Thirteen Women

As with any proto-slasher - and especially one of this vintage - it is worth keeping expectations in check. Understandably, THIRTEEN WOMEN certainly does not play out in the way we would expect a slasher movie would today. However, there are some remarkable similarities and elements of what would later become subgenre tropes. The most obvious one is the revenge angle - a past event that drives its villain to kill and wreak retribution on a group many years after the act - as well as its one-by-one structure. Also, at one point, Ursula crosses out the photos of the faces of the women she has avenged in a college yearbook - which was later echoed in PROM NIGHT (1980). The scenes on the train - which bookends the films - are also, situationally at least, reminiscent of TERROR TRAIN (also 1980).
 
Myrna Loy is incredible as the vengeful and glamorous Ursula, who thinks nothing of waiting for her lover to return in full evening dress with jewels in her hair. However, the Caucasian Loy was often typecast as an Asian character at the time, much to her frustration. Modern audiences may well baulk at the film’s Orientalism - with neither Loy nor Gordon being of Asian descent. An irony is that the root of the revenge is perceived racist bullying - but the film also portrays its Asian characters as being both duplicitous mystics and charlatans, as well as, in the case of Loy, as psychotic and vengeful. Although not acceptable today, this type of ‘yellowface’ was common back then and should be viewed in its historical context.
 
THIRTEEN WOMEN was based on the best-selling 1930 novel by Tiffany Thayer. Being a pre-code film meant it could tackle subjects that would have been taboo only a few years later with the introduction of the restrictive Hays Code. Despite that, a lesbian subplot was removed that was to feature Peg Entwistle - the actress who tragically killed herself aged just 24 years old by jumping from the Hollywood sign a month before the film debuted. It was an eerie shadowing of the events in the film, given that Entwistle’s character witnesses the opening death of the trapeze artist falling to her death.
 
The film attracted some good notices - especially for Loy (one critic said her performance was “… sufficiently menacing to send shivers through the audience.”) The Atlanta Journal enthusiastically said the film shot: “… great hypodermics or horror into the suspense-stricken audience.” Some critics noted how the audience would shout out to the characters on screen to warn them of impending danger, mirroring how many later audiences would do the same to the likes of HALLOWEEN and other slasher movies. Some screenings even featured a pre-film talk about horoscopes, with some lucky women in the audience getting their own horoscope done by an astrologer - but, presumably, none were told they were going to die in horrible circumstances! 
 
Despite being adapted from a best-seller, the film was a box office flop on its release. However, when both Loy and co-star Irene Dunne became box office draws, the film was re-edited and re-released to capitalise on their new popularity in 1935. This 59-minute version (reduced from 73 minutes) effectively removed two performances, which meant that only 11 actresses appeared in the movie and not 13. It seems that the longer version is now lost.
  
THIRTEEN WOMEN is often called the earliest slasher movie. It isn’t quite that, but it is entertaining in its own right and worth seeking out for a fascinating look back at how the subgenre would develop over the years. 

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