Clevercell Very disappointing...

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Bea Swanson This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

MartinHafer "Friday the Thirteenth" is an extremely well-crafted film--with some fine writing, acting and production values. This surprised me, as the film is in the public domain and often this means no one cared enough to renew the copyright on a film....and often that means the film is a dud. This, however, is no dud.The story begins with some people on a bus in London during a rainstorm on Friday 13th. Suddenly, lightning strikes and there's an accident...two people are killed though you don't know which of the folks you've been introduced to perished. Then, the film backs up a day and you see the various passenger's lives and what led up to this tragedy. The individual stories are very engaging and well written. Also, in one case the death is a blessing....and you'll have to see the film to see what I mean. Worth seeing and a film you can download for free from archive.org.

Brendan Carroll I recently saw this ancient British film again after a 30 year hiatus. Luckily it was the recent DVD from NETWORK with possibly the best surviving print that I saw. I won't repeat the complex plot (every reviewer on IMDb seems compelled to reprise film plots for some reason), apart from saying that the narrative binds together a group of disparate characters over a 24 hour period, each with his/her own story, much like the later films TALES OF MANHATTAN (1942) FLESH AND FANTASY (1943) DEAD OF NIGHT (1945) BOND STREET (1948) etc. This film is probably the first talkie to use such a device and its cast is stuffed with famous stars of the early 1930s. Which makes spotting familiar faces (if you are a film buff) part of the fun of watching this.Its main attraction for me though, is that it offers a tantalizing glimpse of London as it was almost 90 years ago, a London and a way of life in Britain that has vanished completely. The street and railway station scenes, the atmosphere on a typical London bus of that time with a conductor, and the whole ambiance of the film are priceless. It also provides Max Miller with perhaps his best screen role, allowing him to demonstrate his astonishing facility for rapid-fire dialogue that would not have been out of place at Warner Brothers in the mid 1930s. Think Pat O'Brien and James Cagney in such films as BOY MEETS GIRL and CEILING ZERO and then watch Max do his stuff. He's terrific and easily competes with them.Some scenes creak today as one would expect, but for the most part, this is a vivid, highly entertaining little film that deserves to be far better known than it is.

mark.waltz 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.

kidboots 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.