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Ursula Georgi (Myrna Loy) is a half-white, half-Indian girl who a missionary sends to an exclusive finishing school so that she can learn to "pass" as white. But the 13 women in a particular exclusive sorority learn that Ursula is "half caste'", expose her, and as a result she is expelled from the school. If these racial attitudes all sound very archaic it's because they are, but then this film is over 90 years old. So bear with me.

So Ursula has apparently been itching for revenge ever since. And 15 years later she puts her plan into action. One of the girls asks for horoscopes for all 13 from the imminent Swami Yogadachi. His lover happens to be Ursula who has hypnotic powers of her own. Yogadachi casts the horoscopes, which seem at least semi positive. Ursula then puts the Swami in a deep sleep and replaces the horoscopes with her own for each woman, warning of death, prison, insanity, etc. With Yogadachi's usefulness to her finished , she then hypnotizes him so that he runs into the path of a moving train. This woman is NOT a nice person!

But Ursula never seems to finish what she starts. She disposes of only three of the 13 women when they read the horoscopes, become obsessed with the inevitability of their predicted fates, and actually cause their horoscopes to come true. Ursula then becomes oddly focused on Laura Stanhope (Irene Dunne) who is urging the others to ignore these horoscopes as so much hogwash. She seems determined to break Laura, not because she was particularly cruel to her, but because she is resisting her little game. Complications ensue.

The film does have something to say about the power of the mind over situations. And Ursula is not in the least bit a sympathetic character given that she has no natural affection towards anyone. She has enemies and men she uses to get revenge on those enemies - Those are the only two kinds of relationships she seems to have as an adult.

I'd say the one hokey thing that the film does consists of the special effects. For some reason a bright star appears in the center of the screen every time a sorority sister fulfills her face or Ursula hypnotizes someone to do her bidding. It's short at just under an hour and pretty entertaining.

I looked forward to seeing this film on TCM. I was disappointed in what I saw. I've read that several minutes were cut from the original for censorship and other reasons and have never been restored. Even Turner who usually attempts to present features uncut and in as pristine condition as is humanly possible hasn't done much with this early talkie, even the sound was bad. So I have to go with what I saw. First, being an early talkie, many of the actors were still gesticulating and shouting their lines as if on stage or doing a silent flick. Particularly guilty of this was C. Henry Gordon who played a key character Swami Yogadachi. Fortunately for the viewer he is killed not long after the movie begins. The two future divas, Irene Dunne and Myrna Loy, do much better and appear very modern with their acting skills. Ursula Georgi (Myrna Loy) is sinister and evil to the core yet smiles like an adorable angel. Irene Dunne as Laura Stanhope plays the type role that she would perfect in later movies. Ricardo Cortez as Police Sergeant Barry Clive does a decent job in a role that isn't all that demanding.

Second, the writing is good with an intriguing plot: twelve former classmates of a boarding school are being killed off by rejected classmate number thirteen through the use of phony horoscopes. The plot should have enabled the story to move along at an even pace. Yet there are places in this approximately one hour film that are very boring. These boring stretches are broken by a few exciting moments. The trapeze scene is a dandy as is the final scene aboard the fast-moving train. Cinematography is exceptional in some places considering the age of the film, especially the final scene featuring Myrna Loy. Also impressive is the car chase sequence when the chauffeur is attempting to make a getaway with Laura Stanhope captive in the back seat.

Third, though the racial prejudice angle is bold and enlightening for 1932 when Hollywood was notorious for racial stereotyping, it actually only figures in at the very end of the movie in one extremely well-done and well-written scene when the two protagonists Ursula and Laura (Loy and Dunne) confront one another in a spell-binding moment of truth and retribution.

How long must we wait until a restored version of this film is released on DVD so we can make a more accurate assessment?

Spiritualism was a craze at the time this was made and hypnosis not really understood by the public at large something of which the scriptwriters took advantage. They concocted this wildly dated, at times preposterous and overwrought meller that if nothing else spotlights a couple of soon to be top stars.

