.gif)
The Cat and the Canary (1927 film)
Encyclopedia
The Cat and the Canary is an American silent
horror film
adaptation of John Willard
's 1922 black comedy
play of the same name. Directed by German Expressionist
filmmaker Paul Leni
, the film stars Laura La Plante
as Annabelle West, Forrest Stanley
as Charles "Charlie" Wilder, and Creighton Hale
as Paul Jones. The plot revolves around the death of Cyrus West, who is Annabelle, Charlie, and Paul's uncle, and the reading of his will 20 years later. Annabelle inherits her uncle's fortune, but when she and her family spend the night in his haunted mansion they are stalked by a mysterious figure. Meanwhile, a lunatic
known as "the Cat" escapes from an asylum and hides in the mansion.
The Cat and the Canary is part of a genre of comedy horror films inspired by 1920s Broadway
stage plays. Paul Leni's adaptation of Willard's play blended expressionism with humor, a style Leni was notable for and critics recognized as unique. Leni's style of directing made The Cat and the Canary influential in the "old dark house" genre of films popular from the 1930s through the 1950s. The film was one of Universal
's early horror productions and is considered "the cornerstone of Universal's school of horror." The play has been filmed five other times, with the most notable
in 1939 starring comedic actor Bob Hope
and Paulette Goddard
.
, millionaire Cyrus West approaches death. His greedy family descends upon him like "cats around a canary", causing him to become insane
. West orders that his last will and testament
remain locked in a safe and go unread until the 20th anniversary of his death. As the appointed time arrives, West's lawyer, Roger Crosby (Tully Marshall
), discovers that a second will mysteriously appeared in the safe. The second will may only be opened if the terms of the first will are not fulfilled. The caretaker of the West mansion, Mammy Pleasant (Martha Mattox
), blames the manifestation of the second will on the ghost of Cyrus West, a notion that the astonished Crosby quickly rejects.
As midnight approaches, West's relatives arrive at the mansion: nephews Harry Blythe (Arthur Edmund Carewe
), Charles "Charlie" Wilder, Paul Jones, his sister Susan Sillsby (Flora Finch
) and her daughter Cecily Young (Gertrude Astor
), and niece Annabelle West. Cyrus West's fortune is bequeathed to the most distant relative bearing the name West: Annabelle. The will, however, stipulates that to inherit the fortune, she must be judged sane by a doctor, Ira Lazar (Lucien Littlefield
). If she is deemed insane, the fortune is passed to the person named in the second will. The fortune includes the West diamonds which her uncle hid years ago. Annabelle realizes that she is now like her uncle, "in a cage surrounded by cats."
While the family prepares for dinner, a guard (George Siegmann
) barges in and announces that an escaped lunatic
called the Cat is either in the house or on the grounds. The guard tells Cecily, "He's a maniac who thinks he's a cat, and tears his victims like they were canaries!" Meanwhile, Crosby suspects someone in the family might try to harm Annabelle and decides to inform her of her successor. Before he speaks the person's name, a hairy hand with long nails emerges from a secret passage in a bookshelf and pulls him in, terrifying Annabelle. When she explains what happened to Crosby, the family immediately concludes that she is insane.
While Annabelle sleeps, the same mysterious hand emerges from the wall behind her bed and snatches the diamonds from her neck. Once again, her sanity is questioned, but as Harry and Annabelle search the room, they discover a hidden passage in the wall and in it the corpse of Roger Crosby. Mammy Pleasant leaves to call the police, while Harry searches for the guard; Susan runs away in hysteric
s and hitches a ride with a milkman (Joe Murphy). Paul and Annabelle return to her room to search for the missing envelope, and discover that Crosby's body is missing. Paul vanishes as the secret passage closes behind him. Wandering in the hidden passages, Paul is attacked by the Cat and left for dead. He regains consciousness in time to rescue Annabelle. The police arrive and arrest the Cat, who is Charlie Wilder in disguise; the guard is his accomplice. Wilder is the person named in the second will; he hoped to drive Annabelle insane so that he could receive the inheritance.
and Der Blaue Reiter
, cubism
, futurism
, and abstraction
. The key element that connects these styles is the concern for the expression of inner feelings over verisimilitude
to nature. Film historian Richard Peterson notes that "German cinema
became famous for stories of psychological horror and for uncanny moods generated through lighting, set design and camera angles." Such filmmaking techniques drew on expressionist themes. Influential examples of German expressionist film include Robert Wiene
's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) about a deranged doctor and Paul Leni's Waxworks
(1925) about a wax figure display
at a fair.
Waxworks impressed Carl Laemmle
, the German-born president of Universal Pictures
. Laemmle was struck by Leni's departure from expressionism by the inclusion of humor and playfulness during grotesque scenes. Meanwhile, in the United States, D. W. Griffith
's One Exciting Night
(1922) began a Gothic horror
film trend that Laemmle wanted to capitalize on; subsequent films in the genre like Frank Tuttle
's Puritan Passions
(1923), Roland West
's The Monster
(1925) and The Bat
(1926), and Alfred Santell
's The Gorilla
(1927)—all comedy horror film adaptations of Broadway
stage plays—proved successful.
Laemmle turned to John Willard's popular play The Cat and the Canary, which centered on an heiress whose family tries to drive her insane to steal her inheritance. Willard hesitated in permitting Laemmle to film his play because, as historian Douglas Brode explains, "that would have exposed to virtually everyone the trick ending, ... destroying the play's potential as an ongoing moneymaker." Nevertheless, Willard was convinced and the play was adapted into a screenplay by Alfred A. Cohn
and Robert F. Hill
.
, Creighton Hale
, and Forrest Stanley
. La Plante played roles in more than 50 films before starring in The Cat and the Canary. According to film historian Gary Don Rhodes, her part in The Cat and the Canary was typical for women in horror and mystery films: "The female in the horror film ... becomes the hunted, the quarry. She has little to do, and so the question becomes 'What will be done with her?'" Rhodes adds, "The heroines are young and beautiful, but represent more a prize to be possessed—whether 'stolen' by a villain or 'owned' by a young hero at the film's conclusion." Following The Cat and the Canary, La Plante maintained a career with Universal, but she is described as a "victim of talkies
." She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
before her death in 1996 from Alzheimer's disease
.
