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Thirteen Women (RKO) is a miscount. Author Tiffany Thayer, having written a book called Thirteen Men, felt that he had to change either the number or the sex for its sequel. In his book he struggled manfully to round out his baker's dozen but in the picture there was room for only ten of his heroines. This is just as well. They are an uninteresting crew who belonged to the same sorority in a girls' finishing school. One by one, three of them drop dead. Their high mortality rate is due to a half-caste girl (Myrna Loy) who was not allowed to join the sorority and has been nursing her grudge. As assistant to a dizzy astrologer ( Henry Gordon) she has written poison pen letters to all her snobbish schoolmates. She is preparing to follow up her disastrous circulars with more direct methods when a smart detective (Ricardo Cortez) catches up with her on the back platform of an express train.
One of the heroines of Thirteen Women who evades the suicide predicted for her in the picture is Hazel (Peg Entwhistle). In Hollywood last month. Peg Entwhistle committed suicide by jumping from a huge illuminated sign.
One Way Passage (Warner). Whether or not it is true, as Jack Warner last week insisted, that Warner Brothers starts the cycles that other Hollywood companies finish, it is generally conceded that Warner's strong point lies in selecting stories. One Way Passage, by Robert Lord, is several notches above the Warner average. An escaped murderer (William Powell) meets a charming lady (Kay Francis) in a Hongkong bar. They fall in love. The next time they meet, on shipboard, the murderer is on his way to be hanged. His inamorata expects to die very shortly of a weak heart. Each learns of the other's predicament. They do not reveal their knowledge to each other. Before they part at San Francisco, they gaily engage to meet on New Year's Eve at Agua Caliente. A quiet, sharp, romantic tragedy. One Way Passage was directed with the sense of pace and compression it required by Tay Garnett.
*No kin to Sidney Franklin (Frumkin), Brooklyn bull-fighter.