The Cat and the Canary is a 1927 American silent comedy horror film directed by Paul Leni. An adaptation of John Willard's 1922 black-comedy play of the same name, the film stars Laura La Plante as Annabelle West, Forrest Stanley as 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 twenty years later. Annabelle is revealed as the heir, but she and the other guests must still face a night in his haunted mansion. The plot thickens when they are informed that a lunatic known as the Cat has escaped from an asylum and is hiding in the house.

The film is part of the genre of comedy horror films inspired by 1920s Broadway stage plays. Leni's adaptation of Willard's play blended expressionism with humor, a style for which Leni was notable and recognized by critics as unique. His directing style 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".Carlos Clarens, An Illustrated History of Horror and Science-Fiction Films: The Classic Era, 1895–1967 (New York: Da Capo Press, 1997), p. 56, . The play has been filmed five other times, most notably in 1939, starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard.

Plot

In a decaying mansion overlooking the Hudson River, 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, 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, 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, Charles "Charlie" Wilder, Paul Jones, his sister Susan Sillsby and her nieces Cecily Young, and 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. 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 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. 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

Production The Cat and the Canary is the product of early 20th-century German Expressionism. According to art historian Joan Weinstein, expressionism includes the art styles of Die Brücke 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.Joan Weinstein, The End of Expressionism: Art and the November Revolution in Germany, 1918–1919 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p. 3, . Film historian Richard Peterson wrote 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.Richard Peterson, liner notes, The Cat and the Canary (DVD, Image Entertainment, 2005).

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 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.Steve Neale, Genre and Hollywood (London: Routledge, 2000), p. 95, .Ian Conrich, "Before Sound: Universal, Silent Cinema, and the Last of the Horror Spectaculars", in The Horror Film, ed. Stephen Price, (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2004), p. 47, .

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.Douglas Brode, Edge of Your Seat: The 100 Greatest Movie Thrillers (New York: Citadel Press, 2003), p. 32, .

Casting The Cat and the Canary features veteran silent film stars Laura La Plante, Creighton Hale, and Forrest Stanley. According to film historian Gary Don Rhodes, La Plante's 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 films' conclusions." Following The Cat and the Canary, La Plante maintained a career with Universal, but she is described as a "victim of talkies."Hans J. Wollstein, Laura La Plante biography at AllMovie . Retrieved January 12, 2007. 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).Hal Erickson, Creighton Hale biography at AllMovie. Retrieved January 12, 2007. Hale's role in The Cat and the Canary was to provide comic 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."John Howard Reid, These Movies Won No Hollywood Awards (Lulu Press, 2005), p. 39, . Hale had trouble finding a solid career in sound film. Many of his parts were minor and uncredited.Joseph M. Curran, Hibernian Green on the Silver Screen: The Irish and American Movies (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1989), p. 27, .

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.Hans J. Wollstein, Forrest Stanley biography at AllMovie. Retrieved January 12, 2004.

The film contained a supporting cast referred to by one film historian as "second-rate"Thomas Schatz, The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era (New York: Owl Books, 1996), p. 89, . 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.

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." 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 wrote 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."