This silly junk was one of Myrna's final Eurasian villainess roles. It's interesting after years of exposure to her as the perfect wife or the level headed, spunky All-American woman to see her in a role that was typical of her pre-stardom days, that of the foreign mantrap. She looks great but is far better than the part deserves. She is noticeably understated while most of the other performers over emote.

Made when sound was in its relative infancy many of the performers are still reliant on over-sized, distracting stage gestures. Irene Dunne starts the picture in subdued fashion but ends up as over the top as everyone else, she's been much better elsewhere. Same goes for Florence Eldridge, a very fine actress usually though she's overblown in this.

Full of actresses of note for one reason or another. Besides Myrna and Irene there is Jill Esmond, first wife of Laurence Olivier, Kay Johnson, a DeMille favorite and the mother of respected character actor James Cromwell and Peg Entwistle, the infamous and tragic actress who threw herself from the Hollywood sign in despair a few days after this film premiered, it's her only film credit. Except for the two leading ladies each only get a scene or two to make an impression.

Fun in a ludicrous way but aside from the cast this is a routine, if outlandish, programmer that were it not for them would be utter forgotten.

Watching Thirteen Women I wonder what Merle Oberon must have thought. She lived in real life what Myrna Loy's character was experiencing in the film. It was only after she died that it came out that Merle was of mixed racial origin. She successfully passed her entire life.

Loy who was in fact Caucasian until she became the incarnation of the perfect wife and mother played a whole lot of these exotic characters. She borrows a bit from her performance as Fu Manchu's daughter in playing a woman who is exacting terrible revenge on members of a sorority at a finishing school who discovered her background and used it to get her expelled. It was her ticket into the white world and respectability as she saw it.

Using C. Henry Gordon as a phony swami she has unpleasant horoscopes made against her thirteen enemies. Loy doesn't want to just kill them, she wants to torment them and uses Gordon as her means. Loy wants maximum satisfaction.

In the case of Irene Dunne who she sees as her chief enemy Loy also has plans for Dunne's child as well.

A whole lot of women dominate this film as the sisters like Kay Johnson, Jill Esmond, Florence Eldridge and more. Ricardo Cortez plays the police sergeant who tracks down Loy and Edward Pawley plays another of the men she uses in her fiendish schemes.

As this was a before the Code film, there was some frank talk about racism under the guise of snobbery. No doubt that Dunne and the rest were guilty of it. It drove Loy off the deep end and she enacts a terrible vengeance.

A really good before the Code film that should be better known.

What struck me first about THIRTEEN WOMEN (just shown on TCM this evening), is the fact that it has a musical score by Max Steiner at a time when early thirties movies seldom used much music on the soundtrack for atmospheric purposes. But here, at least, Max does let loose with some sinuous exotic strains for a few scenes.

The second thing was how beautiful MYRNA LOY photographed, playing a half-caste who is determined to avenge what snobbish sorority sisters did to her in finishing school where she was exiled because she wasn't white. Loy at this stage was still playing these exotic roles, complete with slanting eye make-up--but as a woman with an hypnotic gaze she was quite convincing. C. HENRY GORDON as Yogadachi, the fake Swami, was rather hammy here--whereas five years later he was very effective as a turban-wearing Indian in CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE.

***POSSIBLE SPOILER AHEAD***

IRENE DUNNE is the last of the sorority girls to survive and the last one to be punished by Loy. However, as suspense builds to a climax aboard a speeding train, Loy's plan fails with the police hot on her trail.

The 59 minute running time means that some fifteen minutes were cut from the original release and it shows. The ending is much too abrupt and before you know it "The End" is flashed on the screen. Someone was busy with the scissors on this one, particularly during those final moments.

Would love to see the complete film some day, but I suppose that's not going to happen if the footage hasn't been restored by now. All the performances are rather standard, including RICARDO CORTEZ as the detective who's able to solve the case. FLORENCE ELDRIDGE is almost unrecognizable as one of the women and KAY JOHNSON is a bit over the top as one of the victims who shoots herself.

