Friday the Thirteenth (1933)

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

A story that's too fascinating to pass by...

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

There's something to be said for the dozens of methods of public transportation and the billions of stories which arise out of them every day in every city lucky enough to have them. For the dozen or so people on the London bus just before midnight ironically on Friday the Thirteenth during a horrible thunderstorm, their fates will all be questioned with the sudden collapse of a construction crane.Like the oft-filmed "The Bridge of San Luis Rey", this flashes back to the last 24 hours of their lives up to this point, but here, there were only two fatalities and only a few injuries. An all-star cast of British actors (some familiar to American audiences from later films) run the gamut of types from sleazy blackmailer, busy businessman, an ex-con, sexy chorus girl, philandering husband and a dizzy wife who keeps forgetting to re-order the marmalade. Moods swing from light comedy to heavy drama and other sequences hold the interest more than others. Mary Jerrold is adorable as the sweet businessman's wife who spends most of the film fretting over a letter she forgot to deliver. Future "Santa" Edmund Gwenn is the frustrated husband tired of his aging wife's forgetfulness who doesn't realize that with the strike of lightning and the nearing strike of the Tower of London's clock at midnight, fate might strike a blow to his life which would change the course of his life. Musical comedy favorite Jessie Matthews gets a few delicious wisecracks as a basically innocent chorus girl who still knows a few things about men to keep them in line.Fortunately, if you forget about the opening sequence just before the accident, you will have the opportunity to re-visit it with more details once you get to know who is who. The end is one of those great moments of coincidence, a tag-line involving two characters who were not a part of the accident, and a view of what the real definition of fate really is.

Despite its age, this film retains its undoubted charm and attraction, and is a fine, surviving example of early British cinema. It has an underlying air of eeriness, interspersed with shafts of humour which are not out of place, and serve to demonstrate the assured direction & production values involved. So many episodic type films are disjointed and untidy, but this is not one of them. The standard of acting helps a great deal, and the various disparate characters come across as interesting and believable. All in all, this long-forgotten little gem is well worth anyone's attention, in spite of the one jarring note in the film which, surprisingly, escaped the censor's attention!

Why Jessie Matthews, one of Britains top musical stars, was in this movie in between her sparkling "The Good Companions" and the classic "Evergreen" is a good question? When I first saw it I was really disappointed. I wanted to see her sing and dance - she was billed as "Millie - the non - stop variety girl" but there was more stop than variety.Now I see it as a good little drama.It is about a bus crash and the stories, leading up to it, of the people on the bus.Apart from Jessie Matthews, who is great as Millie - Sir Ralph Richardson plays her fiancée ( yes, that's right).Edmund Gwenn - who went to Hollywood to co-star in Lassie movies and also with Natalie Wood in "Miracle on 34th Street", plays a grumpy businessman. Gordon Harker is his very annoying partner.Emlyn Williams - who wrote "Night Must Fall" was the black - mailing villain and Frank Lawton, who went to Hollywood and appeared in "David Copperfield" and "The Devil Doll" is the young man in trouble. Sonnie Hale who was married to Jessie Matthews at the time played the bus conductor.

An early connecting lives film, much like a 1930s 'Pulp Fiction' without all the vulgar language and violence, it is very well done in most aspects, and considering when it was made, it is well ahead of its time. The film editing and the acting - especially from Gordon Harker and Robertson Hare - are particularly strong points of the film, and the overall product is engaging the whole time through. Arguably there are at least one too many characters, which complexes the film much more than is necessary, however this hardly subtracts from this very unique and highly interesting, but too often forgotten, early British film.