THE THIRTEENTH GUEST, a 1932 mystery story from Monogram, has long been a public domain fixture on the internet and home video. It's been available in so many ways and forms that I'm sort of embarrassed to say that it wasn't until recently that I actually saw it for the first time.
The title refers to a gathering held by the head of the Morgan family 13 years ago--a gathering in which Mr. Morgan died. Since then, the Morgan house has been shut up, but with Marie Morgan's (Ginger Rogers) 21st birthday approaching, dead bodies start appearing at the abandoned residence. Of course there's a will involved, along with such elements as plastic surgery, mistaken identity, a rigged phone, dopey cops, and a cloaked and hooded killer who uses electricity to bump off his victims.
Ginger Rogers gets top billing for THE THIRTEENTH GUEST, but in all honesty she doesn't have as much screen time as one might think. She does get a few chances to show the onscreen charisma that would soon make her a big star, but too much time is spent on the goofy activities of those investigating the murders, including police captain J. Farrell MacDonald and Paul Hurst as one of the dumbest cops in movie mystery history.
Perennial B movie veteran Lyle Talbot plays P.I. Phil Winston, who is called in on the case. Talbot's Winston is a bit of a playboy, and he eventually gets to romance Ginger. The other guests of the long-ago gathering that started all the trouble provide plenty of suspects, but they're a tiresome group.
The mystery's solution isn't as convoluted as one would expect--in fact, some might even consider it a cop-out. What helps is that the movie is only 68 minutes long, and there's enough story material to keep it diverting.
The director of this film, Albert Ray, and the screenwriter, Francis Hyland, would reunite with Ginger Rogers and Lyle Talbot the very next year for another movie murder mystery called A SHRIEK IN THE NIGHT. (I still need to see that one as well.) The major reason to watch THE THIRTEENTH GUEST is to see a very young Ginger Rogers--but she doesn't get to sing or dance.
Have seen this several times thanks to a book called "Forgotten Horrors". It features all the poverty row type mysteries, horror films etc. from the 1930's. Great book and all the movies covered are lots of fun. This a fun film as well.
ReplyDeleteI have that book as well! Along with most of the other volumes in the Forgotten Horrors series.
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