| The Thirteenth Guest | |
| Director: | Albert Ray |
| Producer: | M.H. Hoffman |
| Starring: | Ginger Rogers Lyle Talbot J. Farrell MacDonald Paul Hurst Erville Alderson Ethel Wales Crauford Kent Eddie Phillips Frances Rich |
| Cinematography: | Tom Galligan Harry Neumann |
| Editing: | Leete Renick Brown |
| Studio: | Monogram Pictures Corporation |
| Distributor: | Monogram Pictures Corporation |
| Runtime: | 69 minutes |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
The Thirteenth Guest is a 1932 American pre-Code mystery comedy thriller film, released on August 9, 1932. The film is also known as Lady Beware in the United Kingdom. It is based on the 1929 novel The Thirteenth Guest written by crime fiction author Armitage Trail,[1] best known for the novel Scarface[2] on which the 1932 movie of the same name was based. The novel was filmed again in 1943 as Mystery of the 13th Guest.[3]
Marie Morgan has been lured to an old abandoned house by a false note from a friend, and is in jeopardy although she doesn't yet realize it. As she sits at the table inside, she thinks back to the banquet held there 13 years earlier, when she was a little girl. Only 12 of 13 guests had attended, and the manor's owner, the Morgan family patriarch, who was then dying, has since passed on. The chance to claim the bulk of the estate fortune has resulted in an ongoing campaign of murder by someone targeting the original 12 guests, whose dead bodies are being left at the table in the same seats they had occupied originally.
The film was a box office success and received mostly positive reviews from critics. Variety called it "vastly superior" and "a positive money maker".[4]