THE CAT AND THE CANARY
starring Laura La Plante and Creighton Hale
PHOTOPLAY
July, 1927
Here is a corking melodrama. Mysterious fingers reach out of mouldy draperies to steal jewels, and trick bookcases swallow up unsuspecting victims.
It all happens in an old, shabby mansion once occupied by the eccentric recluse, Cyrus West. It is exactly twenty years from the date of his death to the second and his will is being read to his anxious relatives while a storm beats upon the broken windows.
It develops that Annabelle West, his pretty niece, is the heiress, provided she sleeps that night in his dusty, cobwebby bedroom and is able to prove her sanity next morning. Annabelle's sanity gets a stiff test, we'll tell the world, between disappearances and murders. To help things along, an asylum keeper happens in, searching for a runaway maniac.
Of course, there is a guilty person who hopes to inherit the estate. This person is the instigator of the dire doings.
"The Cat and the Canary" is adroitly directed by Paul Leni, the German who made "The Three Wax Works." He uses trick angles galore, but they all help the atmosphere of mystery and murder. Leni is a director to be reckoned with.
"The Cat and the Canary," which, by the way, is based on John Willard's Broadway mystery shocker, has an excellent cast. Laura La Plante is the blonde heroine, Annabelle. Creighton Hale overdoes the nervous comedy hero, Paul Jones. Indeed, the comedy is the one weak element in "The Cat and the Canary." Well done bits are contributed by Lucien Littlefield and Martha Mattox.
Video source: Kino