Summing up: Not bad and certainly worth a watch.

This is a very unusual film, not least because Myrna Loy, best known for cheerier films, here plays an extremely sinister character. What is more surprising is that she is extremely convincing in that kind of role. There must have been another side to Myrna! Even more unusual, she plays an Anglo-Indian woman. For those who don't know, that means people who were born in India during the Raj who were half English and half Indian. The Anglo-Indians experienced a great deal of prejudice in India because they were not accepted by the Indians, being 'half-breeds', and were also looked upon as inferior by the English. Here, Myrna has a huge chip on her shoulder and is obsessed with resentment at having been treated in a humiliating manner at her boarding school by the other girls. She is, not to put too fine a point on it, dangerously mad. She is determined to get even despite the fact that it is so many years later. She tracks down the other twelve 'girls', now obviously women, and starts killing them one by one. I first came across this film under the title TREIZE FEMMES ('thirteen women'), and wrongly dated 1936, as a DVD release in the RKO Series by Editions Montparnasse in Paris. On its rear cover is the boast, in the form of a quote from Serge Bromberg: 'A rarity never distributed in France' (in French of course.). Well, things have changed, it is now widely available, as more and more forgotten old movies get released. Another reason for the French to get excited was that the film was directed by the French-born director George Archainbaud, who emigrated to America when he was 25 and became a director of 146 films, including the TV series THE LONE RANGER (1949-50), HOPALONG CASSIDY (1952-54), ANNIE OAKLEY (1954-57), and a host of other such Americana. He was therefore very drastically 'un-Frenched' in his new environment, something that the French find incomprehensible, fascinating, and also alarming. The film includes a somewhat subdued performance by Irene Dunne, who four years later would become an eternal icon for her starring role in SHOW BOAT (1936). Both Irene Dunne and Myrna Loy doubled up and played two of the other twelve girls who were minor characters, though this was not revealed in the credits. Another interesting feature of this film is that Myrna uses hypnotic powers to wreak her vengeance. Spell-binding stuff!

This campy little coo-coo bird has to be seen to be believed. Beware of anonymously sent bouncy balls. I first saw this film many years ago on the early American Movie Classics (before it was destroyed by commercials and awful movies); I made of point of watching it because I was reading Myrna Loy's autobiography at the time and she mentioned this film.

Modern viewers may be a bit surprised to find that there is really nothing new in film-making; everything in the psychological thrillers and slasher films over the years that terrified you is done here, and better. Like the rest of the reviewers, I am nearly insane with wonder at what the famous missing 15 minutes might hold (I know a scene further developing the Peg Entwistle character was deleted), but the existing version of this film is a tight, entertaining hour of suspense.

Exotic and beautiful Ursula Georgi sets out across America to reek her revenge on those upper crust white gals that ousted her from her school sorority and ruined her chance in life to "pass" as one of the elite. If you can actually locate the book this is based on, it's a very enlightening read, for therein we learn that poor Ursula was whored out as a young girl. An orphanage finally placed in her in the sorority with the rich white girls to save her from her life of degradation and exploitation. I believe Ms. Loy must have read the novel, she plays Ursula with a clear awareness of the horrors of her young past. By ostracizing and then kicking her out of the sorority, the rich snobs destroyed her chance to escape and live among the rich and respectable. No wonder she is murderously furious with them. A round robin letter, horoscopes of dread, the stink-eye from Ursula and former sorority sisters end up in the obituary column one by one.

Even today, this hour long film is tensely paced and engaging. Ricardo Cortez is always a pleasure to watch, a smooth, beautiful man and a superb actor who brings a touch of class to all of his work. Young Myrna Loy is beginning to show the prowess that would make her one of the most successful of all 20th century actors. If you love 1930's films, this is a very unique and interesting one, you won't be sorry.

This is an oldie but a goodie, albeit a short one - one of the other comments explains what happened, but no one knows the reason.

