Very well executed

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Like some of the other reviewers, I agree this was a bad, poorly made movie. The story line is good, but the comedic spots seem out of place in what appears to be a dramatic story. I would have liked to have seen a list of the full cast as I enjoy looking up what other films the actors have done. For instance, the child actor who portrayed young Bud also portrayed young George Bailey in "It's a Wonderful Life". Interestingly enough, the goofy cop in this movie played the taxi driver in "It's a Wonderful Life". I found the portrayal of the valet in very poor taste and offensive. I know African American actors had little choice in their roles at the time, so I don't blame the actor, but the writer, director and producer. I'm looking forward to viewing the other movie version with Ginger Rogers. It can't be this bad. Oh my!

I missed the opening titles of this movie and did not realize it was a Monogram picture.The first few minutes showed great promise, but when the police arrived after the criminal commission, the movie collapsed into the giant abyss of failure.The script has to be the worst ever, accompanied by equally bad acting.The agony was excruciating.Wanting to determine the identity of the 13th guest, I stuck it out for the duration, knowing it was only an hour long.Alas, the mystery prevails.But then, what more could be expected.

Mystery of the 13th Guest (1943)I have to admit, I started this with too high expectations--it had great mood, great B-movie sets, and a plot that sounded great in an Agatha Christie way. But then the corny style of acting kicked in--it's a kind of pre-TV flippant entertainment, purposely aiming for a slight, silly humor at the expense of real drama. Too bad.So I watched the rest with half an eye, which was enough. The plot is highly contrived and highly important--it's a whodunnit, for sure, with a series of growing clues and new characters. The detective is just too absurd to work--he doesn't even serve as a parody of the newly crystallizing Bogart kind of hardboiled detective. And there a too many scenes with a lot of people standing around a room (a living room or a detective's office), with not a lot of clear tension of development, just exaggerated chitchat.So, why watch it at all? I'm not sure! But I did, from the side, and there are some great stereotypes (call them clichés) at work--dark shadows of men in fedoras, a haunted old house, a murder and the threat of more murder, even a terrific (haha) trap door. It verges on Three Stooges kind of humor now and then but lacks the true slapstick genius (at times) of those guys (who began in the 1930s and were really big by the 1943), but you can sense an echo of them (one of the detectives even makes little Curly and Moe noises). This version of the movies is actually a remake of a better if not brilliant 1932 film, starring a young Ginger Rogers (and available to see free and legal at this site: www.archive.org/details/The_Thirteenth_Guest).If you are really feeling frivolous, this might be fun. But your are forewarned.

I've met several people who feel that this version is much better than the original (Ginger Rogers / Lyle Talbot) picture. I disagree.All the "spookiness" from the original (including the black-robed 'phantom') is gone, and the film is "just another mystery".But, to each his own!Norm