Synopsis
Each one doomed
Thirteen women who were schoolmates ask a swami to cast their horoscopes. The news they receive is not good for any of them.
1932 Directed by George Archainbaud
Thirteen women who were schoolmates ask a swami to cast their horoscopes. The news they receive is not good for any of them.
Irene Dunne Ricardo Cortez Jill Esmond Myrna Loy Mary Duncan Kay Johnson Florence Eldridge C. Henry Gordon Peg Entwistle Harriet Hagman Edward Pawley Blanche Friderici Wally Albright James Donlan Marjorie Gateson Clarence Geldart Mitchell Harris Lloyd Ingraham Edward LeSaint Teddy Mangean Ida May Lew Meehan Louis Natheaux Lee Phelps Aloha Porter Elsie Prescott Bob Reeves Audrey Scott Oscar Smith Show All…
Treze Mulheres, Hypnose, Trzynascie kobiet, Tizenhárom nő, Trece mujeres, 13 femei, Тринадцать женщин, 十三个美人, Η Μοιραία Γυναίκα, Treize femmes
110th Review for The Collab Weekly Movie Watch
Talking about a movie that’s been making the rounds on this site, coming out of nowhere and somehow finding its way into this week’s Collab. If I were into horoscopes, I’d also start going mad, believing there’s a conspiracy or something.
But yeah, this movie was alright. The premise is fascinating and lends itself for so much awesomeness where we have a killer that uses the suggestive power of horoscopes to drive mad their victims and either have them suiciding or committing these acts of reckless acts that ends up getting people murdered. Our villain played by Myrna Loy is really great, her eyes convey so much of this evilness that you…
Hey bad news I ran your astrology chart and it says you're a murderer.
Take care,
Your Swami
3rd George Archainbaud (after The Penguin Pool Murder and Murder on the Blackboard)
My week for Collab Film Club that functions as a celebration of handing in my thesis, which happened last Thursday (5th of October). I've rattled on about it being the conclusion of four years of work enough in my review of Thesis, but since then the relief still hasn't really set in.* I still wake up with a cold sweat and ice in my veins when I have anything more important in a day than making a sandwich, but I'm hoping that this eventually fades away as the enormity of the project recedes. You think about something every day for four years, it's going to take a…
“The white half of me cried for the courtesy and protection that women like you get."
A power of suggestion pre-code horoscope horror. Myrna Loy is slashing her way toward final girl Irene Dunn with the power of her half-Javanese eyes. Yes, it’s problematic, yes, Loy has little to do besides look slinky and exotically seductive, yes, I loved every moment of it. A really nasty film when you sit with it: part Slaughter High revenge story, part sad psychological tale about the fragility of the female mind (look, I said it was problematic, as was the source material) and part commentary on racial prejudice.
Loy’s bullied, mixed-race Ursula Georgi is played as a straight villainess, using Swami-signed star readings,…
"To me, life is just an ashtray full of cigarette butts"
A group of school friends find themselves targeted for death by Ursula (Myrna Loy), a woman they excluded from their cool kids club in college.
Thirteen Women zips along with a short run time but sets the bar a little too high (quite literally) at the outset which features a spectacular high flying acrobatics death. The kill list structure generates tension and gives the whole thing the suspense of a countdown for the first half. Sadly things get a bit less interesting when Ursula sets her sights solely on Laura (Irene Dunne). The film kind of degenerates into a Loony Tunes cartoon of Ursula attempted to murder Laura's young…
The You Must Remember This podcast has a Dead Blondes series and I just listened to Peg Entwistle's episode this morning. Karina Longworth's description of Entwistle's only film, Thirteen Women, sold me and the fact that she jumped off the H of the Hollywood sign just a month before its release also intrigued me.
Myrna Loy plays Ursula Georgi, a "half breed" who was bullied for her Asian ethnicity at the all girls college she went to. As an adult, she seeks revenge on the girls by sending them Horoscopes foreseeing murder, suicide, and emotional turmoil under the name of a clairvoyant astrologer the girls wrote to.
The premise is amazing but with a run time of just 59 minutes,…
It’s amazing how different these pre-code films can feel, and not just because this deals in the murder of several women (obviously this is some kind of notable early rung on the DNA ladder of horror, a helix that will spiral into krimi through giallo and into slasher). This also feels pre-code even just in the way these women are allowed to be on screen. They smoke nervously/habitually instead of sexily and mysteriously, they slouch, they bitch at one another, they commit suicide, it’s all interesting to see in a film from the early days of sound.
And I found much of it really compelling. Parts of this are incredibly ethereal and dreamy. We get long sequences without dialogue that…
Viewed with the Collab.
There are a few types of "unfinished" films: there's the studio/director interference kind, the lost footage kind, and then the films that were actually never finished. Thirteen Women falls into the first category as big execs went against the filmmaker's artistry and chopped 14 minutes (and therefore two of the thirteen women) from the film's runtime. This is something clearly noticed while watching, and one that in the past, I have personally been able to overlook in a few instances (of course depending on circumstances).
I have no qualms in the acting department as everyone is good to great and the film has a nice look to it, unfortunately the story and character's suffer due to the incredibly…
“What is in that brain of yours, those eyes?”
Thirteen Women is on TCM all the time, but I have never been compelled to watch it. Something told me it isn’t for me. I finally decided to give it a chance to see Leo Tover’s b&w cinematography, his work on Dead Reckoning and The Woman on the Beach being particular favorites, and to see Myrna Loy’s half-caste Indian because I don’t remember having seen any of her exotic Orientals. Well, sometimes something’s right. It isn’t for me.
The plot is ludicrous, and the acting is stiff, especially that of Ricardo Cortez and Irene Dunne. It’s hard to believe that this is the same Irene who will be so lively later…
About time I gave this oddity a better review. I first critiqued the film way back in 2014; while I’m always self-critical of what I write (the fact that too often, I randomly look at old reviews & notice errors is a reason why…), my original review did not even mention Peg Entwistle and that was a mistake. She was a British actress who was a success on Broadway but the story was not the same in Hollywood, so because of that and mental health struggles, she jumped from the H in the Hollywood sign and took her own life soon before this-her only film-was released. It’s a tragic tale which I understand was part of a Ryan Murphy show on…
God damn, this was a movie that should have been twice as long to really make use of the dark story of revenge. In it's destined format it's unbelievably rushed for so many murders. But it's good even if things doesn't have time to establish itself for an ultimate climax. George Archainbaud still showed care while shooting this and it's a quality movie.
Myrna Loy was almost out of this earth as the exotic Ursula Georgi killing her old school friends one by one using astrology as her weapon of destiny. Hot, mysterious and in control. This could have really been a signature role for her and a horror classic had the men in power thrown more money and interest in this production instead of chopping it down to their standard programmer format. Damn, damn, DAMN!!!
Alternate title: Zodiac
Alternate, alternate title: Laura
Alternate, alternate, alternate title: Horrorscope
Alternate, alternate, alternate, alternate title: Little Women
Alternate, alternate, alternate, alternate, alternate title: Mean Girls
Pre-Code films be wild man. In Thirteen Women (even though only twelve are mentioned and eleven shown) a woman hypnotizes multiple people into killing themselves.
Often cited as one of the earliest examples of the slasher formula there's a lot to like and a lot to wince at given the time period.
Myrna Loy as Ursula Georgi, the murderess is very solid and single minded in her quest to destroy the women who cruelly and racistly turned against her at school years earlier. While it's refreshing to see racism, elitism and bullying called…