Thirteen Women1932
Thirteen Women (1932)
Thirteen Women Photos
Movie Info
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Cast
as Laura Stanhope
as Ursula Georgi
as Police Sergeant Barry Clive
as Grace Coombs
as Jo Turner
as Helen Dawson
as Mary
as May Raskob
as June Raskob
as Hazel
as Nan
as Nan
as Bobby Stanhope
as Swami Yogadachi
as Burns
as Miss Kirsten
as Martha
as 12th Woman
as 13th Woman
as Equestrienne
as Equestrienne
as Trapeze Act
as Trapeze Act
as Trapeze Act
as Trapeze Act
as Wire Walker
as Circus Act
as Conductor
as Police Chief
as Inspector
as Detective
as Undetermined Role
as Coroner
as Police Chemist
as Porter
as Bit Part
Critic Reviews for Thirteen Women
All Critics (9) | Top Critics (3) | Fresh (5) | Rotten (4) | DVD (1)
It is horror without laughter, horror that is too awful to be modish and too stark to save itself from a headlong plunge into hokum.
[The book] was fast light reading, thanks to the writing, but on celluloid it deteriorates into an unreasonably far- fetched wholesale butcher shop drama which no amount of good acting could save.
Miss Dunne carries off a difficult part with complete success, and Ricardo Cortez makes an able detective.
Entertaining and gripping once you get into it, but it leaves you depressed.
The Tiffany Thayer novel achieves reasonable success as a thriller.
A slight crime drama thriller that's poorly acted and filled with hokum, but has enough charm to be entertaining.
Audience Reviews for Thirteen Women
Silly junk, wildly dated that was one of Myrna's final villainess Eurasian roles. She looks great but is far better than the part deserves.
Super Reviewer
Thirteen former sorority sisters start to receive, one by one, a horoscope prophesizing their doom from a renowned swami. When the prophecies begin to play out, the remaining few gather to fight their destiny. It turns out Myrna Loy attended their college but wasn't accepted into the sorority because she was a half-caste Hindu. It's Loy who is behind the letters, having influenced the swami with her mind powers, and she's out for bloody revenge on the girls who shunned her. Sounds like the plot of an eighties slasher like "House On Sorority Row" right? Wrong, this was made in 1932, taking advantage of that small window before the Hays Code shut the party down. I can't say if the makers of the "Final Destination" series were influenced by this but the theme of trying to escape your fate is very similar. The opening scene involving a trapeze act feels like a thirties precursor to the set pieces of that franchise. There's an effective scene on a subway platform, Archainbaud ratcheting up the tension by exaggerating the sound of the station turnstiles. Hollywood wasn't known for raising the issue of racism in the early thirties so the motives of Loy are quite a curiosity. Tellingly though she isn't portrayed with any of the sympathy such a character would evoke in a contemporary movie. Likewise the mention of a miscarriage feels pretty heavy compared to the general frothiness of thirties cinema. One of the women implies a promiscuous nature which will be a bit of a shock if you're not familiar with pre-code cinema. Irene Dunne plays a single mother, trying to stop Loy from claiming the life of her son. How often do we see a single mother as the heroine of a movie now let alone back then? Male audiences may have found this early feminism uncomfortable. In his review at the time, New York Times critic Mordaunt Hall noted "an uncomfortable absence of hearty male chatter in this demoniacal intrigue". Several characters meet their fate through suicide, a topic that immediately became taboo once the code was introduced. In possibly the first creepy offscreen coincidence surrounding the production of a horror movie, star Peg Entwistle ended her life on the day of the film's release. Dramatically, she threw herself from atop the letter H on the famous Hollywood sign. It may be creaky even for it's era but it's a nice little curiosity piece and an interesting foreshadowing of the slashers that would appear almost half a century later.
Super Reviewer
If you're someone who enjoys movies where women sit around and gossip and get divorces from their husbands, you'll like this movie, but if you're like me and want more from a movie look elsewhere. Overall, this movie is okay, but it's long and it gets annoying listening to the women gossip for scene after scene.
Super Reviewer
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