The Mystery of the 13th Guest

A young woman's grandfather hosts a dinner party for thirteen guests, and he mysteriously dies. Thirteen years later, the woman believes that someone connected to the fatal party is trying to kill her.

I had never heard of this film before, and I doubt very many people have. Which is a shame. It has a good pace, a good story, and wraps up in around an hour. This is the kind of film anyone could enjoy.

In some ways, it has the feel of Agatha Christie's "And Then There Were None", but it is its own story and should not be written off as a derivative narrative. Well, unless you consider it derivative of the previous incarnation, "The Thirteenth Guest" (1932). As I have not seen that version, I cannot comment.

I had high hopes for this one after reading only the little blurb that comes up with the olde timey movies on Tubi but ... whoa .. is it ever a stinker.

II's like an expanded three stooges short directed by Ed Wood but without the charm of his ineptitude. The characters are not introduced or developed ... any of them. The running jokes are not even vaguely amusing.

It's a mess. Give it a miss !

The Morgan house at has been locked up for thirteen years, ever since the death of the family patriarch (played in flashback by Lloyd Ingraham). There was, of course, the usual rigmarole of mutually antagonistic heirs, a shady lawyer, and a will calculated to make things as difficult as possible for everybody. The dying Morgan had summoned Barksdale the lawyer and all ten of the heirs out to the house to discuss his impending death and its aftermath. Morgan's will was sealed, its contents secret even from Barksdale, and it was to remain so until the youngest of his grandchildren- eight-year-old Marie (played as an adult by Helen Parrish)- turned 21. When Marie turns 21 yesterday, she lets herself into her grandfather's house, she finds it exactly as it was thirteen years ago, except with a telephone installed, which doesn't make a lot of sense in a house where nobody lives. A shot rings out, and Marie rushes to the mysterious telephone to call the police. No sooner has she lifted the handset to her ear, though, than she goes into convulsions and sinks slowly to the floor, apparently dead. Soon more dead bodies follow...

Decent enough mystery with a idea typical of the era, some fine creepy house atmosphere and shadows and a creepy looking killer donned with mask a la michael Myers, however it doesn't really lifts itself above ordinary. Still it's watchable and there's some good humorous dialogue.

I've met several people who feel that this version is much better than the original (Ginger Rogers / Lyle Talbot) picture. I disagree.

All the "spookiness" from the original (including the black-robed 'phantom') is gone, and the film is "just another mystery".

But, to each his own!

Norm

Mystery of the 13th Guest, The (1943)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Decent "B" movie about a family getting together for the eldest to announce that his will won't be read for another thirteen years after his granddaughter turns twenty-one. Thirteen years later the guests at that party start turning up dead so it's up to a private detective (Dick Purcell) and a Police Lt. (Tim Ryan) to figure out who's doing the killings. If you're looking for high art then you're not going to find it here but if you're looking for an hour to kill with some light entertainment then you might find this Monogram quickie entertaining. Old 'One Shot' Beaudine certainly doesn't do anything overly special with this murder-mystery but he at least keeps the pace up so that the brief 60-minutes go by quickly and without too much dead space. The screenplay itself certainly doesn't try to do anything ground breaking but it keeps the characters interesting and the murderer under wraps until the very end, which is pretty much all you can ask for out of a film like this. Purcell does a pretty good job with his role and makes the fast-talking wise guy fun to watch. His back-and-forth banter with Ryan is pretty entertaining and Helen Parrish makes for a good female lead. Frank Faylen plays the dimwitted cop and gets a few laughs. The rest of the cast are serviceable and give pretty much what you'd expect out of them. The mystery itself is a pretty good one as I found the murder weapon (an electrical wire attached to a phone) to be quite fun and all the horror trappings like the mysterious hidden doors and traps to help keep things moving. No one is ever going to mistake this film for a classic but if you're a fan of the genre then you'll know that there's much worse out there.