The Thirteenth Chair

Recently saw this enjoyable little curio on TCM. Adding to the comments of others on the matter of style, I was surprised to notice several examples of short graceful tracking shots forward or back, just to break up the sense of staginess. (The mansion has very smooth floors!) So it's not that the camera is absolutely static. But Browning avoids close-ups for the most part. What was odd is the editing at certain times, which seems way off. There's one bizarre moment when the actors are clearly gathered in preparation for when the director calls "Action," and then after a few seconds, they abruptly begin speaking to each other in mid-sentence. (I'd like to see someone do a whole movie like that!) There's an equally strange edit when Margaret Wycherley walks out of the frame to confront Bela Lugosi (a few steps away), and then we cut to Lugosi sitting in his chair waiting an awfully long time beside dead space for her to walk into frame. I wonder what that was about?

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.

This film is only a 5.x out of ten if you don't like the early sound films, in which case, what are you doing here? You get to see Bela Lugosi as a police inspector, two years before he becomes forever typecast in horror roles as a result of "Dracula", although his deep Hungarian accent in colonial India is unexplained. But that's alright, because there is also an mystic with a deep Irish accent who has somehow ended up in India and managed to raise a daughter without the same said accent. The mother and daughter have become estranged, but why and how are never explained.

Lugosi's character is investigating a murder - two actually. At the beginning of the film, Spencer Lee, described by his own best friend as a rotter, has already been murdered by person unknown. Apparently Lee was quite a lady's man and generally just a bad guy all around, so any number of people could have killed him. The best friend, Edward Wales, suggests a séance conducted by the previously named mystic. Meanwhile, the son of an aristocratic family (Conrad Nagel as Richard Crosby) is having trouble with his fiancée (Leila Hyams as Helen O'Neil) who says she has no right to marry him. Richard thinks it is because she is a secretary and he comes from a rich family, but there is obviously something else troubling Helen a great deal.

The séance is held in the Crosby home, and the participants see this mainly as an interesting diversion, but when the time comes for Wales to ask the spirit of his dead friend, Spencer Lee, who murdered him, there is a scream, and when the lights come on, Wales is dead with a knife in his back. Supposedly this was done by someone in the séance circle to prevent the spirit of Spencer Lee from answering his friend.

Several other reviewers note Bela Lugosi as the reason to watch this one, but I pick Margaret Wycherly as the psychic. She plays one of the oddest and most intriguing characters of any era of film. She acts more like a tour guide in her friendliness than a mystic, and then proceeds to show everybody all of her tricks when she is faking as a means of proving that this time she is not faking. She actually solves the crime with the help of Lugosi's character, who, upon hearing her idea to expose the murderer says "What you propose is too horrible to contemplate – but we will do it!" She gives such an odd but likable performance it is a wonder she wasn't nominated for best actress.

This early talkie is not too talkie - in that there may be quite a bit of conversation, but it is all for a purpose. It really is quite creative throughout and the plot twists will keep you guessing. I recommend it, just remember you are dealing with the limitations of very early sound film, which primarily was movement.

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 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.