Thirteen Women (George Archainbaud, 1932)

[myrnaloyisdope]

Myrna Loy playing a serial killing mystic, sign me up. Loy is tremendous as a half-caste Indian girl slowly killing off her old white classmates through a series of deadly horoscopes. Irene Dunne is the only one who doesn't believe in the horoscopes and as such is cast as the hero. As with most of the evil foreigner films I have seen, I end up sympathizing more with the foreigner than the white heroes. In this case Loy's character was the victim of racism while in school, a fact that kind of gets glossed over matter-of-factly by every character but Loy's. Sure she's evil but at least she has some justification.

This is an interesting pre-code flick, pretty silly at times and over the top. But from a historical standpoint the film stands out as one of Irene Dunne's earliest starring roles, in fact the film was re-edited to give Dunne more screentime, and the only film that Peg Entwistle appeared in before famously committing suicide by jumping off the Hollywood sign.

Unfortunately the film to the best of my knowledge only exists in its truncated 59 minute form, a victim of cuts in order to see it get re-released in 1935. Anyone know if the 73 minute version exists?

I highly recommend it, mainly due to Myrna Loy being awesome, but also as a curiosity and a good example of pre-code film.

[starmanof51]

I highly recommend it, mainly due to Myrna Loy being awesome, but also as a curiosity and a good example of pre-code film.

Myrna is fun in it, but overall I'm afraid the silliness you refer to was too much for me to bear - melodrama of no particular cleverness or force, aside from the uniqueness of Myrna. And having 20% of it cut out seems to make it not at all a good example of a pre-code film - presumably the 20% missing is where a lot of the pre-code goodness was hiding. Despite being rather bored with it in its current form, I'd give the unexpurgated version another go if it were to turn up.

[Kinsayder]

Sadly, the French edition is the Hays-compliant 59m edit, despite announcing itself as 73m on the box. Archainbaud went on to churn out Hopalong Cassidy Westerns. His best film is said to be The Lost Squadron (1932) with Erich von Stroheim. Anyone seen that?

[tryavna]

His best film is said to be The Lost Squadron (1932) with Erich von Stroheim. Anyone seen that?

Yes, and sadly it's not as good as it sounds or as good as it should be. As always, Stroheim makes the movie worth watching, but Richard Dix nearly sinks it -- as he nearly sinks so many of the early 1930s films he appeared in. (And this is coming from somebody who loves Dix's work in Ghost Ship and The Whistler series!) I guess it's worth a look for the "behind-the-scenes" glimpses it offers of the movie industry at the time.

Actually, I'd say that Archainbaud's best film is The Penguin Pool Murder, which is an absolute delight.