Universal chose Irish
actor Creighton Hale to play hero Paul Jones, Annabelle's cousin. Hale had appeared in 64 silent films before The Cat and the Canary, notably the 1914 serial
The Exploits of Elaine
and D. W. Griffith's Way Down East
(1920) and Orphans of the Storm
(1921). Hale's role in The Cat and the Canary was to provide comedic relief. According to critic John Howard Reid, "He is forever backing into furniture or finding himself in a risqué position under a bed or wrestling with stray objects like falling books or enormous bed-springs." Hale had trouble finding a solid career in sound film. Many of his parts were minor and uncredited.
The villain Charles Wilder was played by Forrest Stanley, an actor who had been cast in films such as Bavu (1923), Through the Dark (1924) and Shadow of the Law
(1926). After his performance in The Cat and the Canary, Stanley played lesser roles in films such as Show Boat
(1936) and Curse of the Undead
(1959) and the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents
, Studio 57
, and Gunsmoke
.
The film contained a supporting cast referred to by one film historian as "second-rate" and "excellent" by another. Tully Marshall
played the suspicious lawyer Roger Crosby, Martha Mattox
was cast as the sinister and superstitious housekeeper Mammy Pleasant, and Gertrude Astor
and Flora Finch
played greedy relatives Cecily Young and Aunt Susan Sillsby, respectively. Lucien Littlefield
was cast as deranged psychiatrist
Dr. Ira Lazar who bore an eerie resemblance to Werner Krauss
's title character in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
, asymmetric sets, and excessive stylization, to a format compatible with American film practice." Jenn Dlugos argues that "many stage play movie adaptations [of the 1920s] fall into the trap of looking like 'a stage play taped for the big screen' with minimal emphasis on the environment and plenty of stage play overacting." This, however, was not the case for Leni's film. Richard Scheib notes that "Leni's style is something that lifts The Cat and the Canary up and away from being merely a filmed stage play and gives it an amazing visual dynamism."
Leni used similar camera effects found in German expressionist films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to set the atmosphere of The Cat and the Canary. The film opens with a hand wiping cobwebs away to reveal the title credits. Other effects include "dramatic shadows, portentous superimposition
s and moody sequences in which the camera glides through corridors with billowing curtains." Film historian Jan-Christopher Horak explains that a "matched dissolve from an image of the mansion and its oddly shaped towers to the oversized bottles of medicine that the dearly departed has been forced to consume functions as a double image of a prison, dwarfing the old man who sits alive with his will in a corner of the frame." Leni worked with the cast to add to the mood created by lighting and camera angles. Cinematographer
Gilbert Warrenton
recalled that Leni used a gong
to startle the actors. Warrenton mused, "He beat that thing worse than the Salvation Army
beat a drum."
While the film contains elements of horror, according to film historian Dennis L. White it "is structured with an end other than horror in mind. Some scenes may achieve horror, and some characters dramatically experience horror, but for these films conventional clues and a logical explanation, at least an explanation plausible in hindsight, are usually crucial, and are of necessity their makers' first concern."
Besides directing, Leni was a painter and set designer. The sets of the film were designed by Leni and fabricated by Charles D. Hall
, who later designed the sets of Dracula
(1931) and Frankenstein
(1931). Leni hoped to eschew realism for visual designs that reflected the emotions of characters. He wrote, "It is not extreme reality that the camera perceives, but the reality of the inner event, which is more profound, effective and moving than what we see through everyday eyes ...." Leni went on to direct the Charlie Chan
film The Chinese Parrot
(1927), The Man Who Laughs
(1928), and The Last Warning
(1929) before his death in 1929 from blood poisoning
.
The Cat and the Canary debuted in New York City's Colony Theatre on September 9, 1927, and was a "box office success". Variety
opined, "What distinguishes Universal's film version of the ... play is Paul Leni's intelligent handling of a weird theme, introducing some of his novel settings and ideas with which he became identified .... The film runs a bit overlong .... Otherwise it's a more than average satisfying feature ...." A New York Times review expounded, "This is a film which ought to be exhibited before many other directors to show them how a story should be told, for in all that he does Mr. Leni does not seem to strain at a point. He does it as naturally as a man twisting the ends of his mustache in thought." Nonetheless, as film historian Bernard F. Dick points out, "[e]xponents of Caligarisme, expressionism in the extreme ... naturally thought Leni had vulgarized the conventions [of expressionism]". Dick, however, notes that Leni had only "lighten[ed] [expressionist themes] so they could enter American cinema without the baggage of a movement that had spiraled out of control."
Modern critics address the film's impact and influence. Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice
remarks, "[Leni's] adroitly atmospheric film is virtually an ideogram of narrative suspension and impact"; Chris Dashiell states that "[e]verything is so exaggerated, so lacking in subtlety, that we soon stop caring what happens, despite a few mildly scary effects", although he admits that the film "had a great effect on the horror genre, and even Hitchcock
cited it as an influence." Tony Rayns
has called the film "the definitive 'haunted house' movie .... Leni wisely plays it mainly for laughs, but his prowling, Murnau
-like camera work generates a frisson or two along the way. It is, in fact, hugely entertaining ...." John Calhoun feels that what makes the film both "important and influential" was "Leni's uncanny ability to bring out the period's slapstick
elements in the story's hackneyed conventions: the sliding panels and disappearing acts are so fast paced and expertly timed that the picture looks like a first-rate door-slamming farce .... At the same time, Leni didn't short-circuit the horrific aspects ...."
Although not the first film set in a supposed haunted house
, The Cat and the Canary started the pattern for the "old dark house" genre. The term is derived from English director James Whale
's The Old Dark House
(1932), which was heavily influenced by Leni's film, and refers to "films in which murders are committed by masked killers in old mansions." Supernatural events in the film are all explained at the film's conclusion as the work of a criminal. Other films in this genre influenced by The Cat and the Canary include The Last Warning, House on Haunted Hill
(1959), and the monster films of Abbott and Costello
and Laurel and Hardy
.
A tinted version was released on both VHS
and DVD
in 1997 and 2005 by Image Entertainment
. The original black-and-white version airs infrequently on the cable television
network Turner Classic Movies
.
's The Cat Creeps
(1930) and the Spanish language
La Voluntad del muerto
(The Will of the Dead Man) directed by George Melford
and Enrique Tovar Ávalos
were the first talkie versions of the play; they were produced and distributed by Universal Pictures in 1930. Although the first sound films produced by Universal, neither was as influential on the genre as the first film and The Cat Creeps is lost
.
