THE THIRTEENTH GUEST
US, 1932, 68 minutes, Black and white.
Ginger Rogers, Lyle Talbot, J.Farrell McDonald?, Paul Hurst.
Directed by Albert Ray.
This is quite an early supporting feature, running just over an hour, a variation on all those popular stories of mysterious houses and murders, wills and the reactions of the claimants, schemes for murdering people – and a final gathering where the murderer is revealed.
The film is in historical interest because it is an early Ginger Rogers film, made when she was about 21 – to go on to a significant career, dancing with Fred Astaire, and Oscar in 1944 for Kitty Foyle. The leading man, playing a private detective, is Lyle Talbot. Character actor, J.Mc Donald Farrell is the investigating policeman.
The film opens with the murder, the Ginger Rogers character, Marie, seeming to arrive at the mysterious old home, the dining room set up as it was 13 years earlier when the master of the house read his mysterious will, leaving everything to the 13th guest, and died that night. Within a few minutes, the woman is electrocuted and sat at the table in her original place.
The police are mystified, Inspector Ryan calling in the private detective who takes a very nonchalant attitude towards all the investigation. Then there is a second murder, the lawyer who was present at the dinner. All those who were at the dinner are assembled, though some have died, one missing. The placements are all written down.
There is a complication when the Ginger Rogers character, real, is discovered and the substitute revealed as having a facelift to resemble her – later revelation about the lawyer and her brother’s best friend and a scheme.
The suspects are a generally unpleasant lot, a very flirtatious cousin, her bitter dowager mother, her businessman father, another seemingly benign uncle, and a doctor friend of the family. They are all rather blasé so the private detective has them all arrested and kept in custody. Meanwhile there is another murder.
The murderer is shown veiled and gloved – rather unnecessary since none of the victims actually sees the murderer. The weapon is an electrical device connected to the telephone, the switch pulled when the intended victim answers the phone.
There is some deception, Marie invited to the house, almost killed but not answering the phone, then in the struggle with the hooded murderer. In the meantime, there has been the revelation about the facelift.
The revelation is that the seemingly friendly uncle is the murderer and that there is a special code for a safe in which $1 million is found, destined by the father for his daughter.
This is a pre-code film so there are some suggestive comments and incidents – especially with the awkward police officer, Grump, Paul Hurst, asked to follow the flirtatious woman and arriving back at the station after going in the car with her instead of after her, with his shoes on his opposite feet. Not the kind of ending that was to come with the implementation of the Code.
