Tue 24 Jan 2017
A Movie Review by Walter Albert: THE NINTH GUEST (1934).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[6] Comments
THE NINTH GUEST. Columbia, 1934. Donald Cook, Genevieve Tobin, Hardie Albright, Edward Ellis, Edwin Maxwell, Vince Barnett, Helen Flint, Samuel S. Hinds. Director: Roy William Neill. Shown at Cinefest #14, Syracuse NY, March 1994.
The first movie to be given a midnight showing was The Ninth Guest, a literate mystery based on a novel by Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning and originally published by the Mystery League in 1930 as The Invisible Host (a fact of which the writer of the program notes left the audience blissfully unaware).
The novel and film with the familiar plot device of killing off guests invited for a party/weekend in the country/reading of a will predates the Christie novel And Then There Were None (1939) and the film version of the same title (1945) by nine and eleven years respectively, but The Ninth Guest film although it does not have the casting luster of René Clair’s And Then There Were None, is a stylish, moody thriller that deserved better scheduling than the midnight showing it received.
January 24th, 2017 at 4:29 pm
Cannot predate And Then There Were None by 9 and 11 years . Some arithmetic on my part came up with 9 and 16, yes? On the other hand, if the reference is to the theatrical version of And Then There Were None…
January 24th, 2017 at 4:43 pm
Walter’s math is correct, but I could have done some editing to make it clearer:
The book by Bristow/Manning (1930) was published nine years before Christie’s (1939).
The movie version, THE NINTH GUEST (1934) was released eleven years before AND THEN THERE WILL BE DONE (1945).
Sorry for the confusion!
January 24th, 2017 at 8:55 pm
For anyone interested who has a copy of GUN IN CHEEK, I reviewed THE INVISIBLE HOST at length therein. An alternative classic!
Incidentally, all three GIC books — GUN IN CHEEK, SON OF GUN IN CHEEK, and SIXGUN IN CHEEK — will be reissued in trade paperback editions later this year by Dover.
January 24th, 2017 at 10:10 pm
Great news, Bill!
January 24th, 2017 at 9:34 pm
Understood. Thanks.
January 24th, 2017 at 10:11 pm
Delighted to hear the GUN trilogy is back. The book INVISIBLE HOST is indeed an alternative classic, equally alternative and classic.
Bristow went on to pen bestsellers alone, mostly semi Westerns, at least one a Republic film with Vera Ralston and Forrest Tucker among others.
I think she and Manning were screenwriters too.