The plot had become too familiar, as film historian Douglas Brode notes, and it "seemed likely the play would be put away in a drawer [indefinitely]." Yet Elliott Nugent
's film, The Cat and the Canary
(1939), proved successful. Nugent "had the inspired idea to openly play the piece for laughs." The film was produced by Paramount
and starred comedic actor Bob Hope
. Hope played Wally Campbell, a character based on Creighton Hale's performance as Paul Jones. One critic suggests that Hope developed the character better than Hale and was funnier and more engaging. In later years, Universal themselves acquired the rights
to the 1939 version.
Other film adaptations include Katten och kanariefågeln
(The Cat and the Canary), a 1961 Swedish television film directed by Jan Molander
and The Cat and the Canary
(1979), a British film directed by Radley Metzger
. The 1979 version was produced by Richard Gordon
, who explains why he and Metzger made their film version: "Well, it hadn't been done since the Bob Hope version, it had never been done in color, it was a well-known title, had a certain reputation, and it was something that logically could or in fact should be made in England."
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
adaptation of John Willard
John Willard (playwright)
John Willard was an American playwright. His most famous work is The Cat and the Canary , a play that was made into the influential silent film of the same name in 1927.-External links: at the Internet Movie Database....
's 1922 black comedy
Black comedy
A black comedy, or dark comedy, is a comic work that employs black humor or gallows humor. The definition of black humor is problematic; it has been argued that it corresponds to the earlier concept of gallows humor; and that, as humor has been defined since Freud as a comedic act that anesthetizes...
play of the same name. Directed by German Expressionist
German Expressionism
German Expressionism refers to a number of related creative movements beginning in Germany before the First World War that reached a peak in Berlin, during the 1920s...
filmmaker Paul Leni
Paul Leni
Paul Leni born Paul Josef Levi was a German filmmaker and a key figure in German Expressionist filmmaking, making Backstairs and Waxworks in Germany, and The Cat and the Canary , The Chinese Parrot , The Man Who Laughs , and The Last Warning in...
, the film stars Laura La Plante
Laura La Plante
Laura La Plante was an American actress, best-known for her roles in silent films.-Early acting career:...
as Annabelle West, Forrest Stanley
Forrest Stanley
Forrest Stanley was an American actor and screenplay writer best known for his work in silent film...
as Charles "Charlie" Wilder, and Creighton Hale
Creighton Hale
Creighton Hale was an Irish-born American movie actor who worked in the silent film era.-Career:While starring in Charles Frohman's Broadway production of Indian Summer, Hale was spotted by a representative of the Pathe Film Company...
as Paul Jones. The plot revolves around the death of Cyrus West, who is Annabelle, Charlie, and Paul's uncle, and the reading of his will 20 years later. Annabelle inherits her uncle's fortune, but when she and her family spend the night in his haunted mansion they are stalked by a mysterious figure. Meanwhile, a lunatic
Lunatic
"Lunatic" is a commonly used term for a person who is mentally ill, dangerous, foolish, unpredictable; a condition once called lunacy. The word derives from lunaticus meaning "of the moon" or "moonstruck".-Lunar hypothesis:...
known as "the Cat" escapes from an asylum and hides in the mansion.
The Cat and the Canary is part of a genre of comedy horror films inspired by 1920s Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
stage plays. Paul Leni's adaptation of Willard's play blended expressionism with humor, a style Leni was notable for and critics recognized as unique. Leni's style of directing made The Cat and the Canary influential in the "old dark house" genre of films popular from the 1930s through the 1950s. The film was one of Universal
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
's early horror productions and is considered "the cornerstone of Universal's school of horror." The play has been filmed five other times, with the most notable
The Cat and the Canary (1939 film)
The Cat and the Canary starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard is a 1939 comedy horror film remake of the 1927 film The Cat and the Canary, which was based on the 1922 play of the same name by John Willard...
in 1939 starring comedic actor Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
and Paulette Goddard
Paulette Goddard
Paulette Goddard was an American film and theatre actress. A former child fashion model and in several Broadway productions as Ziegfeld Girl, she was a major star of the Paramount Studio in the 1940s. She was married to several notable men, including Charlie Chaplin, Burgess Meredith, and Erich...
.
Plot
In a mansion overlooking the Hudson RiverHudson River
The Hudson is a river that flows from north to south through eastern New York. The highest official source is at Lake Tear of the Clouds, on the slopes of Mount Marcy in the Adirondack Mountains. The river itself officially begins in Henderson Lake in Newcomb, New York...
, millionaire Cyrus West approaches death. His greedy family descends upon him like "cats around a canary", causing him to become insane
Insanity
Insanity, craziness or madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity may manifest as violations of societal norms, including becoming a danger to themselves and others, though not all such acts are considered insanity...
. West orders that his last will and testament
Will (law)
A will or testament is a legal declaration by which a person, the testator, names one or more persons to manage his/her estate and provides for the transfer of his/her property at death...
remain locked in a safe and go unread until the 20th anniversary of his death. As the appointed time arrives, West's lawyer, Roger Crosby (Tully Marshall
Tully Marshall
William Phillips was an American character actor known as Tully Marshall, with nearly a quarter century of theatrical experience behind before he made his first film appearance in 1914.-Career:...
), discovers that a second will mysteriously appeared in the safe. The second will may only be opened if the terms of the first will are not fulfilled. The caretaker of the West mansion, Mammy Pleasant (Martha Mattox
Martha Mattox
Martha Mattox was an American silent film actor most notable for her role of Mammy Pleasant in the 1927 film The Cat and the Canary. She also played a role in Torrent...
), blames the manifestation of the second will on the ghost of Cyrus West, a notion that the astonished Crosby quickly rejects.
Arthur Edmund Carewe
Arthur Edmund Carewe , was an Armenian-American actor in the silent and early sound film era.-Early life:Born Hovsep Hovsepian in Trabzon , Ottoman Empire, Carewe was from a prosperous family in his native country...
), Charles "Charlie" Wilder, Paul Jones, his sister Susan Sillsby (Flora Finch
Flora Finch
Flora Finch was an English-born film actress who starred in over 300 silent films, including over 200 for the Vitagraph Studios film company.-Early life and career:...
) and her daughter Cecily Young (Gertrude Astor
Gertrude Astor
Gertrude Astor was an American motion picture character actress, who began her career playing trombone on a riverboat.-Career:...
), and niece Annabelle West. Cyrus West's fortune is bequeathed to the most distant relative bearing the name West: Annabelle. The will, however, stipulates that to inherit the fortune, she must be judged sane by a doctor, Ira Lazar (Lucien Littlefield
Lucien Littlefield
Lucien Littlefield was an American actor in the silent film era...
