The Thirteenth Hour (1927) User Reviews

Even A Comedy Has To Make Sense

[boblipton · 3/10 · 13 April 2019]

Let me see if I've got this straight. Lionel Barrymore goes around strangling women and stealing their jewels between midnight and one. The rest of the time, he's a famous criminologist who's offering a large cash reward for his own capture. He's indicated to his secretary, Jacqueline Gadsdon, that he has romantic interests in her, which repulses her because she likes Charles Delaney, or perhaps his dog, Napoleon, who are looking for the fiend. When Delaney and Napoleon go to see Miss Gadsdon, she's been taken by the unseen people who live in the closets and drapes of the house, but are much too shy to do more than extend a clawed hand to grab their victims. Meanwhile Fred Kelsey is there with his badge and gun, because... and so it Polly Moran.

It looks like this was intended to be a follow-up to be a burlesque of those Old Dark House shows, but even a comedy has to make some internal sense, and this makes none. Perhaps that is why Napoleon the Dog seems to be the only character who has a clue. You never expect Fred Kelsey to do more than show up and bluster, but this one refuses to make any sense in my mind. There are some indications that Barrymore's role was originally intended for Lon Chaney, perhaps under the direction of Tod Browning. I would suspect that the writer of THE MYSTERY OF THE LEAPING FISH thought the premise was silly, convinced the star of the same, and left it to Chester Franklin to write and direct this one.

"The Thirteenth Hour" - I enjoyed it!

[DoctorJuliaHoffman · 8 September 2023]

Despite all the negativity, I just watched the film and enjoyed it. Moreso than I did "The Monster" (1925) and "The Bat" (1926). Lionel Barrymore is a killer and a thief who lives in a mansion riddled with secret passageways, etc. It's also the abode of Barrymore's criminal gang. His innocent secretary is held captive as the man who loves her and his wonder dog try to rescue her and apprehend Barrymore (and gang). The VHS copy I watched on-line was a bit grainy, but I'm not complaining. I heard music from Universal's "Flash Gordon" (1936), and Hitchcock's "Rebecca" (1940) and "Spellbound" (1945) used as background music here. I definitely will be revisiting this film in the future.

Lionel Barrymore is shaggier than the dog

[F Gwynplaine MacIntyre · 3/10 · 16 April 2003]

The script and direction of this MGM movie 'The Thirteenth Hour' are credited(?) to Chester Franklin, whom I've never heard of ... but I kept checking the credits to see if perhaps this movie was actually scripted and directed by Tod Browning, who was under contract to MGM at this same time (and who frequently worked with Lionel Barrymore, the star of this film). Browning was notorious for building films around set-pieces: sequences which provoked unusual images onscreen, but which didn't necessarily build to a coherent plot or narrative. At one point during his MGM years, Browning tried to get front-office approval for a movie starring Lon Chaney as a mad surgeon who grafts gorillas' heads onto women's bodies and vice versa, which would certainly make for some interesting film footage: the project was deep-sixed because Browning couldn't come up with any plausible reason for WHY Chaney's character would be doing such a thing.

This whole movie is just like that. 'The Thirteenth Hour' is completely implausible, and seems to have been cobbled together as an actor's exercise... giving Lionel Barrymore thin excuses to ponce across the screen in weird get-ups, while giving director Tod Browning (oops, I meant Chester Franklin) pretexts for interesting visual compositions which don't fit into a coherent storyline. This is meant to be a spooky suspense film, but I kept laughing.

Barrymore plays Professor Leroy, who lives in a Charles Addams-style house, chock-full of trap doors, secret panels, and galloping furniture ... all of which he operates via a switchboard. You might guess that a chappy like Leroy would have no need of a hobby, but you'd be wrong. Periodically, Leroy goes forth to commit a moonlight murder, which he is always careful to perpetrate at one o'clock in the morning. (Hence the movie's title.)

Now get this: the way Leroy looks when he commits the murders is his TRUE appearance, whereas the rest of the time (when he's not killing anybody) he's always whiskered up in some ridiculous disguise. This reminds me of Tod Browning's 'The Blackbird', in which a criminal spends his off-hours disguised as his own (nonexistent) twin brother, the local do-gooder. To supply an alibi for his murderous meanderings, Leroy keeps a wax dummy of himself. When he takes off his disguise to commit murder, Leroy attaches the disguise to the dummy and leaves it propped up in the window so that all the neighbours will see that Leroy was home at 1.00am when the murders took place. Brilliant, eh?

SPOILERS GALORE. For some reason, Professor Leroy needs a secretary. He brings into his home an innocent brunette named Mary (of course) who knows nothing of his criminal career and who betrays him accidentally. I kept thinking of Tod Browning movies such as 'The Big City' and 'The Unholy Three', in which the criminal endeavour disguised as a legitimate business is accidentally exposed by the only honest employee who's oblivious to the criminal shenanigans.

The cops suspect Leroy of the murders ... but this is one of those movies where the cops are all morons, so Leroy fools them easily. Well, all except one. Detective Shaw has an Alsatian named Rex, and the police dog is brainier than everybody else in this movie. Guess who solves the case.

'The Thirteenth Hour' is unintentionally funny. I'm a Tod Browning fan, so I was gobsmacked to discover a film which apparently wasn't made by Browning yet which apes his distinctive style so thoroughly. Unfortunately, this movie has most of the flaws of Tod Browning's movies with very few of their merits. 'The Thirteenth Hour' is very nearly MGM's most incoherent and implausible production of 1927, edged out narrowly for those dubious honours by 'London After Midnight'. Even the usually reliable MGM stalwart Polly Moran falls below her usual standard in this movie. I'll rate 'The Thirteenth Hour' 3 points out of 10.

Chester Franklin or Edmund Goulding?

[antomarcelino · 26 September 2007]

In a work that i'm doing about movies, in Reguengos of Monsaraz (Portugal), the city were i leave, i found a program press in paper, about The Thirteenth Hour (1927). The public saw this film on 1930, June, 30. In that program the credits are to Edmund Goulding as director, to Chester Franklin as an actor (like Lionel Barrymore and Jacqueline Gadsden too) and to a police-dog named Flash as an "actor" too. However i can't find anywhere, for this movie, Ed. Goulding as director and C. Franklin as an actor. Or are we in front of new elements for the cast? In Portuguese language the title of the movie is ASSASSINO MISTERIOSO ( = Mysterious Killer) and the extension of the movie is 6 reels.