The Cat and the Canary (1927 film)
The Cat and the Canary | |
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Directed by | Paul Leni |
Screenplay by | |
Story by |
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Based on | The Cat and the Canary by John Willard |
Produced by | Paul Kohner |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Universal Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 82 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | Silent film / English intertitles |
The Cat and the Canary is a 1927 American
The film is part of the genre of
Plot
In a decaying mansion overlooking the
As midnight approaches, West's relatives arrive at the mansion: nephews Harry Blythe (Arthur Edmund Carewe), Charles "Charlie" Wilder (Forrest Stanley), Paul Jones (Creighton Hale), his sister Susan Sillsby (Flora Finch) and her niece Cecily Young (Gertrude Astor), and niece Annabelle West (Laura La Plante). 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.
Alone in her assigned room, Annabelle examines a note slipped to her which reveals the location of the family jewels, fashioned into an elaborate necklace. She follows the note's instructions and soon discovers the hiding place, in a secret panel above the fireplace. She retires for the night, wearing the diamond-encrusted necklace.
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 hysterics 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 actually Charlie Wilder in disguise; the guard is his accomplice. Wilder is the person named in the second will; he had hoped to drive Annabelle insane so that he could receive the inheritance.
Cast
- Laura La Plante as Annabelle West
- Creighton Hale as Paul Jones
- Forrest Stanley as Charles Wilder
- Tully Marshall as Roger Crosby
- Gertrude Astor as Cecily
- Flora Finch as Susan
- Arthur Edmund Carewe as Harry Blythe
- Martha Mattox as Mammy Pleasant, housekeeper
- George Siegmann as the Guard
- Lucien Littlefield as Dr. Ira Lazar
- Hal Craig as Policeman (uncredited)
- Billy Engle as Taxi Driver (uncredited)
- Joe Murphy as Milkman (uncredited)
Production
The Cat and the Canary is the product of early 20th-century
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.[3] 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 Alfred E. Green's now lost The Ghost Breaker (1922), 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.[4][5]
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.[6]
Casting
The Cat and the Canary features veteran silent film stars
Universal chose
The villain Charles Wilder was played by Forrest Stanley, an actor who had been cast in films such as When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922), 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.[13]
The film contained a supporting cast referred to by one film historian as "second-rate"[14] and "excellent" by another.[11] 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.[11] 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.[15]
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 chiaroscuro, asymmetric sets, and excessive stylization, to a format compatible with American film practice."[16] 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."[17] 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."[18]
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
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."[21]
Besides directing, Leni was a painter and set designer. The sets of the film were designed by Leni and fabricated by
Reception and influence
The Cat and the Canary debuted in New York City's Colony Theatre on September 9, 1927,
Modern critics address the film's impact and influence. Michael Atkinson of
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.[31] The term is derived from English director James Whale's The Old Dark House (1932), which was heavily influenced by Leni's film,[15] and refers to "films in which murders are committed by masked killers in old mansions."[32] 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.[33][34]
In 2001, the American Film Institute nominated this film for AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills.[35] On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 93% based on 41 reviews with the consensus: "Bringing its sturdy setup thrillingly to life, The Cat and the Canary proves Paul Leni a director with a deft hand for suspenseful stories and expertly assembled ensembles."[36]
Other film versions
The Cat and the Canary has been filmed five other times. Rupert Julian'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.[3] 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.[37]
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]."[6] Yet Elliott Nugent's film, The Cat and the Canary (1939), proved successful.[38][39] Nugent "had the inspired idea to openly play the piece for laughs."[6] The film was produced by Paramount and stars comedic actor Bob Hope. Hope plays 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.[11]
Other film adaptations include
References
- ISBN 0-306-80800-5.
- ISBN 0-226-89059-7.
- ^ a b c d e Richard Peterson, liner notes, The Cat and the Canary (DVD, Image Entertainment, 2005).
- ISBN 0-415-02606-7.
- ISBN 0-8135-3363-5.