Myrna Loy is very beautiful and exotic as Ursula Georgi (which I actually think is an Italian name) who is a half-caste seeking revenge on sorority sisters who kept her out of their group. She uses the power of suggestion, switching their actual horoscopes by mail that they receive from a swami with predictions of doom. One by one, the women die. She ultimately knocks off the swami and turns her sights on the disbeliever of the group, played by Irene Dunne.

Loy would soon break free from exotica with "The Thin Man" series. Mrs. Laurence Olivier at the time, Jill Esmond, appears in the film, as do Ricardo Cortez and Peg Entwhistle. For Entwhistle, the dire predictions in the film played out in real life for her. Shortly after this movie was made, she achieved a lasting fame by committing suicide by jumping from the "Hollywoodland" sign in Los Angeles.

With a trapeze mishap, the "Marvel Circus" begins a series of horrifying accidental deaths, which seem to be hypnotically predicted by an exotic "Swami" from the Far East. As the bodies pile up, a connection becomes clear; they are among the "Thirteen Women" who attended a boarding school with sexy mystic Myrna Loy (as Ursula Georgi). It quickly becomes evident that Ms. Loy is seeking revenge against twelve schoolgirls. They were cruel to, and exposed Loy, who was trying to pass as white. "Do you know what it means to be a half-breed, a half-caste in world rule by whites?" Loy asks. Sensible Irene Dunne (as Laura Stanhope) tries to reassure the still friendly women, but they are understandably wary. Handsome detective Ricardo Cortez (as Barry Clive) investigates the deaths, which threaten to include Ms. Dunne's cute son. There are a few good moments, but they don't add up.

***** Thirteen Women (9/16/32) George Archainbaud ~ Myrna Loy, Irene Dunne, Ricardo Cortez, Jill Esmond

This fascinating, hypnotic RKO 'A' film bombed so badly that the studio withdrew it from release, chopped out 15 minutes (from 74 to 59), and disposed of it on the bottom end of double bills. The question is: Why?

Even after 70 years, "Thirteen Women" is an eerie, lushly produced thriller that provides more genuine chills than in any of today's counterparts. For movie buffs, the real treat is seeing Irene Dunne and Myrna Loy (both of whom within a year or two would emerge as two of Hollywood's most bankable and respected leading ladies) slumming in a nasty pre-Code creeper about a half-caste sorority girl (Loy) who enlists the aid of a sinister spiritualist to exact revenge on the prejudiced campus "ladies" who expelled her from their club a few years earlier. One by one, and by devious means, Loy (still playing slant-eyed fiends, but not for much longer, thank God!)meticulously plots and carries out the not-for-the-squeamish deaths of her victims--until the last one alive, Irene Dunne, happily married with an adorable young son, remains her sole surviving target. After her plans to poison the toddler go awry, Loy goes bonkers and boards the train where the police (it certainly takes them long enough to figure out what's going on) have secreted Dunne until they apprehend Loy. The climax--with a dagger-wielding Loy chasing the terrorized Dunne through one car to the next--is a corker--meticulously copied and working equally well a half a century later in the climax of "Terror Train" (with Jamie Lee Curtis duking it out with a transvestite psycho). Even chopped to 59 minutes, "Thirteen Women" is still a landmark horror film. The most baffling mystery is why audiences rejected it in 1932. Perhaps it was ahead of its time. Depression-era loved mysteries--but uncensored exercises in sheer terror like "Thirteen Women" were too scary for comfort (even today, it provokes an unsettling series of shocks that make it the "Psycho" of the '30s--and even the "Psycho" of 30 years later had to overcome initial critical pans before audiences pounced on it and lapped up every sick, terrifying minute.) Hopefully, the 15 minutes a worried RKO cut from the original prints of "Thirteen Women" will be discovered and restored so we may someday see this unexpected treasure as it was intended to be seen. Meanwhile, even the expurgated version (shown occasionally on Turner Classic Movies--check the listings) is as dazzling and brazen a shocker Hollywood turned out in the early 1930s--before the Hayes Office took over and thwarted any further movie from going as gleefully and sadistically over-the-top as the delicious "Thirteen Women." (Even MGM had to severely edit "Freaks" to placate horrified censors and audiences.)

