Friday the Thirteenth

Absolute grabber of a movie, and given its age, years ahead of its time. I first saw this the week my dad came home with a neighbor's TV, that the guy had thrown on the scrap heap. A tinkerer with all things electrical, dad had it working inside two days. This was July 1955...and then probably only the third house in the street to HAVE television! Pretty much the first thing we ever saw on that grainy and flickering old 12-inch screen was THIS film. "It's pretty OLD dear," I recall my mom telling me!

Almost 50 years on, and it doesn't seem any older - rather like World War I in that respect! Terrific little fantasy about a London omnibus carrying thirteen passengers, that crashes, killing one of their number. Then, in flashback we pick up on the lives of these people and what brought them to being on this bus that very day.

Returning to the crash at the end of the film, the victim's identity is revealed, perhaps the inspiration behind the 1960 movie THE LIST OF ADRIAN MESSENGER.

If ever you come across this little gem, I suggest you watch it!

Interesting mix of Hitchcock-type of mystery and early film noir has a London bus careering down the road, on a rainy Friday the 13th, at 11.59pm, when lightning strikes causing an accident which kills two on board. Big Ben winds backward, and we're taken back to Thursday the 12th and shown (in far too much detail?) the lives of the people involved in said bus accident. This series of vignettes ties together each individual's story, placing them together on this doomed bus ride. The mystery comes from wondering which of the two passengers perish in the accident.

A bit of fun is had along the way at the expense of ridiculous clichés and superstitions (seven years back luck, throwing salt over one's shoulder, the film's date of occurrence) and the last scene, with the small boy and the old lady, is most amusing.

I recently saw this ancient British film again after a 30 year hiatus.

Luckily it was the recent DVD from NETWORK with possibly the best surviving print that I saw. I won't repeat the complex plot (every reviewer on IMDb seems compelled to reprise film plots for some reason), apart from saying that the narrative binds together a group of disparate characters over a 24 hour period, each with his/her own story, much like the later films TALES OF MANHATTAN (1942) FLESH AND FANTASY (1943) DEAD OF NIGHT (1945) BOND STREET (1948) etc. This film is probably the first talkie to use such a device and its cast is stuffed with famous stars of the early 1930s. Which makes spotting familiar faces (if you are a film buff) part of the fun of watching this.

Its main attraction for me though, is that it offers a tantalizing glimpse of London as it was almost 90 years ago, a London and a way of life in Britain that has vanished completely. The street and railway station scenes, the atmosphere on a typical London bus of that time with a conductor, and the whole ambiance of the film are priceless.

It also provides Max Miller with perhaps his best screen role, allowing him to demonstrate his astonishing facility for rapid-fire dialogue that would not have been out of place at Warner Brothers in the mid 1930s.

Think Pat O'Brien and James Cagney in such films as BOY MEETS GIRL and CEILING ZERO and then watch Max do his stuff. He's terrific and easily competes with them.

Some scenes creak today as one would expect, but for the most part, this is a vivid, highly entertaining little film that deserves to be far better known than it is.

Even the younger actors have long since left the stage. This was filmed when the crossover from vaudeville productions was not complete. These people know how to portray character to an audience. The writers knew how to construct a good story too. The accident. The rewind showing the lead in to the now inevitable, followed by a denouement that blossoms as the petals fall. All connected, interconnected and ironic. We are an older world than they were. Average age in UK is approximately 40 now, but must have been mid 20's then. It's nice to see younger people with legitimate young peoples issues. A newly engaged couple must transcend their separate lives .. without experience to guide them. Nowadays, there are experienced prevaricators with different issues.

Enjoy this film. Don't expect modern hoopla, but allow yourself to enjoy. I give you permission :D

Despite its age, this film retains its undoubted charm and attraction, and is a fine, surviving example of early British cinema. It has an underlying air of eeriness, interspersed with shafts of humour which are not out of place, and serve to demonstrate the assured direction & production values involved. So many episodic type films are disjointed and untidy, but this is not one of them. The standard of acting helps a great deal, and the various disparate characters come across as interesting and believable. All in all, this long-forgotten little gem is well worth anyone's attention, in spite of the one jarring note in the film which, surprisingly, escaped the censor's attention!