). If she is deemed insane, the fortune is passed to the person named in the second will. The fortune includes the West diamonds which her uncle hid years ago. Annabelle realizes that she is now like her uncle, "in a cage surrounded by cats."
While the family prepares for dinner, a guard (George Siegmann
George Siegmann
George Siegmann was an American actor in the silent film era. His more notable roles include Silas Lynch in Griffith's Birth of A Nation , the guard in the 1927 film The Cat and the Canary, Porthos in The Three Musketeers , Bill Sikes in Oliver Twist , and Dr...
) barges in and announces that an escaped lunatic
Lunatic
"Lunatic" is a commonly used term for a person who is mentally ill, dangerous, foolish, unpredictable; a condition once called lunacy. The word derives from lunaticus meaning "of the moon" or "moonstruck".-Lunar hypothesis:...
called the Cat is either in the house or on the grounds. The guard tells Cecily, "He's a maniac who thinks he's a cat, and tears his victims like they were canaries!" Meanwhile, Crosby suspects someone in the family might try to harm Annabelle and decides to inform her of her successor. Before he speaks the person's name, a hairy hand with long nails emerges from a secret passage in a bookshelf and pulls him in, terrifying Annabelle. When she explains what happened to Crosby, the family immediately concludes that she is insane.
While Annabelle sleeps, the same mysterious hand emerges from the wall behind her bed and snatches the diamonds from her neck. Once again, her sanity is questioned, but as Harry and Annabelle search the room, they discover a hidden passage in the wall and in it the corpse of Roger Crosby. Mammy Pleasant leaves to call the police, while Harry searches for the guard; Susan runs away in hysteric
Hysteria
Hysteria, in its colloquial use, describes unmanageable emotional excesses. People who are "hysterical" often lose self-control due to an overwhelming fear that may be caused by multiple events in one's past that involved some sort of severe conflict; the fear can be centered on a body part, or,...
s and hitches a ride with a milkman (Joe Murphy). Paul and Annabelle return to her room to search for the missing envelope, and discover that Crosby's body is missing. Paul vanishes as the secret passage closes behind him. Wandering in the hidden passages, Paul is attacked by the Cat and left for dead. He regains consciousness in time to rescue Annabelle. The police arrive and arrest the Cat, who is Charlie Wilder in disguise; the guard is his accomplice. Wilder is the person named in the second will; he hoped to drive Annabelle insane so that he could receive the inheritance.
Production
The Cat and the Canary is the product of early 20th century German expressionism. According to art historian Joan Weinstein, expressionism is a loosely defined term that includes the art styles of Die BrückeDie Brücke
Die Brücke was a group of German expressionist artists formed in Dresden in 1905, after which the Brücke Museum in Berlin was named. Founding members were Fritz Bleyl, Erich Heckel, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Karl Schmidt-Rottluff. Later members were Emil Nolde, Max Pechstein and Otto Mueller...
and Der Blaue Reiter
Der Blaue Reiter
Der Blaue Reiter was a group of artists from the Neue Künstlervereinigung München in Munich, Germany. The group was founded by a number of Russian emigrants, including Wassily Kandinsky, Alexej von Jawlensky, Marianne von Werefkin, and native German artists, such as Franz Marc, August Macke and...
, cubism
Cubism
Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde art movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque, that revolutionized European painting and sculpture, and inspired related movements in music, literature and architecture...
, futurism
Futurism (art)
Futurism was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy in the early 20th century. It emphasized and glorified themes associated with contemporary concepts of the future, including speed, technology, youth and violence, and objects such as the car, the airplane and the industrial city...
, and abstraction
Abstract art
Abstract art uses a visual language of form, color and line to create a composition which may exist with a degree of independence from visual references in the world. Western art had been, from the Renaissance up to the middle of the 19th century, underpinned by the logic of perspective and an...
. The key element that connects these styles is the concern for the expression of inner feelings over verisimilitude
Verisimilitude
Verisimilitude is the quality of realism in something .-Competing ideas:The problem of verisimilitude is the problem of articulating what it takes for one false theory to be closer to the truth than another false theory...
to nature. Film historian Richard Peterson notes that "German cinema
Cinema of Germany
Cinema in Germany can be traced back to the late 19th century. German cinema has made major technical and artistic contributions to film.Unlike any other national cinemas, which developed in the context of relatively continuous and stable political systems, Germany witnesses major changes to its...
became famous for stories of psychological horror and for uncanny moods generated through lighting, set design and camera angles." Such filmmaking techniques drew on expressionist themes. Influential examples of German expressionist film include Robert Wiene
Robert Wiene
Robert Wiene was an important film director of the German silent cinema.Robert Wiene was born in Breslau, as the elder son of the successful theatre actor Carl Wiene. His younger brother Conrad also became an actor, but Robert Wiene at first studied law at the University of Berlin. In 1908 he also...
's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) about a deranged doctor and Paul Leni's Waxworks
Waxworks (film)
Waxworks is a 1924 fantasy/horror silent film directed by Paul Leni. The film is about a writer who accepts a job from a waxworks proprietor to write a series of stories about the exhibits of Caliph of Baghdad , Ivan the Terrible and Jack the Ripper in order to boost business.Although...
(1925) about a wax figure display
Wax museum
A wax museum or waxworks consists of a collection of wax sculptures representing famous people from history and contemporary personalities exhibited in lifelike poses....
at a fair.
Waxworks impressed Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle
Carl Laemmle , born in Laupheim, Württemberg, Germany, was a pioneer in American film making and a founder of one of the original major Hollywood movie studios - Universal...
, the German-born president of Universal Pictures
Universal Pictures
-1920:* White Youth* The Flaming Disc* Am I Dreaming?* The Dragon's Net* The Adorable Savage* Putting It Over* The Line Runners-1921:* The Fire Eater* A Battle of Wits* Dream Girl* The Millionaire...
. Laemmle was struck by Leni's departure from expressionism by the inclusion of humor and playfulness during grotesque scenes. Meanwhile, in the United States, D. W. Griffith
D. W. Griffith
David Llewelyn Wark Griffith was a premier pioneering American film director. He is best known as the director of the controversial and groundbreaking 1915 film The Birth of a Nation and the subsequent film Intolerance .Griffith's film The Birth of a Nation made pioneering use of advanced camera...
