The Cat and the Canary

Based on a play by John Willard and remade numerous times (including the 1939 Bob Hope spoof and the 1979 Radley Metzger version starring Carol Lynley), German expressionist director Paul Leni's 1927 silent version of The Cat and the Canary was the first and best adaptation of this haunted house story, in which a group of mostly vulture-like relatives descend on an upstate New York mansion for a reading of the late patriarch Cyrus West's will. Starring Laura La Plante as the lucky heiress who must spend the night (along with her rapacious kin) in the mansion and then be evaluated by a doctor to certify her sanity, the film follows La Plante's rather bumpy night, full of murder, mayhem, and loads of scares and thrills. Falling between the director's uneven 1924 triptych Waxworks and 1928's The Man Who Laughs (Leni's brilliant horror classic), The Cat and the Canary features many of the tropes that the German expressionists brought to Hollywood--the creative camera angles, heavy use of shadows, and title card tomfoolery--and boasts not only a fine restoration and transfer but a choice of two audio soundtracks, James Bradford's original or a new score by Franklin Stover. In addition, the disc features the amiable Harold Lloyd short "Haunted Spooks." Recommended. (R. Pitman)