The Thirteenth Chair

You have to be a fan of Bela Lugosi to really enjoy this film. The pacing is slow, the direction is wooden, and many of the supporting cast is just so-so.

Being a filmed stage play in the very early talky era, The Thirteenth Chair doesn't have much action. What it does have is Bela Lugosi who becomes the focus of the film as Inspector Delzante as soon as he makes an appearance. There are few surprises to anyone who has seen very many mysteries, but a few genuinely spooky scenes occur in the darkened room as the sound takes over and your imagination is allowed to supply the imagery. On the prints that I have seen the sound is of a poor quality with a high level of hiss as in so many older films. It takes some dedication to sit through, and listening carefully to understand all the dialogue. It is fascinating to see Lugosi as a key supporting character before he was typecast.

This seems to have been the first major film role film for Bela Lugosi. He dominates the film entirely, with tremendous confidence and panache. Two years later, he and the same director, Tod Browning, would make their famous horror classic 'Dracula' (1931) together. This film is based on a stage play by Bayard Veiller, whose wife, Margaret Wycherley, played the medium both on stage and in the film, to great effect. Since talkies only commenced the year before, this 1929 film does very well in the sound department. What is really terrible about it is the editing, some of the worst any feature film ever had: a woman gets up from her chair and exits frame and we wait for some time, then we cut to the next frame and wait an endless age for her to enter that frame. Really appalling! Tod Browning either had no control over this process or had not learned to direct properly yet. Despite the slow pace and creaky nature of the production, the film nevertheless manages to be intriguing in its excellently complex mystery plot. It is one of those 'people in a room in the dark' films: whodunnit? There are plenty of surprises. The story is ostensibly set in Calcutta, under the Empire, although shot entirely in a studio. It is an interesting study of how British Empire types behaved in the 1920s, hence of considerable social history interest as a 'document'. (They don't come out of it well, being so arch, false, and over-mannered that one does not regret their passing.) The main action centres round a seance and the activities of a medium, in connection with trying to solve the murder of someone who was 'an out and out rotter'. Despite its shortcomings, this film is still entertaining and worth watching.

In British India, a séance in Calcutta leaves a dead man sitting in THE THIRTEENTH CHAIR...

Under the able direction of Tod Browning, this antique talkie weaves a taut tale of murder & suspense. The oppressive atmosphere & limited use of sets creates a claustrophobic sense of eerie unreality. The excellent utilization of sound during the sequences of almost total screen blackout demonstrate the director's understanding of the potentialities of the new medium.

Conrad Nagel & Leila Hyams receive top billing, but they have little to do beyond looking frightened or concerned. This they accomplish quite well.

The film is dominated by two fascinating performances. Bela Lugosi makes a rather bizarre police inspector, his mesmeric eyes, claw-like hands & compelling voice giving an early demonstration of the qualities which would make him one of the screen's top monsters (Lugosi & Browning would have to wait two more years for the huge success of their next collaboration, DRACULA). Elderly Margaret Wycherly, as a wily Irish medium, is a delight and easily steals scene after scene. It is she who comes up with the plan to ultimately unmask the killer.

This film proves that in 1929 a lot of talking films were still primitive and although most of the cast seemed reasonably at ease with dialogue, John Davidson's perfect and slow pronunciation really stuck out. There is even a scene toward the end where people are grouped (obviously waiting to begin the scene) and after a few seconds they start talking and mingling. "Locked room" movies were all the rage in these early days - one set was all that was needed and the studios could then show off their sound skills. For MGM, who had already made "The Broadway Melody", "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney" and "Halelujah", this film was static and unimaginative. The magic that Tod Browning had weaved with Lon Chaney in the 20s seemed to evaporate when talking pictures appeared. Apart from "Dracula" and "Freaks", which harked back to his days as a director of shock and suspense, he spent the rest of his career in programmers and remakes of his silent hits.

It also feels like it has a few minutes missing from the start - or I'm a bit dense!! Everyone seems to know what's going on already - renowned womaniser Spencer Lee has been killed by a woman - but which woman??? Ned Wales (John Davidson) is the only person in the house who liked Lee (Spencer had saved him from drowning when they were children) and who is determined to find his killer. Even he acts suspiciously, trying to bribe the servants (again, the action obviously takes place in India but the audience is never told). There is an establishing shot of the two leads, Richard Crosby (Conrad Nagel) is trying to convince Helen O'Neill (Leila Hyams) to marry him. It's the old "you may be only my mother's secretary but you're good enough for me" routine. Nagel and Hyams may have been the leads but they are only required to stand around looking worried, fearful, determined etc.

The stage is set for the show down between the real stars - wonderful Margaret Wycherley as the medium Madame La Grange, an unassuming "nanny" type, who nevertheless, has a few secrets and menacing Bela Lugosi as Inspector Delzante and he still manages to act like Dracula. Even though that film role was 2 years in the future he had played it on Broadway on and off during the 20s. Just to hear him say "What you propose is too horrible to contemplate - but we will do it!!!

Margaret Wycherley was a character actress supreme. She really hit her stride in the 40s and even though you struggle to remember some of the movies, you definitely remember her ("Johnny Angel" - she played a domineering nanny). Of course she was Ma Jarrett in "White Heat" and Ma Forrester in "The Yearling" - "my boy, my poor crookedy boy". In "The Thirteenth Chair" she was a breath of fresh air and proved stage actors weren't always stiff. Her husband, Bayard Veiller wrote the original play "The Thirteenth Chair" that had a healthy run of 328 performances, back in 1916 and in which Margaret Wycherley played the same role of Rosalie La Grange.

Recommended.

Looking at the reviews, I saw that there was a group that loved the film and a group that hated it. When I see this kind of sharp dichotomy, I like to comment. I first saw the overall rating as 5.1, which seemed unfairly low. I liked the film because it was very superior writing and I was wowed by the performances of Margaret Wycherly and Bela Lugosi. The film was taken from a play with the dialog mostly intact. The writing for the play, as well as the play itself, was a critical and popular success - as was the film. Margaret Wycherly was a well-known and highly respected British actress who also appeared in the play. All reviews are valid if they honestly and clearly describe the reviewer's reactions. I don't like murder mysteries, but I took a chance on this one because I liked the story outline and I was pleasantly surprised. I happen to hate horror pictures so I was not a fan of Bela Lugosi, but he was great in this non-horror role. One negative review called it too "stagey" and indeed that's a valid observation as it was a stage play adapted to film. I have seen stage plays that were filmed as they were played on stage, but the filmed version never seemed right - however, this stage script was very well adapted to film - also keeping the high quality script intact. Perhaps, the most telling negative comment was that the film was "dull". And indeed if one really likes standard murder mystery films with lots of physical action (or if one is just in the mood for such), one might find the film "dull". The reader of reviews needs to find which reviews reflect his/her tastes and criteria and go with that review.