Wish List Wednesdays: When Were You Born? (1938) Is Finally Available on DVD

From Amazon

For me, October 1st is the start of the Halloween season, so let's ease our way into spooky fare by starting with a film that has only a hint of the supernatural.  "When Were You Born" (1938) is more of a mystery thriller, starring Anna May Wong as astrologer Mei Lee Ling, who finds herself mixed up in a murder when she predicts a dire fate for a fellow ship passenger which indeed comes to pass.  The police naturally suspect that her prediction was more than just coincidence, so to clear her name she offers to help the police find the killer.  It turns out Ling really does have an uncanny ability to predict the future based upon an individual's astrological sign, and with her help the police are eventually able to solve the murder.

The most interesting gimmick in this movie is that the twelve main characters were born under the twelve different astrological signs, and Ling accurately predicts the personalities of each based upon when they were born (hence the film's title).  Also interesting is that this movie's screenplay was written by astrologer and mystic Manly P. Hall, the founder of the Philosophical Research Society, who also appears in the introduction of the film to give a detailed description of the astrological signs which feature so prominently in the movie.  One final interesting observation is that, although Anna May Wong is presumably the main character in the movie, she receives second billing to a white female actress whose role in the film is more marginal (the movie was made in 1938, so this is probably not surprising for the time).

While this is not the best murder mystery film ever made, I did enjoy the admittedly gimmicky trick of using astrology to help solve the crime, and the plot was just convoluted enough to keep it from being too mundane.  I first saw this movie a couple of years ago on Turner Classic Movies, and have been waiting patiently for it to come out on DVD (click on Amazon link above).  If you are not interested in actually owning a copy, you can watch it on YouTube here:

Gore Guide (0=none to 5=extreme): 0