The Thirteenth Guest
1932 film by Albert Ray
The Thirteenth Guest is a 1932 American pre-Code mystery comedy thriller film, released on August 9, 1932. The film is also known as Lady Beware in the United Kingdom. It is based on the 1929 novel The Thirteenth Guest written by crime fiction author Armitage Trail, best known for the novel Scarface on which the 1932 movie of the same name was based. The novel was filmed again in 1943 as Mystery of the 13th Guest.
Plot
Marie Morgan has been lured to an old abandoned house by a false note from a friend, and is in jeopardy although she doesn't yet realize it. As she sits at the table inside, she thinks back to the banquet held there 13 years earlier, when she was a little girl. Only 12 of 13 guests had attended, and the manor's owner, the Morgan family patriarch, who was then dying, has since passed on. The chance to claim the bulk of the estate fortune has resulted in an ongoing campaign of murder by someone targeting the original 12 guests, whose dead bodies are being left at the table in the same seats they had occupied originally.
Cast
Ginger Rogers as Lela/Marie Morgan
Lyle Talbot as Phil Winston
J. Farrell MacDonald as Police Captain Ryan
Paul Hurst as Detective Grump
Erville Alderson as Uncle John Adams
Ethel Wales as Aunt Jane Thornton
James Eagles as Harold 'Bud' Morgan
Crauford Kent as Dr. Sherwood
Eddie Phillips as Thor Jensen
Frances Rich as Marjorie Thornton
Phillips Smalley as Uncle Dick Thornton
Allan Cavan as Uncle Wayne Seymour (uncredited)
William Davidson as Police Captain Brown (uncredited)
John Ince as Uncle John Morgan (uncredited)
Tom London as Detective Carter (uncredited)
Harry Tenbrook as Cabby (uncredited)
Adrienne Dore as Winston's Date (uncredited)
Reception
The film was a box office success and received some positive reviews from critics.
“The Thirteenth Guest” enters the record as 1932 film by Albert Ray. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Thirteenth, Guest and film can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3227800. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1932, 1929 and 1943.
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