May Whitty

The Thirteenth Chair

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Suspect Helen Trent (Elissa Landi)

A classic country-house whodunit from 1937, The Thirteenth Chair gets the whole thing done and dusted in just over an hour, which is more than you can say for a lot of these things. And it can boast May Whitty – billed as “the Distinguished English Actress Dame May Whitty” – in the lead role as a clairvoyant. Set in India during the Raj, it opens with Scotland Yard inspector Marney (Lewis Stone) and local man Commissioner Grimshaw (Matthew Boulton) discussing the recent murder of a man not universally loved by the expat community who lord it about in Calcutta. The dead man’s best friend, John Wales – “fanatical”, says Grimshaw, so obviously not … Read more

My Name Is Julia Ross

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Julia in bed being menaced by a hand

There is some spectacularly bad acting in 1945’s My Name Is Julia Ross but it’s worth a look in spite of that. And at only 65 minutes, it’s not exactly an investment. To sell it a bit harder, it hums with weirdness, is very nicely directed by Joseph H Lewis, who was renowned for spinning straw into gold (or at least gold plate), and it also has some very good acting in it, too, mostly by Dame May Whitty (most famous for being the titular lady in Hitchcock’s The Lady Vanishes). George Macready, who plays her son, is pretty good too. The set-up is this: Whitty and Macready play a pair of fruitloops … Read more