's One Exciting Night
One Exciting Night
One Exciting Night is a 1922 American Gothic silent Mystery film directed by D. W. Griffith.The plot revolves around the murder of a bootlegger and the attempts of the cast to uncover the true murderer...
(1922) began a Gothic horror
Gothic fiction
Gothic fiction, sometimes referred to as Gothic horror, is a genre or mode of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance. Gothicism's origin is attributed to English author Horace Walpole, with his 1764 novel The Castle of Otranto, subtitled "A Gothic Story"...
film trend that Laemmle wanted to capitalize on; subsequent films in the genre like Frank Tuttle
Frank Tuttle
Frank Tuttle was a Hollywood film director and writer who directed films from 1922 to 1959 ....
's Puritan Passions
Puritan Passions
Puritan Passions is a 1923 silent film directed by Frank Tuttle, based on Percy MacKaye's 1908 play, The Scarecrow, which was itself based on Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "Feathertop". The film stars Glenn Hunter, Mary Astor, and stage actor Osgood Perkins. It follows the play faithfully,...
(1923), Roland West
Roland West
For the basketball player, see Roland West Roland West was a Hollywood director known for his innovative film noir movies of the 1920s and early 1930s.-Biography:...
's The Monster
The Monster (1925 film)
The Monster is a 1925 silent comedy horror directed by Roland West, based on the play by Crane Wilbur. It stars Johnny Arthur and Lon Chaney, and is remembered as an antecedental Old Dark House movie, as well as a precedent to many subgenre of horror films. The film has been shown on TCM network...
(1925) and The Bat
The Bat (1926 film)
The Bat is a silent film based on the 1920 hit Broadway play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, directed by Roland West and starring Jack Pickford and Louise Fazenda...
(1926), and Alfred Santell
Alfred Santell
Alfred Santell was an American film director born September 14, 1895 in San Francisco, California. He directed over 60 films, including The Patent Leather Kid , Body and Soul , and Beyond the Blue Horizon...
's The Gorilla
The Gorilla (1927 film)
The Gorilla is a 1927 American silent horror film directed by Alfred Santell based on the play of the same name by Ralph Spence. The film stars Charles Murray, Fred Kelsey, and Walter Pidgeon. The plot of the film revolves around a series of murders committed by a man in an ape suit...
(1927)—all comedy horror film adaptations of Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
stage plays—proved successful.
Laemmle turned to John Willard's popular play The Cat and the Canary, which centered on an heiress whose family tries to drive her insane to steal her inheritance. Willard hesitated in permitting Laemmle to film his play because, as historian Douglas Brode explains, "that would have exposed to virtually everyone the trick ending, ... destroying the play's potential as an ongoing moneymaker." Nevertheless, Willard was convinced and the play was adapted into a screenplay by Alfred A. Cohn
Alfred A. Cohn
Alfred A. Cohn was an author, journalist and newspaper editor, Police Commissioner, and screenwriter of the 1920s and 1930s...
and Robert F. Hill
Robert F. Hill
Robert F. Hill was a Canadian film director, screenwriter, and actor during the silent film era.-Selected filmography:-External links:...
.
Casting
The Cat and the Canary features veteran silent film stars Laura La PlanteLaura La Plante
Laura La Plante was an American actress, best-known for her roles in silent films.-Early acting career:...
, Creighton Hale
Creighton Hale
Creighton Hale was an Irish-born American movie actor who worked in the silent film era.-Career:While starring in Charles Frohman's Broadway production of Indian Summer, Hale was spotted by a representative of the Pathe Film Company...
, and Forrest Stanley
Forrest Stanley
Forrest Stanley was an American actor and screenplay writer best known for his work in silent film...
. La Plante played roles in more than 50 films before starring in The Cat and the Canary. According to film historian Gary Don Rhodes, her part in The Cat and the Canary was typical for women in horror and mystery films: "The female in the horror film ... becomes the hunted, the quarry. She has little to do, and so the question becomes 'What will be done with her?'" Rhodes adds, "The heroines are young and beautiful, but represent more a prize to be possessed—whether 'stolen' by a villain or 'owned' by a young hero at the film's conclusion." Following The Cat and the Canary, La Plante maintained a career with Universal, but she is described as a "victim of talkies
Sound film
A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades would pass before sound motion pictures were made commercially...
." She received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
Hollywood Walk of Fame
The Hollywood Walk of Fame consists of more than 2,400 five-pointed terrazzo and brass stars embedded in the sidewalks along fifteen blocks of Hollywood Boulevard and three blocks of Vine Street in Hollywood, California...
before her death in 1996 from Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease
Alzheimer's disease also known in medical literature as Alzheimer disease is the most common form of dementia. There is no cure for the disease, which worsens as it progresses, and eventually leads to death...
.
Irish people
The Irish people are an ethnic group who originate in Ireland, an island in northwestern Europe. Ireland has been populated for around 9,000 years , with the Irish people's earliest ancestors recorded having legends of being descended from groups such as the Nemedians, Fomorians, Fir Bolg, Tuatha...
actor Creighton Hale to play hero Paul Jones, Annabelle's cousin. Hale had appeared in 64 silent films before The Cat and the Canary, notably the 1914 serial
Serial (film)
Serials, more specifically known as Movie serials, Film serials or Chapter plays, were short subjects originally shown in theaters in conjunction with a feature film. They were related to pulp magazine serialized fiction...
The Exploits of Elaine
The Exploits of Elaine
The Exploits of Elaine is a film serial in the genre of The Perils of Pauline.The Exploits of Elaine tells the story of a young woman named Elaine who, with the help of a detective, tries to find the man, known only as "The Clutching Hand", who murdered her father. The Clutching Hand was the first...
and D. W. Griffith's Way Down East
Way Down East
Way Down East is a silent film directed by D. W. Griffith and starring Lillian Gish. It is the best known of four film adaptations of the melodramatic 19th century play Way Down East by Lottie Blair Parker...
(1920) and Orphans of the Storm
Orphans Of The Storm
Orphans of the Storm is a drama film by D. W. Griffith set in late 18th century France, before and during the French Revolution.This was the last Griffith film to feature Lillian and Dorothy Gish, and is often considered Griffith's last major commercial success, after boxoffice hits such as Birth...
(1921). Hale's role in The Cat and the Canary was to provide comedic relief. According to critic John Howard Reid, "He is forever backing into furniture or finding himself in a risqué position under a bed or wrestling with stray objects like falling books or enormous bed-springs." Hale had trouble finding a solid career in sound film. Many of his parts were minor and uncredited.
