The Mystery of the 13th Guest

Mystery of the 13th Guest, The (1943)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Decent "B" movie about a family getting together for the eldest to announce that his will won't be read for another thirteen years after his granddaughter turns twenty-one. Thirteen years later the guests at that party start turning up dead so it's up to a private detective (Dick Purcell) and a Police Lt. (Tim Ryan) to figure out who's doing the killings. If you're looking for high art then you're not going to find it here but if you're looking for an hour to kill with some light entertainment then you might find this Monogram quickie entertaining. Old 'One Shot' Beaudine certainly doesn't do anything overly special with this murder-mystery but he at least keeps the pace up so that the brief 60-minutes go by quickly and without too much dead space. The screenplay itself certainly doesn't try to do anything ground breaking but it keeps the characters interesting and the murderer under wraps until the very end, which is pretty much all you can ask for out of a film like this. Purcell does a pretty good job with his role and makes the fast-talking wise guy fun to watch. His back-and-forth banter with Ryan is pretty entertaining and Helen Parrish makes for a good female lead. Frank Faylen plays the dimwitted cop and gets a few laughs. The rest of the cast are serviceable and give pretty much what you'd expect out of them. The mystery itself is a pretty good one as I found the murder weapon (an electrical wire attached to a phone) to be quite fun and all the horror trappings like the mysterious hidden doors and traps to help keep things moving. No one is ever going to mistake this film for a classic but if you're a fan of the genre then you'll know that there's much worse out there.