Mr. Reeder in Room 13

Mystery of Room 13 or Mr. Reeder in Room 13 is a 1938 British film starring Gibb McLaughlin, Peter Murray-Hill and Sally Gray. A young man (Murray-Hill) wants to work for "Special Services" and is given an assignment of going undercover in prison to discover who is printing counterfeit bank notes.

After that it gets weird. His girlfriend marries someone else, a crony of her father's. The main character, once he's released from prison, finds unexpected connections to the counterfeit ring and comes up against Gray's husband.

The marriage plot was ridiculous. Fuzzy sound, slow, not much to recommend it except I have always liked Sally Gray.

I watched this on Talking Pictures. The quality itself was good for the age and indeed better than a lot of later B&W films. The story was interesting and kept me engaged.... as I mentioned in the title, this is a film of it's time and a viewer will, I am sure, enjoy it more by reminding themselves of that.... I think one detail that highlights that is the length of time that we are given, as viewers, to read the notes written by the characters, the reason I assume was that the makers wanted to ensure that what was written was understood and possibly with the lack of reading skills of the audience, who, at that time most had left school at 12 years old to work. So education was limited to the average person. If you enjoy old British movies from the 30's, 40's and 50's, I am sure you will enjoy the film overall... as I did..

Edgar Wallace's J. G. Reeder makes his screen debut in this sluggish low key British B feature.

The government calls for civil servant Mr Reeder to do something about forged banknotes flooding the country.

Reeder calls in Captain Johnnie Gray who wants to serve his country and does so by going to Dartmoor prison in order to infiltrate the crooks who are doing the forging.

In doing so Gray breaks up with his Claire Kane. In jail he notices that an- bitter elderly robber Emmanuel Legge has been released from prison and is picked up by his son Jeff.

When Gray is also released from jail, he finds out that Claire is getting married to a Major Floyd. He turns out to be Jeff and it has all been planned by Legge to get revenge on Claire's father who was once also a crook.

Gray needs to rescue Claire from Jeff who is also a bigamist after marring her.

There is a lot of plot but also many contrivances and coincidences. This is a listless film and Reeder is a minor character in his own movie.

Although emaciated veteran character actor Gibb McLaughlin is billed above the title in the title role as the late Edgar Wallace's "famous criminal investigator" J.G.Reeder in this slick, cynical little potboiler with germanic sets and lighting (and a very busy music score), he actually takes a back seat for much of the film as various other characters busy about engaged in a variety of illegal and mean-spirited activities before it all goes wildly over the top for the climax (again reminiscent of an old 'Dr Mabuse' adventure) while Reeder himself keeps watch in his own words "at a safe distance".

It's an ambitious film that doesn't quite come off. Based on an Edgar Wallace novel, Peter Murray-Hill wants a job in "Special Services" and gets an assignment from the top-billed Gibb McLaughlin: there are some very good counterfeit bank notes in circulation, so Mr. Murray-Hill winds up sent to prison, where it is hoped he will connect with people in the counterfeiting ring. Soon enough he finds a sinister plot which implicates the father of Sally Gray. As he attempts to protect Miss Gray, the situation grows murkier.

Unfortunately, the story is telegraphically told, as the plot grows more and more complicated. It's also apparent that there was an effort to film this movie as it might have been directed by Tod Browning. While Browning might have gloried in the bizarre aspects of the characters, these tidbits are passed over so that the story can be told in less than 80 minutes. What might have been an early and bizarre film noir turns into a more conventional thriller. Also, the roles cry out for slightly different actors. I would have liked to have seen Ernest Thesiger in the title role; Leslie Perrins is, I feel, the best-served of the actors as the vengeance-seeking Jeffrey Legge, but his role, as those of the other actors, is reduced by the haste of the script.