Thirteen Women (1932)

Some things I liked some I did not.

A Brilliant Conflict

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

. . . that only the tip of the iceberg will fit this space (though a more extensive treatment is now in the "Top Twenty" of my book project bucket list). As he prepared to do a "Fair and Balanced" rewriting of America's Civil War, in which the Lazy Racist Traitors would be recast as the "Good Guys" (!), infamous Tinseltown Producer "Dave Zitsmuglethorpe III" tackled THIRTEEN WOMEN as a beta project experiment in the Power of Mass Hypnotic Suggestion. He figured that if A)He filmed a flick about a lady killing herself just because her astrologist told her to, and B)If the Real Life actress he coerced into this mind-bending role as her movie debut could be persuaded by his studio shrink to kill herself FOR REAL by jumping off the "H" in the "Hollywoodland" sign (as it read back then) during THIRTEEN WOMEN's opening weekend, and C)If he could callously capitalize on this True Life calamity to still persuade a gullible U.S. public to pony up their dough to see his snuff film, then D)It would prove that he could switch to a even less ethical but more lucrative film studio to make Abe Lincoln die in vain, and guarantee that statues of the KKK's founder would continue to lord it over the victims of Slavery's Whipping Posts and the on-going Black Holocaust for seven or eight more decades. Zitsmuglethorpe III will go down as one of History's most evil villains, and THIRTEEN WOMEN will be remembered as his Black Sabbath Baptismal Fount.

Somewhere written in the stars, made me, want to see this movie. Call it the power of suggestion, but I found this beautiful female ensemble film, pretty interesting. Directed by George Archainbaud, this psychological hypnosis thriller was based on the 1930 bestselling novel by Tiffany Thayer, of the same name. The story tells the story of 13th women, who were once into the occult. During their time as sorority sisters, they mistreated, and condescension, another woman, Ursula Georgi (Myrna Loy), because of her mixed-race heritage. 15 years later, all the girls, receives a horoscope letter from fame, swami, Yogadachi (C. Henry Gordon), foreseeing their end, because of that one crude act. Soon enough, the women started to be die in mysterious tragic ways. Fearing for her life, one of the 13th women, Laura Stanhope (Irene Dunne) to eager to find a way to stop the terrific curse, by confronting the dark figure from the past, in a last ditch attempt to save herself and her family. Without spoiling the movie too much, the movie is very entertaining, despite it, being really dated. While, the special effects are bit rough like the flowing head. It's still works. The action scenes like the slow car chase might seem bit silly, today. It's still intense, watching it. The acting is alright for the most part, but there are way too much characters to keep track of. All of the women, look way too much like each other. The ones that stand out, were a joy. Loy and Dunne were superb. In a rather creepy parallel event, one of the supporting actress, Penny Entwistle, commit suicide, a few weeks, before the movie release by jumping from the Hollywoodland Sign, due to her screen time here being cut-down and her career dying down. Many believe, this movie is haunted, because of that. While the movie might seem like very one-dimension, it's not. Made, before the Hays Code, the movie tackle a lot of deep social issues, such as religionist practices, social classes, women rights, miscegenation, and others. In many ways, Thirteen Women was one of the first exploitation films that feature many lurid subject matters. One of the biggest issues that the movie often, get criticize for, is the way, it seem to present the film's concept of race. While the movie might be look upon, as racist, outdated, xenophobia propaganda, to a lot of modern audiences. The movie does have some moments that taught people, to be a little more racial tolerance and respect, toward people of another race or a mixed-race, in some degree. This little message, would often be, overlook, due to the highly offensive and often preachy, racial purification message that this movie was presenting. The movie haves this idea that mixed breeding is wrong and by doing it, would lead to demon-like supernatural spawns that will seek revenge on the purists. I really found this part of the film to be a bit misleading since genetic diversity has been going on, since the beginning of time. After all, most Caucasian are already mixed-breed on their own, way before this movie came out. The movie would later, contradict this, by pushing making a statement, about race and the social stratification, through the eyes of Ursula Georgi. While, Ursula is play as the villain, in the film, in many ways, the writers made her, seem more like the victim in a way. The movie gave her, a lot more depth and heart that a normal 1930s villain might get. I can relate to her. She was indeed a complex character who often told the truth, more than lie. It's true, that fair-skinned people, in the 1930s had more social freedoms, than minorities. The only problem with this plot, is that Ursula Georgi looks white and could be easily mistaken for one. It's really hard to believe, that Ursula wouldn't be able to gain the same social opportunities as the other women, due to her race. I really find it, funny that Myrna Loy's character is supposed to Javanese mixed with Indian, but she shows, none of the characteristic of being, from that area. It's somewhat also outrageous, how little, the writers know Indian culture. They portray the often peaceful Hinduism religion as an evil devil-worshipping occult to the point that it felt like it was self-referential, something else. I know that, many modern audience today probably couldn't look deeper into the film, due to how offensive, the film is, but I found the movie to be, a little more gripping in its storytelling. I see the film, as a foreshadowing metaphor for the rise of Nazism. There are lots of examples in this film that point to this theory. It's very plausible. Still, I really don't know, if the movie was trying to be anti-racist, or racist. That movie message came across as very clumsy and very un-coherence as the movie seem to no clue, what it was presenting. It change a lot of things from the source material. In no-way, can be compare to better than the book. The movie also falls short of being an uncommonly deep, due to it, feeling a bit incomplete. This might be because, 14 minutes were removed before the movie's release due to censorship disrupts. Due to this, the movie has a lot of awkward cut-scenes with star-shape fade outs. While the movie is call; 13th women; in truth, the film only portrays eleven ladies, due to these awful editing cut scenes. The movie ends in a mere 59 minutes, which is way too short. Sadly, the delete scenes were never put back in, as those scenes were presumably lost even today. The Warner Archive Collection's DVD-R of this movie tries to have a good version, but while it's transfer of this is great. Some reels still have light scratches and scattered dust. Still, overall: this movie is a highly eccentric, vintage RKO thriller, worth the watch. I do recommended

