The biggest surprise in this typical Monogram Pictures B-movie is that they don’t actually, uh, solve the mystery of the thirteenth guest. They do solve the other mysteries. We find out the identity of the killer who murders the heirs to a dead rich guy’s fortune. We also find out what’s in the sealed envelope that said dead guy insists be kept secret for thirteen years.
But we never find out who that mysterious thirteenth guest at the dinner table was supposed to be. (And no, it’s not the killer.)
Ah well. Monogram made 35,000 low-budget movies in 1943 and William “One-Shot” Beaudine directed 25,000 low-budget movies in 1943. Do the math from those numbers and you get a lot of films with a lot of plot holes. They were bangin’ these suckers out.
Adapted from a novel by Armitage Trail, which was also filmed eleven years earlier in 1932 as The Thirteenth Guest with Ginger Rogers.