The Cat and the Canary

1927 comedy thriller

Rating: 14/20

Plot: Twenty years after the death of a millionaire kook, his relatives arrive at his creepy mansion for the reading of his will. Due to a stipulation, the relatives are forced to stay the night at the mansion. An escaped lunatic, a milkman, a murdered lawyer, a pair of envelopes, diamonds, and quite possibly incest find their ways into the story. Mystery!

I guess you have to call this influential since the makers of Scooby Doo used the exact same structure (and even some of the gags) in about 80% of their stories. The humor doesn't work for modern audiences, and the thrills don't really either. Still, there's some nice texture starting with an opening shot of a lunatic hand wiping away cobwebs to reveal the title card and continuing with ominous shadows and a camera creeping over dark details. This doesn't have the experimental playfulness of Paul Leni's Waxworks but there's enough clever directing and camera work to make up for a sub-par story and characters that are nothing more than cliches. It's definitely got more than enough style for its time. I love how they felt the need to throw the movie's title into the dialogue twice. "The escaped lunatic tears apart his victims. . .like a cat claws apart a canary!" Dum dum dum!

Yet another picture of what the back of my head looks like when the front of my head watches a movie: