Mon 28 Jun 2010
THE NINTH GUEST. Columbia Pictures, 1934. Donald Cook, Genevieve Tobin, Hardie, Edward Ellis, Edwin Maxwell, Vince Barnett, Helen Flint, Samuel S. Hinds, Nella Walker. Based on the novel The Invisible Host, by Gwen Bristow & Bruce Manning; previously produced as a play, The Ninth Guest, by Owen Davis, who is also given credit as one of two co-screenwriters. Director: Roy William Neill.
Regular readers of this blog will recall that The Invisible Host, the book by Bristow and Manning this movie was nominally based upon, has been reviewed here twice before, once by David Vineyard, the second time by Jim McCahery.
So I needn’t go into as much detail about the film as I might have otherwise. Suffice it to say, I trust, that eight socialites of New Orleans are tricked into attending a murder party. Trapped in an apartment high above ground level, their host, a voice only on the promises them they will all be dead by morning, unless they manage to outwit him.
And straightforwardly, he begins doing just that, preying on their weaknesses, finding the flaws in their characters and allowing them, in many cases, to bring their own doom down around them.
It’s difficult to say how closely the movie follows the book, even with two reviews, The opening scenes in the deadly apartment are the same, that much is clear, but I think I’d rather read the book myself, as I suspect some trimming may have been done, or the details changed, in order to fit it into its 65 minutes of running time.
In that sense, it may easily follow the play more closely than the book, but film itself, with some qualifications, is certainly worth watching. The apartment is filled with dark rooms and dark corners and dark stairs, and the director and the head cameraman certainly make the most of it.
In all honesty, when you think about it, once the movie’s over, you have to realize how unlikely the whole scenario has been, and how almost impossible it would have been, from the murderer’s point of view, to have pulled it off as successfully as he did. Another problem, from the viewer’s point of view, this time, is that as the number of survivors begins to decrease, it becomes easier and easier to decide who the killer might be.
Assuming, of course, that the killer is one of the eight, and just so that I don’t give everything away, that I will refrain from confirming. You might want to watch the movie yourself, and with the qualifications I previously mentioned, I most certainly recommend that you do.
June 28th, 2010 at 10:07 pm
Just under a third of the book is the set up introducing the eight ‘guests’ and if you are paying attention the motive for the crime.
I’d think this probably works better as a play and film than it did as a book, since the problems with the book wouldn’t be that evident on screen unless they copied some of that ripe dialogue (and even there melodrama on screen is easier to take than in print).
65 minutes should be plenty of time to do a fairly tight adaptation of the book since many things that have to be established in narrative or dialogue could be shown simply and quickly on screen.
Though I still think the book deserves its status as an alternative classic (I wouldn’t mind reading some of their other mysteries though)I’d love to see the film if only to see how it handles the theme used in THE MAN THEY COULD NOT HANG, AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, and THE BEAST WITHIN (to name a few).
I don’t suppose anyone in the film refers to the killer as ‘the motley clown of the Quarter’ do they?
June 28th, 2010 at 10:30 pm
In the movie, introducing the guests was the most problematic, as it was done far too quickly. Trying to give personalities to eight people for a movie audience to identify them by, and in less than ten minutes, well, they did their best, but it wasn’t enough for me. Some were done better than others, of course.
To the movie-makers’ credit, they did enough to give me some pieces to put together as the movie went on. It’s true, though, that (for me) most of the victims were personalized more when (and how) they died, if that makes sense.
As for your last question, I don’t think the line was used, but I could be wrong about that!
June 28th, 2010 at 11:16 pm
Actually, if you remember both reviews of the novel the characters are murdered based on their personality and quirks so its a good observation that the method of their death reveals their character.
Does one of the characters still die of chagrin in the movie? That must have been a hard one to bring off.
In the book each character gets a few brief pages of introduction that then leads into the next character, then we get a bit of their relation to each other at the dinner before they realize something is wrong.
June 28th, 2010 at 11:50 pm
To be honest in the book the identity of the killer is so obvious that you will likely guess who it will prove to be while the ‘guests’ are being introduced. In fact I think he is mentioned (not by name) in the intro of the first guest, and I recall thinking ‘that’s the murderer’ when I read the passage. And it doesn’t hurt it is also the only character in the book beside the killer likely to call Death a ‘playful unicorn.’
The book has a few nice touches, but hiding the identity of the killer isn’t one of them. It’s one of those books where most readers will figure out who dunnit before it is done.
Unrelated to this I’ve been looking at the collected NEW YORKER cartoons recently and quite a few have a genre connection — so far I’ve encountered three Ellery Queen, one Agatha Christie, and two Mignon G. Eberhart gags, but my favorite pictures a group of distinguished and snooty looking convicts standing apart in the prison yard as one convict says to another of them: “They’re all the butlers who did it.”
For my money NINTH GUEST is only one step above that as far as the mystery element went.
June 29th, 2010 at 12:04 am
Just really noticed Roy William Neill was the director. Aside from many of the Rathbone and Bruce Sherlock Holmes films he also directed the fine Karloff film THE BLACK ROOM, THE CIRCUS QUEEN MURDER, THE LONE WOLF RETURNS, DOCTOR SYN, and THE BLACK ANGEL. he was an old hand at the genre even by the time he did this.
June 29th, 2010 at 6:35 am
Yeah, Neill could do just about anything and do it well (see FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLFMAN)and I’d watch this just to observe his technique.
April 13th, 2012 at 6:14 pm
This was remade as Steel Trap in 2007.
April 13th, 2012 at 7:13 pm
Thanks, Tony. Remade as a gory bloody (awful) horror film, with no credit given to Bristow & Manning? Given the comments made about this film by reviewers on IMDB, I somehow don’t imagine they’d mind in the least.