- ^ ISBN 0-8065-2382-4.
- ISBN 978-1-4766-0491-6.
- ^ Hans J. Wollstein, Laura La Plante biography at AllMovie Archived April 26, 2006, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved January 12, 2007.
- Robert McG. Thomas Jr. (October 17, 1996). "Laura La Plante Dies at 92; Archetypal Damsel in Distress". New York Times. p. B14.
- ^ Hal Erickson, Creighton Hale biography at AllMovie Archived April 26, 2006, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved January 12, 2007.
- ^ ISBN 1-4116-5846-9.
- ISBN 0-313-26491-0.
- ^ Hans J. Wollstein, Forrest Stanley biography at AllMovie Archived April 26, 2006, at the Wayback Machine. Retrieved January 12, 2004.
- ISBN 0-8050-4666-6.
- ^ a b Clarens, Illustrated History of Horror, p. 57.
- ^ ISBN 0-8131-2016-0.
- ^ Jenn Dlugos, review of The Cat and the Canary DVD, at Classic-Horror; last accessed January 4, 2007.
- ^ Richard Scheib, review of The Cat and the Canary, at The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review Archived November 10, 2006, at the Wayback Machine; last accessed January 4, 2007.
- ^ a b Jan-Christopher Horak, "Sauerkraut and Sausages with a Little Goulash: Germans in Hollywood, 1927." Film History 17 (2005): pp. 241.
- ^ Gilbert Warrenton, quoted in Kevin Brownlow, "Annus Mirabilis: The Film in 1927", Film History 17 (2005): p. 173.
- ^ Dennis L. White, "The Poetics of Horror: More than Meets the Eye", Cinema Journal 10 (No. 2, Spring 1971): p. 5.
- ISBN 0-7864-1745-5.
- ISBN 0-8143-2958-6.
- ^ "Projection Jottings", New York Times, May 15, 1927, p. X5.
- ISBN 0-7864-0751-4.
- ^ Mourdant Hall, "Mr. Leni's Clever Film; 'Cat and Canary' an Exception to the Rule in Mystery Pictures", New York Times, September 18, 1927, p. X5.
- ^ Michael Atkinson, review of The Cat and the Canary DVD, The Village Voice (New York), March 3, 2005, available here Archived November 5, 2006, at the Wayback Machine.
- ^ Chris Dashiell, review of The Cat and the Canary, at CineScene.com Archived December 5, 2006, at the Wayback Machine; last accessed January 4, 2007.
- ISBN 0-14-014592-3.
- ISBN 0-670-80902-0.
- ^ Schatz, Genius of the System, p. 88.
- ISBN 0-7864-1922-9.
- ^ Miller, Horror Spoofs, pp. 2–3.
- ISBN 0-7864-1860-5.
- ^ "AFI's 100 Years...100 Thrills Nominees" (PDF). Retrieved August 20, 2016.
- ^ "The Cat and the Canary (1927)". Rotten Tomatoes.
- ^ Soister, Up from the Vault, p. 74.
- ISBN 0-275-98257-2.
- ISBN 1-84353-521-1.
- ISBN 0-7864-0755-7.
Further reading
- ISBN 978388799008-4
- Everson, William K. American Silent Film. New York: Da Capo Press, 1998. ISBN 0-306-80876-5.
- Hogan, David. Dark Romance: Sexuality in the Horror Film. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1997. ISBN 0-7864-0474-4.
- MacCaffrey, Donald W., and Christopher P. Jacobs. Guide to the Silent Years of American Cinema. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1999. ISBN 0-313-30345-2.
- ISBN 0-306-80347-X.
- Worland, Rick. The Horror Film: A Brief Introduction. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishing, 2007. ISBN 1-4051-3902-1.
External links
- The Cat and the Canary at IMDb
- The Cat and the Canary at Rotten Tomatoes
- The Cat and the Canary at AllMovie
- Stills at www.silentfilmstillarchive.com
- The Cat and the Canary (1927) on YouTube