The villain Charles Wilder was played by Forrest Stanley, an actor who had been cast in films such as Bavu (1923), Through the Dark (1924) and Shadow of the Law
Shadow of the law
Bargaining under the shadow of the law refers to settling cases or making plea bargains in a way that takes into account what would happen at trial. It has been argued that criminal trials resolve such a small percentage of criminal cases "that their shadows are faint and hard to discern."...
(1926). After his performance in The Cat and the Canary, Stanley played lesser roles in films such as Show Boat
Show Boat (1936 film)
Show Boat is a 1936 film based on the musical play by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II , which the team adapted from the novel by Edna Ferber....
(1936) and Curse of the Undead
Curse of the Undead
Curse of the Undead is a 1959 American vampire/Western film directed by Edward Dein and starring Eric Fleming, Michael Pate, Kathleen Crowley, John Hoyt, Bruce Gordon, and Jimmy Murphy.-Plot:...
(1959) and the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Alfred Hitchcock Presents is an American television anthology series hosted by Alfred Hitchcock. The series featured dramas, thrillers, and mysteries. By the premiere of the show on October 2, 1955, Hitchcock had been directing films for over three decades...
, Studio 57
Studio 57
Studio 57 was the name of an American television series that was broadcast on the now-defunct DuMont Television Network.The program was a filmed anthology television series sponsored by Heinz 57 and produced by Revue Studios...
, and Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke
Gunsmoke is an American radio and television Western drama series created by director Norman MacDonnell and writer John Meston. The stories take place in and around Dodge City, Kansas, during the settlement of the American West....
.
The film contained a supporting cast referred to by one film historian as "second-rate" and "excellent" by another. Tully Marshall
Tully Marshall
William Phillips was an American character actor known as Tully Marshall, with nearly a quarter century of theatrical experience behind before he made his first film appearance in 1914.-Career:...
played the suspicious lawyer Roger Crosby, Martha Mattox
Martha Mattox
Martha Mattox was an American silent film actor most notable for her role of Mammy Pleasant in the 1927 film The Cat and the Canary. She also played a role in Torrent...
was cast as the sinister and superstitious housekeeper Mammy Pleasant, and Gertrude Astor
Gertrude Astor
Gertrude Astor was an American motion picture character actress, who began her career playing trombone on a riverboat.-Career:...
and Flora Finch
Flora Finch
Flora Finch was an English-born film actress who starred in over 300 silent films, including over 200 for the Vitagraph Studios film company.-Early life and career:...
played greedy relatives Cecily Young and Aunt Susan Sillsby, respectively. Lucien Littlefield
Lucien Littlefield
Lucien Littlefield was an American actor in the silent film era...
was cast as deranged psychiatrist
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
Dr. Ira Lazar who bore an eerie resemblance to Werner Krauss
Werner Krauss
Werner Johannes Krauss was a German stage and film actor.-Early life:Krauss was born at the parsonage of Gestungshausen in Upper Franconia, where his grandfather was Protestant pastor. He spent his childhood in Breslau and from 1901 attended the teacher's college at Kreuzburg...
's title character in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.
Directing
As Universal anticipated, director Paul Leni turned Willard's play into an expressionist film suited to an American audience. Historian Bernard F. Dick observes that "Leni reduced German expressionism, with its weird chiaroscuroChiaroscuro
Chiaroscuro in art is "an Italian term which literally means 'light-dark'. In paintings the description refers to clear tonal contrasts which are often used to suggest the volume and modelling of the subjects depicted"....
, asymmetric sets, and excessive stylization, to a format compatible with American film practice." Jenn Dlugos argues that "many stage play movie adaptations [of the 1920s] fall into the trap of looking like 'a stage play taped for the big screen' with minimal emphasis on the environment and plenty of stage play overacting." This, however, was not the case for Leni's film. Richard Scheib notes that "Leni's style is something that lifts The Cat and the Canary up and away from being merely a filmed stage play and gives it an amazing visual dynamism."
Leni used similar camera effects found in German expressionist films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to set the atmosphere of The Cat and the Canary. The film opens with a hand wiping cobwebs away to reveal the title credits. Other effects include "dramatic shadows, portentous superimposition
Superimposition
In graphics, superimposition is the placement of an image or video on top of an already-existing image or video, usually to add to the overall image effect, but also sometimes to conceal something .This technique is used in cartography to produce photomaps by superimposing grid lines, contour lines...
s and moody sequences in which the camera glides through corridors with billowing curtains." Film historian Jan-Christopher Horak explains that a "matched dissolve from an image of the mansion and its oddly shaped towers to the oversized bottles of medicine that the dearly departed has been forced to consume functions as a double image of a prison, dwarfing the old man who sits alive with his will in a corner of the frame." Leni worked with the cast to add to the mood created by lighting and camera angles. Cinematographer
Cinematographer
A cinematographer is one photographing with a motion picture camera . The title is generally equivalent to director of photography , used to designate a chief over the camera and lighting crews working on a film, responsible for achieving artistic and technical decisions related to the image...
Gilbert Warrenton
Gilbert Warrenton
Gilbert Warrenton was a prominent American silent and sound film cinematographer. He filmed over 150 films before his death...
recalled that Leni used a gong
Gong
A gong is an East and South East Asian musical percussion instrument that takes the form of a flat metal disc which is hit with a mallet....
to startle the actors. Warrenton mused, "He beat that thing worse than the Salvation Army
Salvation Army
The Salvation Army is a Protestant Christian church known for its thrift stores and charity work. It is an international movement that currently works in over a hundred countries....
beat a drum."
While the film contains elements of horror, according to film historian Dennis L. White it "is structured with an end other than horror in mind. Some scenes may achieve horror, and some characters dramatically experience horror, but for these films conventional clues and a logical explanation, at least an explanation plausible in hindsight, are usually crucial, and are of necessity their makers' first concern."
Besides directing, Leni was a painter and set designer. The sets of the film were designed by Leni and fabricated by Charles D. Hall
Charles D. Hall
Charles D. Hall was a British-American art director and production designer. He is perhaps best remembered for his tenure at Universal Pictures, where he began his career during the silent era...
, who later designed the sets of Dracula
Dracula (1931 film)
Dracula is a 1931 vampire-horror film directed by Tod Browning and starring Bela Lugosi as the title character. The film was produced by Universal and is based on the stage play of the same name by Hamilton Deane and John L...
