The Thirteenth Chair is a 1929 film directed by Tod Browning.
It's an adaptation of a 1922 play of the same name. The setting is The Raj, aka British India. Shortly before the beginning of the story, a man named Spencer Lee was murdered. The police don't seem to be getting anywhere, and Lee's friend Edward Wales has been investigating the mystery himself. Wales comes up with an unorthodox idea to solve the crime: he will hire a medium to make contact with the spirit of Spencer Lee to find out who killed him.
Wales arranges for his medium to come to the home of his good friends the Crosby family for a seance. Meanwhile, there's a marriage impending in the extremely wealthy Crosby family. Young Richard Crosby is engaged to his mother's secretary, Nellie O'Neill. Nellie is worried about the social gap between them (she is secretary to Richard's mother) but the Crosbys welcome her with open arms.
The medium, Madame Rosalie La Grange, comes to the Crosby mansion for the seance. Eventually it's revealed that there was a reason why Ned Wales arranged for the seance to happen at the Crosby place. But the seance is interrupted by another murder.
Bela Lugosi made his talking film debut as Inspector Delzante, the police detective who investigates the case.
Tropes:
- As You Know: Richard's line to Nellie, "You think that because you're my mother's secretary that you shouldn't marry me," spells out some relationships for the audience.
- Call-Back: Madame La Grange shows the guests a trick she does, where she uses her gimmick shoe to make the tapping noise that is supposedly coming from the spirit world. Later she cries out in desperation for "Laughing Eyes" to contact her for real, and is shocked to hear a rapping that she didn't make. She then sees the knife in the ceiling. Only later does she find out that the rapping noise was actually Inspector Delzante knocking on the door.
- Chalk Outline: The opening scene has Wales sneaking into the crime scene and, with a flashlight, finding the chalk outline of Spencer Lee's body, complete with large bloodstain.
- His Name Is...: An unusual example in that the killer murdered the person asking rather than the one telling the secret. Edward Wales is yelling "Who killed you? Who killed you?" to a possessed Madame La Grange when he is stabbed in the back, ending the seance.
- Jump Cut: This film is poorly edited. There is a jarring cut while Helen is in the middle of an angry rant directed at Edward Wales, with the shot suddenly cutting from a frontal view of Helen to Helen from the rear as Wales listens.
- Mysterious Parent: Why Madame La Grange is so shocked to see Nellie among the guests, and why Madame La Grange knows in the first place that Nellie's actual name is "Helen", the name that the Madame is supposed to cry out. Madame La Grange the cheesy Phony Psychic is also Nellie's mother, something that has been kept a secret from all of Nellie's high society friends (and fiancée).
- Never One Murder: Edward Wales getting killed as he's trying to find out who killed Spencer Lee bring Inspector Delzante to the mansion.
- No Peripheral Vision: Somehow, everyone misses the murder weapon, stuck in the ceiling.
- One-Steve Limit: Averted, and an important plot point. The whole seance was a fake, and that Edward Wales had arranged for Madame La Grange to call out the name of the guilty party, which he believed to be "Helen". But Madame La Grange is caught by surprise when she comes to the mansion and discovers that there are two Helens: Helen Crosby (Richard's sister), and Helen "Nellie" O'Neill.
- Phony Psychic: Mostly played straight. Madame La Grange admits that she uses fakery a lot of the time and actually shows the rich folks at the Crosby mansion how she does her tricks. She then insists however that she won't be using any trickery for the upcoming seance—except that the whole seance turns out to be fake. Then towards the end Madame La Grange, who seems to think that her spirit contact "Laughing Eyes" is genuine, attempts to contact it for real, and does. But that turns out to be fake too, although she didn't know it.
- Setting Update: The original play was set in New York.
- Sexy Backless Outfit: Nellie wears a sexy backless dress for the seance.
- Spooky Séance: It's pretty spooky when they turn all the lights out in the Crosby parlor and Madame La Grange calls out in her weird high-pitched voice for the spirits. It's even spookier when they recreate the scene a second time with the corpse of Edward Wales placed in the chair he was sitting in.
- 13 Is Unlucky: As the seance is underway, one of the guests panics at the realization that there are thirteen people sitting down, but the seance continues. Edward Wales, the last person to sit (that is, in the thirteenth chair) is murdered.
