage in popular media



First National Pictures released a film in 1932 called The Match King, starring Warren William; it was loosely based on the life of the Swedish match tycoon Ivar Kreuger and depicts the protagonist creating the "three on a match" superstition in order to sell more matches.
The 1941 Hollywood film Dive Bomber includes a scene during the initial character introductions where Fred MacMurray quickly blows out the match when another pilot attempts to light a third cigarette, then takes a lighter out of his own pocket to finish the job.
The 1945 Hollywood film Scarlet Street had this as a piece of foreshadowing in the opening scene. When two men light their cigars, Chris (Edward G. Robinson) is offered to light his as well, but hesitates. At that, his boss puts in the dig, "What's wrong? You aren't superstitious, are you, Chris?"
The 1946 Hollywood film The Best Years of Our Lives makes reference to the superstition, as the three protagonists (Captain Fred Derry, Sergeant Al Stephenson and sailor Homer Parrish) are returning to their hometown in the nose of a B-17. After lighting Fred and Al's cigarettes with a match, Homer asks if anyone is superstitious, and although his compatriots reply that they aren't, Homer states that he is and uses another match to light his own cigarette.
American television series Mad Men referenced the superstition in Season 1, Episode 7 ("Red in the Face"). While Roger Sterling, Jr. refers to the "original" World War I superstition, the character of Don Draper makes light of it, referring to Kreuger's canny marketing ploy. including the fact that it was used in an attempt to sell more matches.
Nas's song, "What Goes Around" from his album Stillmatic may reference the superstition in his extensive critique on the negativity prevalent in modern society, saying "You know, the usual, death comes in threes." It is far more likely that Nas is referring to the superstition that bad things (including deaths) come in threes.
In Stephen King's 1986 novel 'It' during Eddie Kaspbrak's flashback scene in Chapter 7, the ten-eleven year old stuttering Bill Denbrough stopped his friend Richie Tozier from lighting a 3rd cigarette from the same match, saying, "The-The-Three on a muh-muh-hatch. B-Bad luh-luh-luck." King also referenced the superstition in his short story 'The Ballad of the Flexible Bullet'.




See also


Urban legend




References

• Source: Three on a Match

Three on a Match is a 1932 American pre-Code crime drama film released by Warner Bros. The film 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.




Plot


Three women who went to the same New York City elementary school, Mary, Ruth, and Vivian, meet again as young adults after some time apart. They each light a cigarette from the same match and discuss the superstition that such an act is unlucky and that Vivian, the last to light her cigarette, will be 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 successful lawyer, Robert Kirkwood, with a young son, Robert Jr., but she has grown dissatisfied with her life and decides to take a trip to Europe with her little boy.
Just before Vivian and Junior's ship is 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. She's smitten with him, and he persuades her to run away with him. Minutes before the ship leaves port, Vivian gathers up her son, and the three disembark from the boat.
Vivian and Michael Loftus live a very shabby and rather dissolute life, causing Mary concern about Vivian's neglect of her son. Mary tells Robert, nearly mad about the disappearance of the boy, where to find him. Both Mary and Ruth are very fond of Junior, and Robert has fallen in love with Mary. He proposes to her and hires Ruth to look after the child. Mary and Robert marry the same day his divorce from Vivian becomes final.
Meanwhile, Vivian has become a hopeless drug addict and has spent all of her money. Additionally, Michael owes $2,000 to gangster Ace, who tells him to pay up or else. Desperate, Michael tries to blackmail Robert by threatening to inform the press about Mary's criminal background. Robert refuses to pay because he is already aware of Mary's checkered past; so instead, Michael kidnaps Junior to demand a ransom to pay his debt. Ace's thugs find the child with Michael and Vivian in their apartment, where Junior joins his mother in her bedroom. The thugs are delighted and send a demand for a much larger ransom of $25,000.
Vivian begins having withdrawals. One of the gangsters, while out trying to score a fix for her, sees policemen in the neighborhood going door to door searching for the kidnapped boy. The gangsters decide to kill the child before the police arrive, but Michael balks at the plan, especially since he's the one who's been ordered to do the dirty deed. Enraged, the gangsters kill Michael.
In the meantime, Vivian has overheard the plot to kill Junior and is determined to save her son's life at all costs. She tells Junior to hide under the bed, then scrawls a message in lipstick on the front of her nightgown that relays the boy's whereabouts. Just as the gangsters are coming through her bedroom door, she jumps out of the fourth-floor window, killing herself but resulting in the boy's rescue. Mary and Ruth, at home after all is resolved, symbolically light their cigarettes from the same match and then throw it down onto the hearthstone, where the flame goes out.




