El trece fatídico

The owner of an Estate invited thirteen guests to dinner to reveal the inheritors of his will. The thirteenth guest never arrived and the host passed away without revealing their identity. The house has been boarded up for years exactly as it was that night when Miss Morgan on the eve of her 21st birthday is invited to the house.

This is such a fun little mystery with Ginger Rogers starring as Miss Morgan and Lyle Talbot as the private investigator and playboy Phil Winston. There are sliding panels and a cackling hooded figure who is luring and then electrocuting individuals amongst the original twelve guests using a metal phone.

Based on the novel by Armitage Trail (of Scarface fame), this is well worth the watch by classic film fans and mystery fans as it keeps your guessing as to the identity of the hooded figure.

A young woman named Marie Morgan (Ginger Rogers) arrives at night at a presumably vacant old house, and is quickly murdered by person unknown. A private detective named Phil Winston (Lyle Talbot) proceeds to investigate, with the help of an annoyingly grumpy cop and his bumbling sidekick.

As the whodunit plot moves along, various characters reveal the backstory, involving a rich old man who invites thirteen guests to a dinner party at which time he will announce who inherits his estate; problem is the old man dies at the dinner without revealing his secret.

The main problem is a script that is so convoluted that it's almost impossible to figure out the puzzle's solution. Once known, the solution is not remotely believable, and there are significant plot holes. Still, there's enough suspense to keep the viewer watching despite a substandard script. Dialogue comes across as stiff and stilted at times but there are a few good lines.

Before the killer's identity is known, this person appears in a few scenes wearing bizarre garb that covers his/her body completely; the costume makes the person look a little like spider man. The film's prod design is cheap looking. Most of the action takes place indoors and mostly at night.

Casting is acceptable except for the presence of Lyle Talbot who just doesn't have the mystery persona of someone like Sidney Toler or Warner Oland. Indeed, if the film had been made as a Charlie Chan thriller, I think it would have been better.

For all its faults, "The Thirteenth Guest" is worth watching once, owing to adequate suspense in a spooky old house with hidden rooms and a masked killer. Overall, it's an average whodunit for the era in which it was made.

Monogram Pictures was a very low-budget studio that specialized in cheap and exciting films. They were NOT a studio to make operettas or Shakespeare--that's for sure. Some of there films hold up well after all of these years--many of them don't. I have not yet seen a Monogram film I would consider great but they were often quite fun. Fun, cheap and entertaining is how I would describe "The Thirteenth Guest". While the film has many plot holes and problems, the overall film is pretty good for a B-movie. The film is one of those ridiculously impossible and complex murder films that is fun to watch but dumb when you actually think about it. Only in this sort of film or a Charlie Chan film (many of which were also made by Monogram) film would do.

The film begins with a lady being horribly electrocuted by some maniac--though who did it is uncertain. Oddly, instead of the police heading the investigation, they ask a private detective (Lyle Talbot) to run things--a plot element that makes not one bit of sense. Eventually, Talbot and the police learn that the murder (and subsequent murders) are probably related to a weird dinner that had happened many years earlier. The man who threw the dinner party was very rich and he died during the dinner! His will incredibly stated that the thirteenth guest to arrive would inherit his fortunate--but only twelve show. His wife was odd, as she left the house and the room where the rich guy died exactly as it was during the party--and the killer would then prop the bodies of each victim in their original seats from the party!! Weird stuff alright and the killer turns out to be the one who looked like a killer the first time I saw them! Make of that what you will.

A nice fast-paced plot with some cool murders cannot completely undo the ridiculousness of it all as well as some plot problems. Other than having a private citizen lead the investigation, there is a plastic surgery angle that makes no sense as well as some overly obnoxious suspects--too obnoxious to be real. Worth watching (especially since it's in the public domain) but not one to rush out to see--unless you are dying to see Ginger Rogers in one of her earliest roles (though, unfortunately, her acting and character are both a bit rough).

This poverty row thriller has a similar storyline to "The Cat and the Canary" - haunted house, frightened heiress, a disguised killer, secret passages etc. Ginger Rogers and Lyle Talbot, who plays Phil Winston were not a romantic couple in this film (although they did date briefly in real life) until the last five minutes - he being very keen on solving the murders.

The film starts imaginatively with a clutching hand pulling down each title card. Marie Morgan (or Lela) (Ginger Rogers) arrives at her old family home - one that hasn't been occupied for 13 years to find a telephone has been installed!!! After reading a cryptic message left by her father, she remembers back to a dinner party of 13 years before. The thirteenth guest did not arrive. When her father died he left the bulk of his estate to the 13th guest who never came forward. Thirteen years later the police are called to view a girls body, they believe has been electrocuted.

There is a "hooded terror" roaming and controlling the house through an "electrified" phone - when people answer it, a lever is pushed and the victim dies. It seems that the killer wanted the police to believe that Marie was the victim but it is really an unknown woman who has had a complete facial reconstruction to look like Marie. Then the family lawyer is found dead. Winston is convinced one of the original guests is the killer and invites them all to his apartment to show them that Marie is very much alive!!!

This is a pretty good film with lots of twists and turns. Being a pre- code some of the comments are surprising. Eddie Philips being referred to as Marie's brother's "boyfriend". When Paul Hurst as a bumbling detective looks down at his shoes, realises that they are on the wrong feet and then says "Well, you told me to tail her" everyone laughs!!

Recommended.

A millionaire Morgan invited 12 of his family members to his house for a dinner party (but only 11 showed up), but the host died in the middle of the event. Thirteen years later the house remains boarded up when Morgan's daughter Mary arrives, but is killed by a mysterious person walking in the house. Captain Ryan calls in investigator Phil Winston to help solve the case. Winston and Ryan suspect the family lawyer Barksdale, but later he is found murdered in the house. The two believe that one of the people invited to the party is the killer and question all the family members, but later Mary Morgan reappears and Winston finds out someone hired a woman to impersonate her in order to get her inheritance. Winston has to make sure all of the family members are watched, in order to make sure the real Mary Morgan doesn't become a victim. I was slightly disappointed by the movie considering it struggled to flow smoothly in terms of direction and script. Talbot was playing the role as if to get some scout from MGM to notice him. The rest of the cast (including Rogers) played their roles to the typical Old Dark House mystery movie stereotype. The film seemed to appear to be the first of a series with Talbot's character. It should have been better. Rating, 5.