The 9th Guest (1934) Online

Cast overview:
	Donald Cook	-	Jim Daley
	Genevieve Tobin	-	Jean Trent
	Hardie Albright	-	Henry Abbott
	Edward Ellis	-	Tim Cronin
	Edwin Maxwell	-	Jason Osgood
	Vince Barnett	-	William Jones (as Vincent Barnett)
	Helen Flint	-	Sylvia Inglesby
	Samuel S. Hinds	-	Dr. Murray Reid (as Samuel Hinds)
	Nella Walker	-	Margaret Chisholm
	Sidney Bracey	-	Hawkins, the Butler

"The Ninth Guest" was also a play written by Owen Davis. It was an adaptation of the original novel The Invisible Host by Gwen Bristow & Bruce Manning as stated in the opening credits of the film. Davis' stage adaptation of the novel first opened at the Eltinge 42nd Street Theatre in New York on August 25, 1930, and ran for 72 performances. The opening night cast included Berton Churchill, William Courtleigh, Alan Dinehart Grace Kern, Frank Shannon and Robert Vivian.

One of over a hundred Columbia features, mostly Westerns, sold to Hygo Television Films in the 1950s, who marketed them under the name of Gail Pictures; opening credits were redesigned, with some titles misspelled, the credit order of the players rearranged, some names misspelled, and new end titles attached, thus eliminating any evidence of their Columbia roots. Apparently, the original material was not retained in most of the cases, and the films have survived, even in the Sony library, only with these haphazardly created replacement opening and end credits.

While the plot is nearly identical to Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians," right down to the disembodied voice accusing the unwary guests through a radio, this film offers an additional layer of suspense in that the guests brought together for systematic execution actually know one another, and their troubled, conflicted relationships add to the built-in tension of the murder plot.

At first glance, mystery aficionados might assume that Owen Davis borrowed heavily from Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians" in the plotting of The Ninth Guest. But the stage play on which this film was based was produced in 1930, nine years before Christie's novel was published, which suggests it was Christie who based the framework of her groundbreaking tale on The Ninth Guest.

The stage play upon which the film was based was in turn adapted from a novel by Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning entitled "The Invisible Host." Both the novel and the Broadway stage play came to light in the same year, 1930.

The film's source material, "The Invisible Host," was a novel by the husband and wife team of Gwen Bristow and Bruce Manning. Their whodunit was inspired by a neighbor whose raucous radio disturbed them day and night. The novel begins: "That makes thirty-seven words, said the girl. Will you read the telegram again? came the voice over the wire. She read: Congratulations stop plans afoot for small surprise party in your honor Bienville penthouse next Saturday eight o'clock stop all sub rose big surprise stop maintain secrecy stop promise you most original party ever staged in New Orleans Signed Your host."

The centerpiece of the film's Art Deco penthouse is a grandfather clock concealed behind a curved wall except for the face of the clock and the bottommost tip of the pendulum, which swings ominously within a smile-faced window of light.

While it certainly seems that Christie's infinitely superior work was influenced by this 9 years earlier work of fiction, it may or may not be so. Almost everyone is inspired by something seen or heard which later germinates. Christie may or may not have seen the film in question or read the book, who can know. Did the two American authors and Conan Doyle (who wrote the similar plotted "A Study in Scarlet") also plagiarize each other? As it only ran for a dismal 72 performances on Broadway she surely did not see the play.

I also disagree with some of the previous comment that begins with "Though it runs just over an hour, nearly every element of the film's plot was replicated in Agatha Christie's 'Ten Little Indians'":

1) "a coward who offers to collude with the murderer in return for his life being spared" - Totally inaccurate description of the relationship between Dr. Armstrong and Justice Wargrave in ATTWN.

2) "a male character managing the tension by drinking to excess" - Not in ATTWN.

3) "the two would-be lovers unraveling the solution to the mystery before they can be killed" - Not in ATTWN novel - not in original ending. Bleak ending changed later for stage, film, and TV productions.

4) The 1930 work relies on elaborate electronic devices more appropriate to the late 20th-early 21st century which are used to constrain and inject poison while Christie's has nothing of that sort.

5) The characters, some of whom know each other intimately, targeted for death in "The Invisible Host" are guilty of such serious but not capital crimes as conspiracy, corruption, and bigamy, and the killer is seeking revenge on those who directly impacted his life, whereas in Christie's ATTWN, each and every guest to the island is a stranger to each other (except the married couple of servants) and each has evaded justice despite being responsible for intentionally causing the death of at least one other human being (except, ironically, the actual killer, who took no innocent life nor was the ATTWN killer directly affected by the actions of his guests/victims).

6) In 'The 9th Guest', at least one completely innocent person is killed (later revealed as the electrician who wired the apartment so a high-voltage charge ran through the metal gate that was the only way to leave), and the fate of the two apparently innocent butlers is not known to those of us who haven't seen the film.

7) Unclear and illogical to invite the young man and woman who become the heroes and lovers, as they had done nothing to merit punishment.

Serious differences. Also, there is no record online of any accusations, much less lawsuits, filed by either Owen Davis and/or Gwen Bristow & Bruce Manning, for plagiarism or any similar such offense against Christie and her publisher, which, based on the above, would have been relatively easy to prosecute, with a good chance of success, based upon an apparent preponderance of evidence.

Though it runs just over an hour, nearly every element of the film's plot was replicated in Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians," including two servants engaged by an agency who follow the written instructions of their absent employer; an unseen host promising death to guests for their past misdeeds through an airwave device; a coward who offers to collude with the murderer in return for his life being spared; an isolated setting that disallows the guests from leaving; each death being executed in order of "unworthiness to live" through a missive of some kind; a thorough search of the premises that leads the characters to conclude that the killer is actually one of them; a total of ten characters of disparate ages, of which seven are male and three female; each surviving character divulging his or her guilty secret as the body count mounts; an uneasy romance between two of the characters who suspect each other despite their growing attraction; a male character managing the tension by drinking to excess, which seals his fate; a remainder of four characters, three male and one female; a sudden loss of electricity that prompts a shot in the dark, revealed to be a death once the lights go on; the two would-be lovers unraveling the solution to the mystery before they can be killed. Rather than a dining room centerpiece of China figurines, the film's characters come upon an ominous staircase of which each step is revealed to be a life-size coffin with the same amount of caskets as there are guests ("one for each of us..."). Whereas Christie kills off her victims over the course of a long weekend, the characters in this film die in the same evening, every time the clock strikes a new hour. Most strikingly, while the accusing host appears only once in the Christie version, he is an ongoing character in this version.