Cast


Joan Blondell as Mary Keaton / Mary Bernard
Virginia Davis as Mary Keaton (child)
Ann Dvorak as Vivian Revere Kirkwood
Anne Shirley (credited as Dawn O'Day) as Vivian Revere (child)
Bette Davis as Ruth Westcott
Betty Carse as Ruth Westcott (child)
Warren William as Robert Kirkwood
Lyle Talbot as Michael Loftus
Humphrey Bogart as Harve
Allen Jenkins as Dick
Edward Arnold as Ace
Frankie Darro as Bobby
Glenda Farrell as Mrs. Black
Buster Phelps as Robert Jr.
Grant Mitchell as Mr. Gilmore, school principal

Principal cast members, from the trailer




















Production


Dvorak was the last of the four principal actors to be cast. This was Bogart's first appearance as a hoodlum type, although his work in Midnight (released 1934) preceded this role and led to his being cast by LeRoy.
Filming took place in June 1932.
When this film was released in October 1932, the Lindbergh kidnapping was very much in the news, and the kidnappers had not yet been caught. The kidnapping of a child in the story raised concerns with censors, but Jason Joy of the Studio Relations Committee successfully made a case for the film to the censors in New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Maryland.




Promotion


Joan Blondell posed for a risqué 1932 promotional publicity photo for the film, which was later banned under the Motion Picture Production Code.




Reception


Three on a Match received tepid to poor notices overall. Mordaunt Hall of the New York Times called Three on a Match "tedious and distasteful" as well as "unintelligent". The Time reviewer felt the film did not carry much weight, unlike previous Glasmon–Bright productions, and that the suicide at the end was more implausible than tragic. Kaspar Monahan of the Pittsburgh Press thought that it began with the hope of being "different" but ultimately devolved into a "gangster yarn" and summarized: "Direction good for the most part; acting as good as can be expected under the circumstances; story erratic."
The Spokane Spokesman-Review expressed admiration for the way the passage of time is shown through several montage sequences, calling it "a brand new approach and treatment ..." and commented that the film "rang true".
Trade paper reviews advised exhibitors to focus on the cast: "An attractive cast array is the attendance motive for this picture which is surprising in its meager demands upon its quartet of featured people" was the opening comment of Variety's Sid Silverman. The Film Daily review, too, said the "cast helps" with a plot that has "too many turns". The Motion Picture Herald also advised exhibitors to focus on the "strength of the cast names" and not to even use the word "kidnaping" or allude to it in promotions.
Decades after its release, the film found more favor with critics and film historians. In 1969, William K. Everson called it "unusually carefully-made" and wrote, "Splendidly cut and paced ... and climaxed by a real shocker, Three on a Match is still a vivid little picture". Wheeler Winston Dixon observed, "the film is astonishing for the amount of information that LeRoy manages to compress into this lightning-fast tale". It has been pointed to as Dvorak's best performance for Warners.
Leonard Maltin gives the film three out of four stars, describing it as a “Fine, fast-moving (and surprisingly potent) pre-Code melodrama of three girls who renew childhood friendship, only to find suspense and tragedy. Dvorak is simply marvelous.”
Three on a Match holds an 80% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on five reviews.
In 1938, Warner Bros. released Broadway Musketeers, a remake of Three on a Match.




References


Informational notes

Citations




External links



Three on a Match at the AFI Catalog of Feature Films
Three on a Match at IMDb
Three on a Match at the TCM Movie Database
Three on a Match at AllMovie

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