Cat & the Canary, the

suspects he is being threatened to help make him crazy. His relatives have her around him my cats watching a canary.

Even though the story is formula, this is an excellent presentation of who is included in the will and the old man dies. There a few different variances in this presentation. First the will is not to be opened till 20 years after the old man's death. And someone has tampered with the envelope the names the successor is a person named in the will is also proven to be crazy.

So the inheritor the "will" will now become the new canary being watched by all the other cats in the family. We watch as one by one it looks like they will be dispatched starting with... oh no you don't, watch the movie and find out. And of course this just enforces the suspicion that the inheritor is crazy.

Of course as usual it's always the last person you suspect, it's in an old dark house, secret passages and spooky looking eyes and hairy hands and suspects running from room to room.

Laura La Plante plays the innocent but extremely cute looking niece. Martha Mattox places sinister looking caretaker that watched over the house for 20 years (and the safe with the will). Tully Marshall plays a crusty old lawyer who gets to read the will. Creighton Hale gets to play the comic relief the thoughtful cousin and maybe a bit more.

For those of you expecting a talkie you're going to be disappointed. For the rest of us you can actually see their mouths worked and they actually are saying what is being printed. The fun part of the movie is when the characters express themselves in explicative the written cards are expressed in metacharacters (probably helps get around those ~!@#$%^ scenarios.) There is a good sound score in the background.

This is well worth adding to your silent collection and periodically viewing for missed nuances.

Although any version of this film is worth watching I suggest you look for the restored photography version.

The Cat and the Canary (1927) is of interest not just from the historic perspective of expressionist film making, but also for just sheer fun.

This is not a movie for everyone. People who need special effects that leave nothing to the imagination, sound systems that capture every bullet casing hitting the floor or editing to hold those with short attention spans should not buy this movie. Well, they should, but they won't and they wouldn't enjoy it if they did.

For those who grew up watching Chiller Theater on Friday nights, this is a great movie to turn the lights down, prop the popcorn bowl on the knee, crack open a cold frosty and sit back for a pleasant evening.

The Cat and the Canary is just plain fun to watch. The hero doodling as the lawyer drones on is worth the price of the DVD alone. It's also amazing to see how silent actors and actresses can convey so much with a raised brow or a dimpled smile than many of today's Hollywood stars can with reams of scripts to read.

The Harold Lloyd short also is another pleasant haunted house comedy that develops at a leisurely pace like a stroll through a park that builds into a madcap dash.

Ask some young film students or filmbuffs to name what they think are some of the most influential early films of cinema. Chances are you'll hear "Birth of A Nation", "Battleship Potemkin" and "Citizen Kane", but, I'd like to elect one more film to that list Paul Leni's "The Cat and the Canary".

"The Cat and the Canary" originally started off as a Broadway play in 1922 and was made into (as far as I know) three films. The most famous being the 1939 adaptation starring Bob Hope. But this 1927 version just dazzles you with its techinal achievements. It has inspiring cinematography by Gilbert Warrenton and remarkable editing from Martin G. Cohn. There are plenty of shots I'm willing to bet were ahead of their time, mostly dealing with fade in's and out's.

If you were to ask me, is this movie scary? I would have to answer no. "The Cat and the Canary" is just too dated to scare anyone. We've seen this far too many times for it to give us "thrills and chills", but, what makes this movie so entertaining to watch is it is an exercise in style and atmosphere. It is the cinematography and the mood the film creates that will capture your attention. This film set-up what we now refer to as "haunted house" movies.

Paul Leni, for those who don't know is revered as one of the great German expressionist through such films as "The Man Who Laughs" and "Waxworks". And these three films are seen as the last of there kind.

"The Cat and the Canary" as I said help establish what we now refer to as "haunted house" movies. The plot revolves around the death of Cyrus West, a millionair who's relatives hounded him like cats around a canary (hence the title). His will, as ordered by him, will be opened twenty years after his death. So a few of them show up to his dark eerie castle where legend has it is haunted by his spirit. The movie stars Laura La Plante as Annabelle West. She was very much in demand during the silent era and made some sound pictures including "Show Boat" and "The King of Jazz" (featuring Paul Whiteman). and Creighton Hale as Paul Jones (after you see his performance you'll understand perfectly why they remade it as a Bob Hope vehicle). He too was once popular but when sound came in, he was reduced to very small bit parts often going "uncredited". As you watch the movie you can expect every cliche attempt at horror you can think of. Some of which are still used today. Creepy hands appearing out of nowhere, the "offbeat" looking characters who you just suspect are evil and as mentioned before, that eerie atmosphere.

Fans of silent films or even young film students I urge you to see this movie. You will be impressed.

Bottom-line: As far as I'm concerned should be considered one of the most influential films of all-time due to its impressive cinematography and editing. An exercise in style and atmosphere that actually works.