Early Talkie

THE THIRTEENTH CHAIR-1929-This creaky old early talkie features (pre-Dracula) Bela Lugosi as an Inspector (who's not much better than Inspector Cousteau) who investigates a murder that took place during a séance. Conrad Nagel and Leila Hyams are the real stars. They play an engaged couple (he's rich, she's not and hides a secret about her mother). They and several others are all suspects of the murder of a police officer who was investigating another murder. A medium (Margret Wycherly, later James Cagney's mother in WHITE HEAT) may have been in cahoots with the officer in trying to catch the murderer. She's also the mother of the girl but no one knows it. 

This was Tod Browning's first sound film and like most of them around this time it's almost like a filmed play. One scene begins with  the actors waiting for their cue! Holmes Herbert is also in it.  Co-star Leila Hyams was later in Browning's FREAKS (and ISLAND OF LOST SOULS). She made her last film in 1936 and retired. She died in 1977.  

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