The Hour of 13 | |
---|---|
Directed by | Harold French |
Screenplay by | Leon Gordon Howard Emmett Rogers |
Based on | X v. Rex 1933 novel by Philip MacDonald |
Produced by | Hayes Goetz |
Starring | Peter Lawford Dawn Addams Roland Culver |
Cinematography | Guy Green |
Edited by | Raymond Poulton Robert Watts |
Music by | John Addison |
Production company | |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date |
|
Running time | 88 minutes |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | $873,000 [1] |
Box office | $756,000 [1] |
The Hour of 13 is a 1952 British historical mystery film directed by Harold French and starring Peter Lawford, Dawn Addams and Roland Culver. It was made at Elstree Studios by the British subsidiary of MGM. The film's sets were designed by the German-born art director Alfred Junge. Some location shooting took place around London including Kensington Gardens. The film is a remake of the 1934 thriller The Mystery of Mr. X , based on the novel X v. Rex by Philip MacDonald. [2]
Reminiscent of the Jack The Ripper school with a period setting in gaslit London, but this time the mysterious killer is The Terror who is murdering policemen. Lawford plays the handsome gentleman thief Nicholas Revel who gets himself involved in the murders, and the theft of a valuable emerald. The treatment is seldom serious yet is smartly resolved with a supporting cast of British stalwarts.
According to MGM records the movie earned $344,000 in the US and Canada and $412,000 elsewhere, making a loss to the studio of $424,000. [1]
Peter Sydney Ernest Lawford was an English-American actor.
Nicholas Anthony Phillip Clay was an English actor.
Wilfrid Hyde-White was an English actor. Described by Philip French as a "classic British film archetype", Hyde-White often portrayed droll and urbane upper-class characters. He had an extensive stage and screen career in both the United Kingdom and the United States, and portrayed over 160 film and television roles between 1935 and 1987. He was twice nominated for a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play, in 1957 for The Reluctant Debutante and in 1973 for The Jockey Club Stakes.
William Finlay Currie was a Scottish actor of stage, screen, and television. He received great acclaim for his roles as Abel Magwitch in the British film Great Expectations (1946) and as Balthazar in the American film Ben-Hur (1959).
Victoria Dawn Addams was a British actress, particularly in Hollywood motion pictures of the 1950s and on British television in the 1960s and 1970s. She became a princess in 1954.
Edgar Wallace (1875–1932) was a British novelist and playwright and screenwriter whose works have been adapted for the screen on many occasions.
The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu is a 1929 American pre-Code drama film directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Warner Oland as Dr. Fu Manchu. It was the first Fu Manchu film of the talkie era. Since this was during the transition period to sound, a silent version was also released in the United States, although only the sound version exists today. The film's copyright was renewed.
Philip MacDonald was a British-born writer of fiction and screenplays, best known for thrillers.
Henry Stephenson was a British actor. He portrayed friendly and wise gentlemen in many films of the 1930s and 1940s. Among his roles were Sir Joseph Banks in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Mr. Brownlow in Oliver Twist (1948).
Heather Thatcher was an English actress in theatre and films.
Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror is a 1942 American mystery thriller film based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes detective stories. The film combines elements of Doyle's short story "His Last Bow", to which it is credited as an adaptation, and the real-life activities of Lord Haw-Haw.
Holmes Herbert was an English character actor who appeared in Hollywood films from 1915 to 1952, often as a British gentleman.
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The Golden Web is a 1926 American silent mystery film directed by Walter Lang and starring Lillian Rich, Huntley Gordon and Lawford Davidson. The cast also features Boris Karloff before he established himself as a horror star. It is based on the 1910 novel The Golden Web by the British writer E. Phillips Oppenheim. A previous British film adaptation of the novel was produced in 1920.
Harold French was an English film director, screenwriter and actor.
Harold Huth was a British actor, film director and producer.
Murder in Three Acts is a British-American made-for-television mystery film of 1986 produced by Warner Bros. Television, featuring Peter Ustinov as Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot. Directed by Gary Nelson, it co-starred Jonathan Cecil as Hastings, Tony Curtis, and Emma Samms.
The Mystery of Mr. X is a 1934 American pre-Code crime film starring Robert Montgomery as a jewel thief who gets mixed up in a series of murders in London. It is based on the 1933 novel X v. Rex by Philip MacDonald, was remade in 1952 as The Hour of 13.
An amber moon is a cocktail containing Tabasco sauce, a raw egg, and whiskey or vodka. It is typically considered a "hair of the dog" hangover remedy, though there is no scientific evidence showing that drinking alcohol is effective as a treatment for a hangover. It is similar to a prairie oyster, another traditional hangover remedy drink made with a raw egg, though a prairie oyster does not typically contain alcohol.
Ivan F. Simpson was a Scottish film and stage actor.