Ramblings On...The Cat And The Canary (1927)

Whenever I find myself becoming a little depressed, I usually wind up watching a lot of horror flicks.  I have found that the local library, which should more accurately be called the local media center, provides for a veritable cornucopia of horror movies, new and old.  

One of the old horror movies I found was The Cat and the Canary.  By old, I mean OLD.   Ancient even. The movie was adapted from the 1922 stage play by the same name written by John Willard.  The film adaptation, written by Alfred Cohn and Robert Hill, was directed by German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni.  The Cat and the Canary is considered “the cornerstone of Universal’s school of horror” and is particularly influential in “old dark house” movies.

In case you were unsure about what it means to be an “old dark house” movie, I guess the name was actually taken from a movie that would come later, 1932 to be exact, from a movie actually entitled The Old Dark House.  The idea though is that there is an old creepy mansion, and a masked killer. 

In The Cat and the Canary, a wealthy man, Cyrus West, driven insane by his family, writes a will that is to be read 20 years after his death.  Mysteriously, when the lawyer comes in 20 years after his death to read the will, the safe contains a second will--to be read in the even that the terms of the first will cannot be carried out.  Several of West’s family members arrive for the reading of the will. West leaves everything to the farthest relation from him still named West.  This means his niece Annabelle.  However, in order for her to inherit, she must be evaluated by a psychologist that night at the house and be judged sane, otherwise, the money goes to the person named in the second will...

The person named in the second will knows he/she is so named and the lawyer, worried for Annabelle’s safety since this person may wish her harm, decides to tell her who her potential competitor for the estate and the famous West diamonds is...however, before he can tell Annabelle, he is grabbed by a hairy sinister hand that comes out of a hidden passageway behind the panel in the wall of the study...He is later found dead...

When I took it out, I didn’t realize it was a silent film.  I guess living in this day and age I just assumed we would hear people when they are talking.  I forgot there was a time when “talkies” were new.

What I found out is that I love silent films.  From the standpoint of being interested in all aspects of film, they provide interesting study for the way film used to be.  As someone who multitasks all the time and probably has some level of Attention Deficit Disorder, I love that silent films make me concentrate.  Too often I am watching television and tweeting, or watching television and reading a book, or watching television and practicing the guitar...suffice it to say I very rarely just SIT down and watch something.  Silent films MAKE me watch.  I have to pay attention, or I won’t know what is going on.  In other words, sometimes silent films seem more engaging.

Considering that everything has become so minimalistic, it is very interesting to see how everything in these movies is done on a grand scale.  Reactions are over the top as you aren’t getting the subtle nuances of voice intonation.  The music more obviously sets the mood.  But it is very interesting to see how the director plays with movement and the techniques they had in the day.

Another interesting aspect for me is that a movie this old--well, everyone associated with the movie is dead now.  As a matter of fact, the star of the movie, Laura La Plante, who played Annabelle West, passed away at 92 back in 1996...She has been dead about 16 years and she was the youngest in the cast.  The director died of blood poisoning a couple years after the movie’s release...I’m not trying to get morbid here--although it may be a good place for it, considering the genre...but my point is that these people have all been dead for years, and THIS is their legacy.  We can watch this movie, and forever see Laura at 23.  It’s poetic actually.  Now she is like a dragonfly in amber, forever beautiful, locked in the moment forever.  Sadly Laura’s career, like many silent actor’s, didn’t make it to the talkies.  

Here is the wikipedia article on The Cat and the Canary . I strongly recommend it if you are as big a fan of black and white movies as I am!