Thirteen white women who all went to school together are marked for death by a half-caste woman that they were cruel to as kids. Irene Dunne plays the lead, an early precursor to the Final Girl from slasher movies made decades later. Myrna Loy as the killer is the principal reason to watch. She was cast as Asian or half-Asian a lot in early films. Here, whatever they've done to her makeup-wise works because she's stunning. Ricardo Cortez plays the detective investigating the case. It's nice to see an actual police detective be smart and not bumbling or corrupt. Notable as the only film of Peg Entwistle, a young actress who infamously committed suicide by jumping off of the Hollywood sign. One of the earliest movies with a female ensemble. The racial subject matter is also pretty frank for the time. I mentioned slasher films before. Well, structurally this one is very similar so, in a sense, it's one of the earliest examples of what would become that subgenre. It's a very interesting movie with some good performances, clever direction, and bonus historical value.

Just finished watching this film...decided to watch it mainly to see Peg Entwistle, the Hollywood sign girl. She sure didn't have much of a part, and after i read the suicide note of hers, i wondered how much of this movie (13 women) had an effect on her depression and plans for suicide.

Hard to believe that at such a young age, and with some promise, she'd throw it all away so fast. Earlier this year, I was in Hollywood and saw the house (still standing) that she lived in when she decided to end it all. It is quite a hike up to the sign from that house, and I imagine at that time, probably was a dirt road. She certainly had time to think about what she was doing, when she was climbing up there.

Also, I do recall a certain interview of Bette Davis, where she fondly remembers Peg Entwhistle...and said she was an unbelievable talent.

Anyway, that was a long long time ago, and sometimes, it seems silly to remember such an insignificant part of Hollywood history. The irony is, that her name will always be remembered now....as the Hollywoodland Sign girl.

Campy and entertaining, there are flashes of brilliance here: tight shots on Loy, made up as an evil Indian mystic bent on getting revenge against her old classmates, some scenes where tension is built up rather nicely (I won't spoil them), and even a car chase scene, 1932-style. You'll have to suspend disbelief over the concept that the mind can be controlled by another via 'waves', but that's part of the fun. Loy's motivation is revealed towards the end as she confronts Irene Dunne, and it reveals the racial climate of the times: as a "half-caste Indian half-breed", she was not allowed to "pass" as white in a sorority. As she explains it, for half-breed men this meant being a coolie, and for a woman, she simply shrugs, implying prostitution. As with many films treating race relations at the time, it has a mixed message, on the one hand, pointing out the unfairness of the sorority (and how racist its rules were), and on the other, elevating fears of violence by non- Caucasians. It's interesting that the film has quite a bit of the framework of the modern thriller in it, but it's not fleshed out as much as it ideally would have been, and seems abrupt in places. Finding out that the original release was 14 minutes longer could explain that, but I have to review it for what survives. You could do worse, and it's actually kind of a fun movie. Oh, and last point – interesting to see Peg Entwistle in her only credited screen role, before jumping from the 'H' in the Hollywood(land) sign in despair. Watch for her character 'Hazel' early on.

This wonderful thriller stars Irene Dunne and Myrna Loy before they were superstars. It is based on the book by Irene Thayer. Myrna Loy wasn't treated was rejected by a college sorority group, and now she plans revenge on them.

This motion picture also has Peg Entwhistle as Hazel Cousins. This tragic beauty committed suicide not long after the picture was released, but she killed herself in a rather strange way. She jumped off of the letter H in the HOLLYWOOD sign.

Myrna Loy decides to bump off the girls who tormented her in school for being of mixed blood. To confuse people, she uses some astrological hocus-pocus.

It's based on a novel by Tiffany Thayer, and it's not particularly good or perhaps it's simply aged poorly. Miss Loy was near the end of her phase of playing exotic women, and she seems overdressed and pretty bored by it. She's also fourth-billed in the credits.

