The Thirteenth Chair

This seems to have been the first major film role film for Bela Lugosi. He dominates the film entirely, with tremendous confidence and panache. Two years later, he and the same director, Tod Browning, would make their famous horror classic 'Dracula' (1931) together. This film is based on a stage play by Bayard Veiller, whose wife, Margaret Wycherley, played the medium both on stage and in the film, to great effect. Since talkies only commenced the year before, this 1929 film does very well in the sound department. What is really terrible about it is the editing, some of the worst any feature film ever had: a woman gets up from her chair and exits frame and we wait for some time, then we cut to the next frame and wait an endless age for her to enter that frame. Really appalling! Tod Browning either had no control over this process or had not learned to direct properly yet. Despite the slow pace and creaky nature of the production, the film nevertheless manages to be intriguing in its excellently complex mystery plot. It is one of those 'people in a room in the dark' films: whodunnit? There are plenty of surprises. The story is ostensibly set in Calcutta, under the Empire, although shot entirely in a studio. It is an interesting study of how British Empire types behaved in the 1920s, hence of considerable social history interest as a 'document'. (They don't come out of it well, being so arch, false, and over-mannered that one does not regret their passing.) The main action centres round a seance and the activities of a medium, in connection with trying to solve the murder of someone who was 'an out and out rotter'. Despite its shortcomings, this film is still entertaining and worth watching.

Looking at the reviews, I saw that there was a group that loved the film and a group that hated it. When I see this kind of sharp dichotomy, I like to comment. I first saw the overall rating as 5.1, which seemed unfairly low. I liked the film because it was very superior writing and I was wowed by the performances of Margaret Wycherly and Bela Lugosi. The film was taken from a play with the dialog mostly intact. The writing for the play, as well as the play itself, was a critical and popular success - as was the film. Margaret Wycherly was a well-known and highly respected British actress who also appeared in the play. All reviews are valid if they honestly and clearly describe the reviewer's reactions. I don't like murder mysteries, but I took a chance on this one because I liked the story outline and I was pleasantly surprised. I happen to hate horror pictures so I was not a fan of Bela Lugosi, but he was great in this non-horror role. One negative review called it too "stagey" and indeed that's a valid observation as it was a stage play adapted to film. I have seen stage plays that were filmed as they were played on stage, but the filmed version never seemed right - however, this stage script was very well adapted to film - also keeping the high quality script intact. Perhaps, the most telling negative comment was that the film was "dull". And indeed if one really likes standard murder mystery films with lots of physical action (or if one is just in the mood for such), one might find the film "dull". The reader of reviews needs to find which reviews reflect his/her tastes and criteria and go with that review.

Directed by Tod Browning, The Thirteenth Chair is a well-written and acted murder mystery from a time (1929) when, due to primitive sound recording techniques, the camera had to remain in one place during a scene. The result is that the movie, while well-designed, is rather static visually. It more than makes up for this by having an exciting, if at times rather hard to follow plot, and an ingenious script with enough twists and turns in the plot to satisfy most mystery fans. For claustrophiles the movie is a delight: no one goes ANYWHERE in this film. There are some interesting visual and spatial peculiarities in the movie, such as very high ceilings on the sets, and more obviously fake than usual exteriors just outside the windows. People have a way of assembling in rooms rather than just sitting there or milling around, which gives the movie an offbeat, ritualistic feeling; probably typical enough in the theater of the time, but unusual in a film.

The actors, notably Margaret Wycherly, are quite good, with Bela Lugosi giving an energetic reading of a shrewd police detective in a quite different key from his later work. One can't help but wonder what sort of screen actor Lugosi might have become had he not been typecast in horror roles. Leila Hyams is radiant as one of the chief suspects, and it's remarkable that she didn't become a bigger star, on looks alone. There is no pace to speak of in the film, as the story proceeds by dialog, and by people entering and exiting rooms on cue. Nor are there any of the typical Browning flourishes, as the movie seems anonymously directed. But the script is very tight, and there are some surprises along the way, and moments of unexpected warmth and feeling that make this a watchable and satisfying antique.

This isn't a typical Tod Browning film. It's more or less a very basic filming of a stage play (I gather; I don't know that for sure, but it feels very stagey) about a group of rich people who hire a medium to find out who killed their friend (and, to some of the group, an enemy). When they go into their seance, right as the name of the killer is about to be spoken, one of the men in the circle, the one who was succeeding at questioning the medium, is stabbed in the back. They then call a detective (Bela Lugosi) who grills them, trying to discover who murdered both of these men. I don't generally like whodunits, especially the Clue variety, where a detective gathers all the suspects in a room and attempts to root out the real killer, but The Thirteenth Chair is exceptionally written. The characters, and there are many, are quite well developed. The climactic scene, while asking that we suspend our disbelief, is truly suspenseful. See this gem if you ever get the chance. 9/10.

This film proves that in 1929 a lot of talking films were still primitive and although most of the cast seemed reasonably at ease with dialogue, John Davidson's perfect and slow pronunciation really stuck out. There is even a scene toward the end where people are grouped (obviously waiting to begin the scene) and after a few seconds they start talking and mingling. "Locked room" movies were all the rage in these early days - one set was all that was needed and the studios could then show off their sound skills. For MGM, who had already made "The Broadway Melody", "The Last of Mrs. Cheyney" and "Halelujah", this film was static and unimaginative. The magic that Tod Browning had weaved with Lon Chaney in the 20s seemed to evaporate when talking pictures appeared. Apart from "Dracula" and "Freaks", which harked back to his days as a director of shock and suspense, he spent the rest of his career in programmers and remakes of his silent hits.

It also feels like it has a few minutes missing from the start - or I'm a bit dense!! Everyone seems to know what's going on already - renowned womaniser Spencer Lee has been killed by a woman - but which woman??? Ned Wales (John Davidson) is the only person in the house who liked Lee (Spencer had saved him from drowning when they were children) and who is determined to find his killer. Even he acts suspiciously, trying to bribe the servants (again, the action obviously takes place in India but the audience is never told). There is an establishing shot of the two leads, Richard Crosby (Conrad Nagel) is trying to convince Helen O'Neill (Leila Hyams) to marry him. It's the old "you may be only my mother's secretary but you're good enough for me" routine. Nagel and Hyams may have been the leads but they are only required to stand around looking worried, fearful, determined etc.

The stage is set for the show down between the real stars - wonderful Margaret Wycherley as the medium Madame La Grange, an unassuming "nanny" type, who nevertheless, has a few secrets and menacing Bela Lugosi as Inspector Delzante and he still manages to act like Dracula. Even though that film role was 2 years in the future he had played it on Broadway on and off during the 20s. Just to hear him say "What you propose is too horrible to contemplate - but we will do it!!!

Margaret Wycherley was a character actress supreme. She really hit her stride in the 40s and even though you struggle to remember some of the movies, you definitely remember her ("Johnny Angel" - she played a domineering nanny). Of course she was Ma Jarrett in "White Heat" and Ma Forrester in "The Yearling" - "my boy, my poor crookedy boy". In "The Thirteenth Chair" she was a breath of fresh air and proved stage actors weren't always stiff. Her husband, Bayard Veiller wrote the original play "The Thirteenth Chair" that had a healthy run of 328 performances, back in 1916 and in which Margaret Wycherley played the same role of Rosalie La Grange.

Recommended.