The Thirteenth Hour

 

Read/Watch 'em in Order #122

The penultimate entry in the Whistler film series is the last one staring Richard Dix, Sadly, bad health and alcoholism led to his death in 1947.

But at least his acting career ended on a strong note. The Thirteenth Hour (1947) is another strong, well-written entry in the Whistler series, with Dix giving yet another fine performance.

In this one, he plays a truck driver named Steve Reynolds. Steve's life is going well. He's engaged to a pretty widowed mom named Eileen (Karen Morley) and he's recently paid off his truck. 

But a moment of bad luck changes everything. His truck is run off the road by a reckless driver, but no one else sees the other vehicle. He has alcohol on his breath because he drank a glass of punch at Eileen's birthday party before hitting the road. A hitchhiker he had picked up disappears and can't back up his story. And, perhaps worst of all, the motorcycle cop who shows up after the crash also had a thing of Eileen.

The end result is Steve getting his license suspended for six months, which means he has to hire other drivers to stay in business. But when a driver calls out sick, Steve takes a chance on getting back behind the wheel of the truck to make that night's delivery.

He figures all he has to worry about is getting pulled over by the cops. But what happens is a tad bit worse than that. A hijacker knocks him out, uses the truck to kill the motorcyle cop and leaves Steve to take the blame.

So the movie becomes a "man on the run to find the real killer" story.  It's a well-used plot devise, but that's because it makes for a good mystery when well-written. And The Thirteenth Hour is indeed well-written, with a logical plot and several unexpected plot twists. 

I actually don't want to give too detailed a summary because I don't want to spoil the nicely done twists for anyone. Suffice to say that Steve and those helping him, which includes a good friend, Eileen and Eileen's son, act in an intelligent and logical manner when pursing leads to find the real killer. They also keep their heads to outsmart the bad guy when the situation turns dangerous during the climax. 

The bad guy's identity is a real surprise (though many alert viewers will tumble to it a few minutes before the film reveals it) and he also acts with reasonable intelligence, making him an effective villain. 

I like this one a lot and it runs neck-to-neck with Mysterious Intruder as my favorite in the series so far.

Of the eight Whistler films, I have six on DVD (recorded off of TCM a few years ago). The Thirteenth Hour one of the two I don't have on disc, so I watched it on YouTube. I'm posting that YouTube video below. But I don't know what the copyright situation is for the movie and don't know if it might one day get pulled. So, as I stated with the other Whistler movie shared here, if my future biographers visit this post in the future (while researching my influence that made me the cultural savior of civilization) and the post below isn't active--it's NOT MY FAULT!