Eight of the city’s social elite receive telegrams inviting them to a party in their honor in a penthouse. They are corrupt politician Jason Osgood (Edwin Maxwell), the university dean who is under his thumb Dr. Murray Reid (Samuel Hinds), the man Osgood told Reid to fire for being too radical Henry Abbott (Hardie Albright), Osgood’s rival Tim Cronin (Edward Ellis), his lawyer/girlfriend Sylvia Inglesby (Helen Flint), society snob Mrs. Margaret Chisholm (Nella Walker), actress Jean Trent (Genevieve Tobin), and journalist Jim Daley (Donald Cook). When they arrive, they find three servants (Sidney Bracey, Vince Barnett, uncredited), none of whom know the host. Then a voice from the radio informs them that they are stuck there due to the gate being electrified and that they will play a game of skill where the losers will die, as the 9th guest is Death.
While I’m reviewing The 9th Guest as an Old Dark House film, it doesn’t fit that categorization in multiple important ways: They aren’t in an old house but an art-deco penthouse; there’s no storm, and the murders aren’t committed off screen or in the dark. But it is too similar to the best of the Old Dark House films, And Then There Were None, to leave it out. But you can’t accuse The 9th Guest of plagiarism; it came first as a novel, and first as a stage play, and first as a movie. If there was any borrowing, it would be by Agatha Christie, and there’s no evidence that the similarities are anything but coincidental.
Like most in the sub-genre, The 9th Guest has a group of clearly defined, upper class people trapped for a night in an elaborate space. Secrets abound, and they are all targets of a murderer who is most likely one of them. So, I’ll call it close enough.
The tension in this case comes as much from the characters’ previous interactions as from the current situation. There’s a lot of hatred in the room. The question they, and I, kept asking, was who hates enough to kill. And the characters are drawn just clearly enough to make guessing fun. Unfortunately the big secrets that each character was supposed to have turn out to be little to nothing. I wanted something to dig my teeth into, but there was no meat. The cast is filled with character actors or those trying to be leads who never quite made it, but they do a good job with what they were given. I only know four of them from other films and they were my favorites here: Edwin Maxwell from His Girl Friday, Edward Ellis from The Thin Man, Nella Walker from Sabrina, and Genevieve Tobin from The Petrified Forest. Those are pretty good credentials for the B-team.
The A-team was made up of the uncredited set designer. It’s a stellar penthouse, with an in wall pendulum clock which dominates every scene.
What doesn’t work are the murders. I’ve learned to expect more. With all the meticulous setup the killer did, and the huge amount of money spent, he didn’t seem to put much thought or effort into the killings. The radio announces specific times when victims will die, but he does nothing to assure that. People just happen to die at the right times, and it is very noticeable that it’s coincidental, at least to the viewer. Those in the film seem to think the murderer is doing something very clever, but he’s not. He has no clear plans for any of the killings, and there’s no emotional weight given to his motivations, at least from a viewers perspective, which makes it a mediocre murder mystery, with better than average sets.