Review of Thirteen Women

"Thirteen Women" is a film with lots of promising ingredients. First of all, it's one of the few 1930s thrillers that actually embrace the supernatural and do not try to explain it away "rationally" in the last scene. Secondly, the plot does anticipate the 1980s slasher movie. Myrna Loy is awesome as a villainess, and there are some very good scenes throughout (the circus "accident", the train "suicide" (excellent acting by Kay Johnson, she really makes it look like there are two minds fighting for control of her body), the car chase). But the movie suffers from the apparently massive pre-release cuts and deleted parts; in its present form, a more accurate title would be "Five Women"! And why does Loy, with her irresistible hypnotic powers, resort to poisoned candy and exploding balls to hurt people in the second half of the film? This story had so much potential, but most of it was cut off in the editing room. ** out of 4.