The Thirteenth Guest

Joseph Stefano did it in PSYCHO... Kevin Williamson did it in SCREAM... But screenwriter Frances Hyland bumped off her leading lady even earlier in the 1932 horror-mystery, THE THIRTEENTH GUEST!    

It's my custom to begin these reviews with a little look at the exterior of the Old Dark House in question but, as you can see from the still above, this is one of those annoying cases where it's never really shown. This is about as much as the film provides, glimpsed right at the start. 

But what a start! A taxi pulls up late one night at 'the Old Morgan Place' on Old Mill Road and out steps Marie Morgan (a young Ginger Rogers). She's been lured to the former family homestead on her 21st birthday - which also happens to be the thirteenth anniversary of a dreadful dinner party during which her father not only announced some strange changes to his will, but also dropped dead. What strange changes, you ask? Well, he provided for his wife and immediate family, naturally, but the bulk of his fortune was destined for the party's mysterious 'thirteenth guest' - someone who never actually arrived and whose identity remains unknown. The house has been shut up ever since. 

Back in the present, Marie finds, oddly, the electricity switched on and a new telephone installed in the otherwise derelict and cobweb-choked property, along with an envelope addressed to her. The note inside reads: 13 - 13 - 13. She hears a noise, goes to investigate; we hear a scream, a gunshot... and the next thing we know is Captain Ryan of the local police force is phoning his friend, private investigator Phil Winston, with the promise of a 'really good murder' to solve... 

And, wowee, yes - this one does turn out to be a pretty good case! Not so much the outcome (the final revelation is actually a bit of a let-down) but the journey there involves a roster of suspects who've grown bitchier with each year since their fateful gathering, plus secret passages, a fairly inventive murder weapon and a howling, hooded villain. On top of that, this already quite slasherific killer also likes to pose their victims' bodies around the original dinner table in a Tableau of Death™, a trope that became a slasher film standard fifty years later:

The script finds an excuse to bring Ginger Rogers back after her early exit - a wise decision because she's a lot of fun. The same goes for Lyle Talbot, on a major smarm offensive as the unapologetically sleazy detective, Winston. (This lively duo reunited the following year for another mystery, A Shriek in the Night, also written by Frances Hyland.) Winston's amorous antics, along with some clanging double entendres, make it pretty obvious this one's pre-Code, but there's some surprising shading around two male characters presented as being in a relationship. (A police officer even refers to one as the other's 'boyfriend'.) 

If there is a weakness it's that aforementioned climactic reveal but, coming off the back of some strong suspense and ingenious plotting, I say ignore the black fly and down the chardonnay... It's not always this sweet.  

RATING: 🕸🕸🕸