Best Friend “Roommates” in Albert Ray’s ‘The Thirteenth Guest’

Pre-Code Problems.

After wrapping up October with Robert Zemeckis’ hilarious dark comedy Death Becomes Her (listen), we kicked off November with a look back at Wes Craven’s classic slasher A Nightmare on Elm Street (listen). Now, we’re traveling all the way back to the ’30s to discuss Albert Ray‘s 1932 murder mystery comedy The Thirteenth Guest!

In The Thirteenth Guest, Marie Morgan (Ginger Rogers) has just turned 21 and can now accept the inheritance that her father left her when he died at a dinner party 13 years prior. That dinner party was supposed to have 13 guests in attendance, but only 12 showed up.

While Marie tries to figure out the identity of the mysteriously absent thirteenth guest, a psychopath has started killing off the other attendees of that fated dinner party, with the dead bodies being left at the table in the same seats they had originally occupied all those years ago.

As the bodies start piling up, private investigator Phil Winston (Lyle Talbot) is called in to solve the mystery, but can he find the killer before it’s too late?

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Episode 308: The Thirteenth Guest (1932)

Prepare to get “potted” because we’re discussing not just any murder, but a good murder in Albert Ray‘s confusing as all get-out 1932 murder mystery comedy The Thirteenth Guest! Tagging in for the conversation is Amanda Jane Stern, the co-writer/star of the new psychosexual thriller Perfectly Good Moment.

Join us as we try to figure out just what the hell is going on in this convoluted little film, which features an early Ginger Rogers performance (in a dual role, no less!). From electrified telephones to mysterious rooms without trap doors, there’s just too much crammed into this film’s extremely brief 69-minute runtime for it to make any kind of sense.

Plus: an absolutely horrifying colorized version of the film, a brother and his “roommate,” and souls that look like the inside of vinegar bottles. Oh, and who in the hell is the titular thirteenth guest???

Cross out The Thirteenth Guest!

Coming up on Wednesday: To celebrate the premiere of The Creep Tapes on Shudder (review), we’re taking a look at the better-than-the-original sequel Creep 2!

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