Friday the Thirteenth **** (1933, Jessie Matthews, Gordon Harker, Edmund Gwenn, Sonnie Hale, Max Miller, Emlyn Williams, Ralph Richardson, Mary Jerrold, Roberston Hare, Martita Hunt, Cyril Smith, Muriel Aked) – Classic Movie Review 8280

Director Victor Saville’s 1933 British portmanteau drama Friday the Thirteenth is a brightly performed, cleverly written and smartly executed all-star compendium with the excuse of a late-night London bus crash in pouring rain at one minute to midnight, when time winds backwards and flashbacks show how the passengers got to the scene of the accident.

A detective (Alfred Drayton) follows Joe (Max Miller), blackmailer William Blake (Emlyn Williams) pursues Frank Parsons (Frank Lawton), Agnes Lightfoot (Martita Hunt) bosses her husband Ralph Lightfoot (Roberston Hare), Hamilton Briggs (Gordon Harker) is a colleague of mean Mr Wakefield (Edmund Gwenn), and Millie the Non-Stop Variety Girl (Jessie Matthews) is tempted to leave her fiancé Horace Dawes (Ralph Richardson) for agent Hugh Nicholls (Donald Calthrop). Sonnie Hale plays Alf the Conductor and Cyril Smith plays Fred the Driver.

Jessie Matthews and Ralph Richardson in Friday the Thirteenth 1933).

It stars Jessie Matthews, Gordon Harker, Edmund Gwenn, Sonnie Hale, Max Miller, Emlyn Williams, Ralph Richardson, Mary Jerrold, Roberston Hare, Martita Hunt, Cyril Smith, and Muriel Aked.

Also in the cast are Richard Hulton, Harold Warrender, John Clifford, Eliot Makeham, Ursula Jeans, D A Clarke-Smith, Gibb McLaughlin, Frank Lawton, Belle Chrystall, O B Clarence, Wally Patch, Alfred Drayton, Hartley Power, Percy Parsons, Leonora Corbett, Clive Morton, Donald Calthrop and Ivor McLaren.

Friday the Thirteenth is directed by Victor Saville, runs 89 minutes, is made by Gainsborough Pictures, is released by Gaumont British Distributors (1933) (UK) and Gaumont British Picture Corporation of America (1934) (US), is written by G H Moresby-White, (story and scenario) Sidney Gilliat (story) and Emlyn Williams (dialogue), is shot in black and white by Charles Van Enger, is produced by Michael Balcon and is scored by Louis Levy.

It was released on DVD on 6 April 2015 with First a Girl as part of Volume One of The Jessie Matthews Revue.

When Matthews asks bus conductor Hale ‘You won’t forget to put me off at Linden Gardens, will you?’, Hale replies ‘No fear!’ In real life, his flat in Linden Gardens saw the beginning of their relationship a few years earlier. They were married from 24 January 1931 to 3 July 1944 (divorced, with one child).

The Jessie Matthews Bar is in the Adelphi Theatre, London.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8280

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