Thirteen Women

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.

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?

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!

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.