The Thirteenth Guest

The Thirteenth Guest
The Thirteenth Guest
Directed by	Albert Ray
Written by	Arthur Hoerl (screenplay); Frances Hyland (screenplay); Armitage Trail (additional dialogue)
Produced by	M.H. Hoffman
Starring	Ginger Rogers; Lyle Talbot; J. Farrell MacDonald; Paul Hurst; Erville Alderson; Ethel Wales; Crauford Kent; Eddie Phillips; Frances Rich
Cinematography	Tom Galligan; Harry Neumann
Edited by	Leete Renick Brown
Production; company	Monogram Pictures Corporation
Distributed by	Monogram Pictures Corporation
Release date	August 9, 1932;
Running time	69 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

The Thirteenth Guest is a 1932 American pre-Code mystery comedy thriller film, released on August 9, 1932. The film is also known as Lady Beware in the United Kingdom. It is based on the 1929 novel The Thirteenth Guest written by crime fiction author Armitage Trail,^[1] best known for the novel Scarface^[2] on which the 1932 movie of the same name was based. The novel was filmed again in 1943 as Mystery of the 13th Guest.^[3]

Plot

The Thirteenth Guest ad from The Film Daily, 1932

Marie Morgan has been lured to an old abandoned house by a false note from a friend, and is in jeopardy although she doesn't yet realize it. As she sits at the table inside, she thinks back to the banquet held there 13 years earlier, when she was a little girl. Only 12 of 13 guests had attended, and the manor's owner, the Morgan family patriarch, who was then dying, has since passed on. The chance to claim the bulk of the estate fortune has resulted in an ongoing campaign of murder by someone targeting the original 12 guests, whose dead bodies are being left at the table in the same seats they had occupied originally.

Cast

Ginger Rogers as Lela/Marie Morgan
Lyle Talbot as Phil Winston
J. Farrell MacDonald as Police Captain Ryan
Paul Hurst as Detective Grump
Erville Alderson as Uncle John Adams
Ethel Wales as Aunt Jane Thornton
James Eagles as Harold 'Bud' Morgan
Crauford Kent as Dr. Sherwood
Eddie Phillips as Thor Jensen
Frances Rich as Marjorie Thornton
Phillips Smalley as Uncle Dick Thornton
Allan Cavan as Uncle Wayne Seymour (uncredited)
William Davidson as Police Captain Brown (uncredited)
John Ince as Uncle John Morgan (uncredited)
Tom London as Detective Carter (uncredited)
Harry Tenbrook as Cabby (uncredited)
Adrienne Dore as Winston's Date (uncredited)

Reception

The film was a box office success and received mostly positive reviews from critics. Variety called it "vastly superior" and "a positive money maker".^[4]

References

^ Trail, Armitage (1929). The Thirteenth Guest (First ed.). Whitman. ASIN B000KD7C8U.
^ Trail, Armitage (1930). Scarface (1ST ed.). D.J. Clode. ASIN B00085TELI.
^ The Thirteenth Guest Archived November 13, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, msnbc.com; accessed August 3, 2015.
^ Waly (September 1932). "The Thirteenth Guest". Variety. p. 21.

External links

The Thirteenth Guest at IMDb
The Thirteenth Guest youtube
The Thirteenth Guest is available for free viewing and download at the Internet Archive
The Thirteenth Guest at AllMovie

This article about a mystery film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.

[1] Trail, Armitage (1929). The Thirteenth Guest (First ed.). Whitman. ASIN B000KD7C8U.

[2] Trail, Armitage (1930). Scarface (1ST ed.). D.J. Clode. ASIN B00085TELI.

[3] The Thirteenth Guest Archived November 13, 2013, at the Wayback Machine, msnbc.com; accessed August 3, 2015.

[4] Waly (September 1932). "The Thirteenth Guest". Variety. p. 21.

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