Spiritualism was a craze at the time this was made and hypnosis not really understood by the public at large something of which the scriptwriters took advantage. They concocted this wildly dated, at times preposterous and overwrought meller that if nothing else spotlights a couple of soon to be top stars.This silly junk was one of Myrna's final Eurasian villainess roles. It's interesting after years of exposure to her as the perfect wife or the level headed, spunky All-American woman to see her in a role that was typical of her pre-stardom days, that of the foreign mantrap. She looks great but is far better than the part deserves. She is noticeably understated while most of the other performers over emote. Made when sound was in its relative infancy many of the performers are still reliant on over-sized, distracting stage gestures. Irene Dunne starts the picture in subdued fashion but ends up as over the top as everyone else, she's been much better elsewhere. Same goes for Florence Eldridge, a very fine actress usually though she's overblown in this. Full of actresses of note for one reason or another. Besides Myrna and Irene there is Jill Esmond, first wife of Laurence Olivier, Kay Johnson, a DeMille favorite and the mother of respected character actor James Cromwell and Peg Entwistle, the infamous and tragic actress who threw herself from the Hollywood sign in despair a few days after this film premiered, it's her only film credit. Except for the two leading ladies each only get a scene or two to make an impression.Fun in a ludicrous way but aside from the cast this is a routine, if outlandish, programmer that were it not for them would be utter forgotten.

In the early thirties Tiffany Thayer had written two books which depicted the plight of the half caste - "Call Her Savage" - a super film with Clara Bow as Nasa, a fiery "half breed, in a very sympathetic characterization, and "Thirteen Women" - a not so sympathetic treatment. At one point in the film Sergeant Barry Clive (Ricardo Cortez) says "she's one of those half-castes - half Indian or half Chinese". In fact nowadays Ursula Georgi (Myrna Loy) would have garnered a lot of sympathy. As a young street urchin being sent to an exclusive girl's school, the constant taunts and bullying from a particular sorority group forced her to leave and not be able to take her place in the "white" world. Myrna Loy is mesmerizingly beautiful as Ursula. With David O. Selznick as executive producer and a beautiful haunting score by Max Steiner, this movie was obviously designed as a class A production, so what went wrong to have it drastically cut by 10 minutes?June Rasko (Mary Duncan) and her sister (Harriet Hagman) are the first to meet grim fates, linked to a horrific horoscope chart that has been sent to 12 women, predicting death and destruction in their lives. The horoscopes were sent by Swarmi Yogodachi (C. Henry Gordon) and his original readings saw only happiness, but he is only a puppet and is under the spell of Ursula Georgi, who is exacting insane revenge for the treatment she received at school. When another classmate, Hazel Cousins (Peg Entwhistle) kills her husband and cries "I must have been out of my mind" - Laura (Irene Dunne) summons the rest of her school friends to a weekend retreat to show a united front and laugh it off.Helen Dawson (Kay Johnson), unfortunately, doesn't make it. She meets Ursula on the train and her hypnotic presence causes Helen to take her own life. I think Kay Johnson gives a very restrained performance in the small time allotted - I don't think she overacts. Her character is the only one who shows Ursula sympathy. When she bumps into her she recalls "You wouldn't have very many happy memories as we didn't treat you very well". When Sergeant Clive calls on Laura to explain what happened to Helen, Laura also confesses she has had a letter predicting her little boy, Bobby, will die before his next birthday. The rest of the movie is concerned with keeping Bobby away from some mysterious poisonous chocolates and a bouncy ball that will explode on impact. Wally Albright is just adorable - a real little boy and not a "child star".Ursula has dispensed with Yogodachi, sending his hypnotised body under a train and she has now taken up with Laura's chauffeur, Burns (Edward Pawley) - These old movies teach you never to trust a chauffeur!!! One event Yogodachi had predicted and that was Ursula's terrible death on board a speeding train.To see this film complete would be marvellous. Julie Hayden was one of the women whose scenes were deleted. She was a beautiful actress in the Ann Harding mold (she even played her daughter in "The Conquerors"). The films that I have managed to see her in, I found her to be a very sensitive actress but Hollywood didn't treat her well. John Springer talked glowingly of her role in "Thirteen Women" in 1974 so it must have been complete at one stage. Fortunately people like Noel Coward and George Jean Nathan did see a special something in her and she had a Broadway career.Highly Recommended.