Another flaw in the movie is that there are only eleven women marked to serve as victims; two of them -- Phyllis Fraser and Betty Furness -- wound up on the cutting-room floor, possibly to appease the censors, possibly to simply cut the running time. Irene Dunne, Ricardo Cortez, and Jill Esmond get higher billing than Miss Loy.

Myrna Loy takes on a different look early in her career playing a Eurasian hypnotist out for revenge in Thirteen Women. An Irene Dunne vehicle, Loy's sleekly attired venomous lead walks away with the picture as she hunts down former sorority girls.

Schools out but former schoolmates remained linked together in friendship and the lark of having their futures read by the mighty Swami (C. Henry Gordon). The Swami is merely a front though with Ursula (Loy) running the operation and making good on a few dire predictions. After failing to take out Dunne's kid, she finds herself cornered, nearing the end of the line.

Whether strong or fretting Dunne's motherly instincts register. Loy's evil close-up stares and cold responses are chilling, near spider like with those around her as she bends them to her will. The tragic Peg Entwistle is doubly moving in a role where art will reflect life, two days after finishing "Thirteen."

The story is far fetched but it does have some very suspenseful moments and touch on a clearcut racial issue, usually foreign to the horror genre. George Archainbaud's direction is both brisk and efficient, the picture's brief running time well worth the time .

No need to repeat points made by others. One unmentioned ingredient the movie sorely lacks is mood, which is usually established by visual style. In short, the movie has no visual style to complement the eerie proceedings. Instead, director Archainbaud films in unimaginative, straightforward fashion, using high-key lighting even in those spooky situations crying out for shadow. That's not surprising since the bulk of the director's career was spent helming undemanding Gene Autry half-hours for early TV. No wonder the pass-off stunt between the two cars in this film is so expertly handled. Archainbaud was an action director and clearly the wrong man to develop a Gothic exercise like Thirteen Women. Think what a great visual stylist like Edgar Ulmer (The Black Cat) or Tod Browning (Dracula; Freaks) could have done with the same dark material. For example, note the weird looking interior constructed for Ursula's two- story abode. It's a real eye-catcher but goes unaccented by Archainbaud's pedestrian style. Think what Ulmer, in particular, would have done with that bizarre set-up. Then too, maybe a more attuned director or producer could have prevented the studio from butchering the contents with its notoriously clumsy deletions and departures. Nonetheless, mood or no mood, cat-eyed Ursula (Loy) can cast a spell on me any day of the week and the proverbial twice on Sunday, that is, if I can manage it.

Myrna Loy in one of her earliest--and perhaps silliest--roles, that of a half-caste named Ursula Georgi who strikes back at the women who ostracized her years before at a girls' school in San Francisco using "the power of suggestion." Loy, ever the outcast, looks made-up for a night with Fu Manchu; with her colorful appearance and eyes glinting with delicious revenge and evil satisfaction, one may assume Myrna was getting a kick out of these overwrought proceedings. Although the film was produced by RKO and probably had a fairly large budget for 1932, it seems tatty and awkward, and saddled with an anticlimactic finish. It may be just enough of a curio to garner a desperate audience, however anyone looking for a prime example of the Golden Age of Hollywood would be well-advised to duck and cover. ** from ****

This initially attracted me because it sounded like a good laugh. Lots of female stars and demi-stars, a dated and overblown plot. One of Hollywood's legendary suicides: Peg Entwhistle. And Myrna Loy playing a character described twice as "half-Japenese, half-Hindu." Ms. Loy comes across better than she does in some of her other early, exotic roles. She is the villain and a terrible villain. But she looks lovely. And, as evil as she is, she is poignant: She causes so much trouble in the lives of the other women because they had been prejudiced against her in boarding school.

(It's kind of a very early prototype of "Heathers," a movie I looked forward to but did not like.) The way the other women die is disturbing. One doesn't meet her sister in their trapeze act. One is drawn to shoot herself while riding a train ....

Kay Johnson is the one who does the latter and her confusion and distress made me think of another later movie I also don't like but found upsetting: "The Witches of Eastwick": Myrna Loy, may I introduce you to Jack Nicholson?