(1931) and Frankenstein
Frankenstein (1931 film)
Frankenstein is a 1931 Pre-Code Horror Monster film from Universal Pictures directed by James Whale and adapted from the play by Peggy Webling which in turn is based on the novel of the same name by Mary Shelley. The film stars Colin Clive, Mae Clarke, John Boles and Boris Karloff, and features...
(1931). Leni hoped to eschew realism for visual designs that reflected the emotions of characters. He wrote, "It is not extreme reality that the camera perceives, but the reality of the inner event, which is more profound, effective and moving than what we see through everyday eyes ...." Leni went on to direct the Charlie Chan
Charlie Chan
Charlie Chan is a fictional Chinese-American detective created by Earl Derr Biggers in 1919. Loosely based on Honolulu detective Chang Apana, Biggers conceived of the benevolent and heroic Chan as an alternative to Yellow Peril stereotypes, such as villains like Fu Manchu...
film The Chinese Parrot
The Chinese Parrot (film)
The Chinese Parrot is a silent film, the second in the Charlie Chan series and was directed by Paul Leni. The film is an adaptation of the 1926 Earl Derr Biggers novel of the same name. It is a lost film....
(1927), The Man Who Laughs
The Man Who Laughs (1928 film)
The Man Who Laughs is an American silent film directed by the German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni. The film is an adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel of the same name and stars Conrad Veidt as Gwynplaine and Mary Philbin as the blind Dea...
(1928), and The Last Warning
The Last Warning
The Last Warning is a mystery film directed by Paul Leni. It is a companion piece to Universal Pictures 1927 production of The Cat and the Canary...
(1929) before his death in 1929 from blood poisoning
Bacteremia
Bacteremia is the presence of bacteria in the blood. The blood is normally a sterile environment, so the detection of bacteria in the blood is always abnormal....
.
Reception and influence
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
opined, "What distinguishes Universal's film version of the ... play is Paul Leni's intelligent handling of a weird theme, introducing some of his novel settings and ideas with which he became identified .... The film runs a bit overlong .... Otherwise it's a more than average satisfying feature ...." A New York Times review expounded, "This is a film which ought to be exhibited before many other directors to show them how a story should be told, for in all that he does Mr. Leni does not seem to strain at a point. He does it as naturally as a man twisting the ends of his mustache in thought." Nonetheless, as film historian Bernard F. Dick points out, "[e]xponents of Caligarisme, expressionism in the extreme ... naturally thought Leni had vulgarized the conventions [of expressionism]". Dick, however, notes that Leni had only "lighten[ed] [expressionist themes] so they could enter American cinema without the baggage of a movement that had spiraled out of control."
Modern critics address the film's impact and influence. Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice
The Village Voice
The Village Voice is a free weekly newspaper and news and features website in New York City that features investigative articles, analysis of current affairs and culture, arts and music coverage, and events listings for New York City...
remarks, "[Leni's] adroitly atmospheric film is virtually an ideogram of narrative suspension and impact"; Chris Dashiell states that "[e]verything is so exaggerated, so lacking in subtlety, that we soon stop caring what happens, despite a few mildly scary effects", although he admits that the film "had a great effect on the horror genre, and even Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
cited it as an influence." Tony Rayns
Tony Rayns
Antony Rayns is a British writer, commentator, film festival programmer and screenwriter. Much inspired in his youth by the films of Kenneth Anger, he wrote for the underground publication Cinema Rising before contributing to the Monthly Film Bulletin from the December 1970 issue until its demise...
has called the film "the definitive 'haunted house' movie .... Leni wisely plays it mainly for laughs, but his prowling, Murnau
Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau
Friedrich Wilhelm "F. W." Murnau was one of the most influential German film directors of the silent era, and a prominent figure in the expressionist movement in German cinema during the 1920s...
-like camera work generates a frisson or two along the way. It is, in fact, hugely entertaining ...." John Calhoun feels that what makes the film both "important and influential" was "Leni's uncanny ability to bring out the period's slapstick
Slapstick
Slapstick is a type of comedy involving exaggerated violence and activities which may exceed the boundaries of common sense.- Origins :The phrase comes from the batacchio or bataccio — called the 'slap stick' in English — a club-like object composed of two wooden slats used in Commedia dell'arte...
elements in the story's hackneyed conventions: the sliding panels and disappearing acts are so fast paced and expertly timed that the picture looks like a first-rate door-slamming farce .... At the same time, Leni didn't short-circuit the horrific aspects ...."
Although not the first film set in a supposed haunted house
Haunted house
A haunted house is a house or other building often perceived as being inhabited by disembodied spirits of the deceased who may have been former residents or were familiar with the property...
, The Cat and the Canary started the pattern for the "old dark house" genre. The term is derived from English director James Whale
James Whale
James Whale was an English film director, theatre director and actor. He is best remembered for his work in the horror film genre, having directed such classics as Frankenstein , The Old Dark House , The Invisible Man and Bride of Frankenstein...
's The Old Dark House
The Old Dark House
The Old Dark House is an American comedy horror film directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff, produced just one year after their success with Frankenstein, also released by Universal Studios.-Background:...
(1932), which was heavily influenced by Leni's film, and refers to "films in which murders are committed by masked killers in old mansions." Supernatural events in the film are all explained at the film's conclusion as the work of a criminal. Other films in this genre influenced by The Cat and the Canary include The Last Warning, House on Haunted Hill
House on Haunted Hill
House on Haunted Hill is a 1959 American B movie horror film from Allied Artists. It was directed by William Castle, written by Robb White, and starring Vincent Price as eccentric millionaire Fredrick Loren. He and his fourth wife, Annabelle, have invited five people to the house for a "Haunted...
(1959), and the monster films of Abbott and Costello
Abbott and Costello
William "Bud" Abbott and Lou Costello performed together as Abbott and Costello, an American comedy duo whose work on stage, radio, film and television made them the most popular comedy team during the 1940s and 1950s...
and Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular and critically acclaimed comedy double acts of the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema...
.
A tinted version was released on both VHS
VHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
and DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
in 1997 and 2005 by Image Entertainment
Image Entertainment
Image Entertainment, Inc. is an independent licensee, producer and distributor of home entertainment programming and film & television productions in North America, with approximately 3,000 exclusive DVD titles and approximately 250 exclusive CD titles in domestic release, and approximately 450...
. The original black-and-white version airs infrequently on the cable television
Cable television
Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...
network Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies
Turner Classic Movies is a movie-oriented cable television channel, owned by the Turner Broadcasting System subsidiary of Time Warner, featuring commercial-free classic movies, mostly from the Turner Entertainment and MGM, United Artists, RKO and Warner Bros. film libraries...
