Product Description

The Cat & the Canary, a precursor to the horror films of the 1930s, earned its reputation frightening audiences of the silent era. Utilizing great technical craftsmanship, the film weaves a stark vision of terror that is just as thrilling today.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #145913 in DVD
• Released on: 1998-05-13
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Animated, Black & White, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 81 minutes

Amazon.com
German horror stylist Paul Leni (Variety) brings his expressionist flourishes to this compendium of haunted clichés, creating one of the most stylish horror movie spoofs ever, a delightful mix of the gothic and the goofy. A greedy bunch of gargoyle-looking relatives (and a pair of young innocents) gather for the reading of a rich uncle's will, which demands that they spend the night in the creepy old mansion. Leni puts them through a fun house of frights: As if secret panels, clutching hands, and a stopped clock that mysteriously comes to life weren't enough, an escaped lunatic from a nearby asylum who rends his victims with catlike claws may have infiltrated the house. Silent movie sweetheart Laura La Plante is the canary of the title, a lovely would-be heiress who becomes the target of plotting relatives, but it's the rogues gallery of suspects that adds the color and comic relief. Leni kicks the film off with a delirious scene of an infirm old man surrounded by gigantic bottles of medicine and menaced by a snarling, spitting. gargantuan cat. The rest of the film is played in lower key, for laughs as much as chills, but it never loses its moody ambiance, highlighted by elegant camerawork and looming shadows. This classic has been remade three times, most famously by Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard in 1939, but never as well. The hilarious Harold Lloyd short Haunted Spooks has been included as a DVD bonus. --Sean Axmaker

Customer Reviews

A few words on the new Image Entertainment release
The merits of this wonderful movie have been well covered in other reviews here, so I just wanted to write a few words for anyone who may own the previous Image release of this film and might be considering 'up-grading' to this newer Image release, as I just have. For me it has been worth every dollar. I think the new score by Franklin Stover really adds to the films atmosphere and it will be my preferred choice from now on, although the re-recorded 1927 score was fine before (and is still available on the disc if you prefer it). However, this new score just lifts the whole film up. But best of all is the picture quality on this new disc. It really is spectacular. The picture on the previous release was always rather fuzzy round the edges, with no real definition, and sometimes with the heavy tinting in the night scenes it was difficult to see who was on screen (the tinting in this newer release is better). Watching this newly restored release for the first time last night was like watching the movie for the first time - as though someone had lifted a veil of gauze from my TV screen and suddenly I could see all the actors faces clearly - and what a difference it made to my enjoyment of the film. Sure, there are still moments in the film when the image shows its age, but we really can't expect anything else from such old films. And for me the occasional creaky image is all part of the appeal. Overall, the image quality is going to take your breath away if you've been used to viewing the previous Image release. It really is that much better. And if you're a silent movie enthusiast like myself then you're going to know that this is a good print. I hope my few words have proved helpful to someone deciding whether to buy or not based on the quality of the print. When it comes to buying silent movies on DVD I know that I've been much helped in the past myself by reviewers words on picture quality. The Cat and the Canary won't disappoint you.

Influential Film Is Still Amusing But Needs Restoration
The 1922 play THE CAT AND THE CANARY was so popular that it made the fortune of author John Willard, who lived to see it filmed no fewer than three times before his death in 1942. Even today the story remains a classic of its kind, inspiring a host of films that mix comedy, mystery, and horror--not to mention still more that focus on suspicious doings in old, dark houses. When questioned by author Gavin Lambert, director James Whale very specifically indicated that the 1927 film version, along with the 1928 THE LAST WARNING, influenced his own work in such films as FRANKENSTEIN and THE OLD DARK HOUSE.

Both THE CAT AND THE CANARY and THE LAST WARNING were created for Universal by director Paul Leni. But while THE LAST WARNING is not presently available to the home market, THE CAT AND THE CANARY most certainly is, and even some eighty years later is possible to see what all the fuss was about. In term of cinematography, CAT is a remarkably imaginative film, using a series of over-lapping images, close-ups, and dissolves to astonishing effect. In a visual sense it is easily one of the most stylish films of the silent era.

The plot is a classic of its kind. Like the original Willard play, the film's story mixes a host of already-cliched ideas with several then-new ones. Today, of course, it can be a bit difficult to them apart! But even so it remains a fair amount of fun. An eccentric millionaire has been hounded to death by his greedy relatives--and when he dies he leaves behind a will that imposes a twenty year waiting period between his death and delivery of his estate to his heir. But who will the heir be? The candidates assemble to hear the will at midnight... and no sooner is the heir named than strange doings are afoot.

The characters are archetypes: the nice girl (Laura La Plante), the mild-mannered boy (Creighton Hale), the fashion princess (Gertrude Astor), the battle ax matron (Flora Finch), and so on. Perhaps most memorable is the housekeeper (Martha Mattox), an exceedingly dour woman most ironically named Mammy Pleasant! Add in an exasperated lawyer, a creepy doctor, secret passages, hairy hands with needle-like finger nails, stolen diamonds, and as many dashes of comedy as you can get away with, mix well, and you have the inspiration for a seemingly endless list of classic films.

Although they may seem overly broad by modern standards, the cast plays at the level of what was considered comic-realistic in the late silent era, the production values are first rate, and the plot is quirky enough in a silly sort of way to make the whole thing fun. But it is really the direction and the look of the thing that scores; in its best moments, THE CAT AND THE CANARY is plenty good indeed.

The film is available in several DVD releases. You should avoid the Alpha release; although the picture is passable, the score is so dire that it completely undermines the film. Although it clearly needs further restoration, the Image release is superior and offers your choice of scores, both of which work with the film rather than against it. Recommended for silent fans and those interested in the development of the classic horror film!

GFT, Amazon Reviewer
In Memory of Bob Zeidler, Amazon Reviewer
Greatly Missed and Not Forgotten

Chiller-Diller Masterpiece!
Okay, so this is one of those ancient SILENT flicks, made back in that prehistoric year of l927. But I can promise you, anyone watching The Cat and the Canary today will not be bored. You see the amazing dexterity of the camera (Gilbert Warrenton was the camera man), the inspired direction and production (Paul Leni), the wonderful cast of long-gone Hollywood stars (Laura La Plante, the Sandra Bullock of her day)and Creighton Hale and gorgeous Gertrude Astor (she was considered the best-dressed star of the Roaring Twenties). This movie is so old that it now fascinates. You see the delightful and creative use of titles (some of them streaming down from the top of the screen to the bottom like a ghost)and wish that EVERY silent movie had been preserved and available today for movie addicts. "The Cat and the Canary" was considered one of the great lost masterpieces until someone actually discovered it in a salt mine in Montana (there must be something about salt mines, Parisian attics, Soviet vaults, since so many of our lost movie treasures are usually found in such esoteric locales). This wonderfully fun, zany and sometimes chilling masterpiece is head and shoulders over yet another long-lost masterpiece, the primitive talkie "The Bat Whispers" (1930), also discovered in some warehouse in Russia. The photography on this chiller was also spell-binding but the story is so dated and badly conceived that only the most die-hard early talkie junkie can endure it (I survived it but talk about being dissapointed). Watch "The Cat and the Canary" (1927) and be whirled back more than 65 years in Hollywood's Jazz Age to see what magic was pouring out of the studios. IN many ways, they were a vast improvement over l999's idea of hits: Armageddon, Godzilla (please God, let them sink into oblivion).