The Mystery of the 13th Guest (1943)

Plain old bad, 5 May 2020

The biggest mystery in The Mystery of the 13th Guest is how do you take an idea with promise and an interesting set-up and create an absolutely horrible movie?  The makings of a fairly entertaining movie are there.  An old man, about to kick the bucket, invites his mostly ungrateful family to dine with him so that he might go over the contents of his will.  There are twelve people at the dinner, but thirteen chairs.  Years later, just as his heir is set to inherit, one by one, the members of the dinner party are killed off and their bodies are placed in the same chair in which they sat thirteen years previous.  Sounds pretty good, huh?

So, who’s the 13th chair for?  Well, that’s one of the most frustrating aspects of the movie.  The movie never bothers to solve the titular mystery of the 13th guest.  They mention it at the dinner party, but as far as I know, we never discover the answer. 

The second and even more frustrating thing with The Mystery of the 13th Guest is all of the lame comedy.  Every single character is a would-be comedian.  It’s all so annoying.  And to make matters even worse, none (and I mean absolutely none) of the comedy is the slightest bit funny.  It all goes over like a lead balloon.  The most egregious offender is a character named Speed Dugan played by Frank Faylen.  Never in my life have I wanted a character to die as much as this one.  He’s painful to watch.   

If you haven’t gotten it yet, I don’t care for this movie at all.  I’m often accused by my family of liking any movie made before 1970.  Well, from now on, I’m going to use The Mystery of the 13th Guest as an example of a “classic” film that I cannot stomach.  It’s just so God awful.

2/10