.
Other film versions
The Cat and the Canary has been filmed five other times. Rupert JulianRupert Julian
Rupert Julian was the first New Zealand cinema actor, director, writer and producer.Born Thomas Percival Hayes in Whangaroa, New Zealand, Son of John Daly Hayes and Eliza Harriet Hayes...
's The Cat Creeps
The Cat Creeps
The Cat Creeps is a crime/mystery film, and a sound remake of The Cat and the Canary . It is one of the many lost films of the early talkie film era....
(1930) and the Spanish language
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
La Voluntad del muerto
La Voluntad del muerto
La Voluntad del muerto is a 1930 Spanish-language remake of the 1927 silent film The Cat and the Canary and a Spanish-language version of The Cat Creeps which is now considered a lost film....
(The Will of the Dead Man) directed by George Melford
George Melford
George H. Melford was an American stage and film actor, director, producer, and screenwriter.-Career:...
and Enrique Tovar Ávalos
Enrique Tovar Ávalos
Enrique Tovar Ávalos was a Mexican film director notable for remaking several Universal Horror films into Spanish language versions. These include La Voluntad del muerto and Drácula ....
were the first talkie versions of the play; they were produced and distributed by Universal Pictures in 1930. Although the first sound films produced by Universal, neither was as influential on the genre as the first film and The Cat Creeps is lost
Lost film
A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons...
.
The plot had become too familiar, as film historian Douglas Brode notes, and it "seemed likely the play would be put away in a drawer [indefinitely]." Yet Elliott Nugent
Elliott Nugent
Elliott Nugent was an American actor, writer, and film director. He successfully made the transition from silent film to sound. He directed The Cat and the Canary , starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard...
's film, The Cat and the Canary
The Cat and the Canary (1939 film)
The Cat and the Canary starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard is a 1939 comedy horror film remake of the 1927 film The Cat and the Canary, which was based on the 1922 play of the same name by John Willard...
(1939), proved successful. Nugent "had the inspired idea to openly play the piece for laughs." The film was produced by Paramount
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
and starred comedic actor Bob Hope
Bob Hope
Bob Hope, KBE, KCSG, KSS was a British-born American comedian and actor who appeared in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in radio, television and movies. He was also noted for his work with the US Armed Forces and his numerous USO shows entertaining American military personnel...
. Hope played Wally Campbell, a character based on Creighton Hale's performance as Paul Jones. One critic suggests that Hope developed the character better than Hale and was funnier and more engaging. In later years, Universal themselves acquired the rights
EMKA, Ltd.
EMKA, Ltd. is an in-name-only division of Universal Studios' television unit whose sole function is overseeing Paramount Pictures' pre-1950 sound feature film library. EMKA was formed by MCA in 1957 .In the aftermath of the landmark 1948 United States v. Paramount Pictures, Inc...
to the 1939 version.
Other film adaptations include Katten och kanariefågeln
The Cat and the Canary (1961 film)
The Cat and the Canary is a 1961 Swedish television movie directed by Jan Molander. The film is an adaptation of John Willard's 1922 black comedy play of the same name. The play has been filmed many times, the first being a 1927 American silent film of the same name...
(The Cat and the Canary), a 1961 Swedish television film directed by Jan Molander
Jan Molander
Jan Göran Gustaf Harald Molander was a Swedish actor and film director who had a decades-long dominant career in his country's film and television industry....
and The Cat and the Canary
The Cat and the Canary (1979 film)
The Cat and the Canary is a film released in 1979. It is an adaptation of John Willard's 1922 black comedy play of the same name. The play has previously been filmed several times, the first being a 1927 silent film version.- Plot synopsis :...
(1979), a British film directed by Radley Metzger
Radley Metzger
Radley Metzger is an American filmmaker and distributor. He is also credited under the pseudonym Henry Paris, a name he adopted in the 1970s when he began to direct hardcore pornography....
. The 1979 version was produced by Richard Gordon
Richard Gordon (film producer)
Richard Gordon was a British-born producer and financier of horror films.-Career:As a youth, Gordon displayed a love of films from an early age. While he was in school, he wrote articles on the subject, edited fan club magazines, and organized a film society...
, who explains why he and Metzger made their film version: "Well, it hadn't been done since the Bob Hope version, it had never been done in color, it was a well-known title, had a certain reputation, and it was something that logically could or in fact should be made in England."
Other haunted house films
- The Ghost BreakerThe Ghost BreakerThe Ghost Breaker is a 1914 drama film directed by Cecil B. DeMille and Oscar Apfel and based on the Broadway play of the same name by Paul Dickey and Charles W. Goddard. It is considered widely to be the first film of a long line based on the genre of haunted house horror...
(1914) - The Ghost BreakerThe Ghost Breaker (1922 film)The Ghost Breaker is a 1922 American silent film comedy based around haunted houses and ghosts. It was produced Famous Players-Lasky and distributed through Paramount Pictures. It was directed by Alfred E. Green and starred popular Wallace Reid in one of his last screen portrayals. The story, based...
(1922) - One Exciting NightOne Exciting NightOne Exciting Night is a 1922 American Gothic silent Mystery film directed by D. W. Griffith.The plot revolves around the murder of a bootlegger and the attempts of the cast to uncover the true murderer...
(1922) - The BatThe Bat (1926 film)The Bat is a silent film based on the 1920 hit Broadway play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, directed by Roland West and starring Jack Pickford and Louise Fazenda...
(1926) - London After MidnightLondon After Midnight (film)London After Midnight aka The Hypnotist is a silent mystery film with horror overtones produced and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film stars Lon Chaney, Marceline Day, Conrad Nagel, Henry B. Walthall, and Polly Moran and was directed by Tod Browning. It is also a lost film, quite...
(1927) - The Old Dark HouseThe Old Dark HouseThe Old Dark House is an American comedy horror film directed by James Whale and starring Boris Karloff, produced just one year after their success with Frankenstein, also released by Universal Studios.-Background:...
(1932) - The Ghost BreakersThe Ghost BreakersThe Ghost Breakers is a comedy film directed by George Marshall and starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard. The movie was adapted by Walter DeLeon from the play The Ghost Breaker by Paul Dickey and Charles W...
(1939)
External links
- The Cat and the Canary at Rotten TomatoesRotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
- The Cat and the Canary at Allmovie