The Cat and the Canary (1927) Hauntingly Expressionist Silent Classic Struggles without Words (Review)

If you’re a regular visitor to The Geek Show, then you might be aware that this isn’t the first adaptation of John Willard’s 1922 play “The Cat and the Canary” that I have written about – nor is it the first adaptation to receive a shiny remastered Blu-Ray edition from distributor Eureka.

Back in 2022, I covered Eureka’s release of the classic 1939 sound version, starring comedian Bob Hope, released as a double-feature with its pseudo-sequel, The Ghost Breakers (1940); yet that beloved rendition may not even be the most famous or critically revered take on Willard’s influential tale of spooky happenings in an (ahem) old dark house. The adaptation awarded with that honour would have to be Universal’s The Cat and the Canary (1927), a version for the silent screen by director Paul Leni – the filmmaker who would unknowingly sow the seeds for DC Comics’ infamous “clown prince of crime” through Conrad Veidt in The Man Who Laughs (1928). The song of this Canary might not sound too different (beyond the obvious, uh, lack of such) when compared to later versions at first, but its visuals carry a ghostly, experimental, expressionist quality not present in the ‘39 comic chiller; a German-Jewish filmmaker, Leni brought the shadows and style of his homeland’s cinema to Hollywood, and it’s his direction and sense of atmosphere that truly makes the ‘27 Cat and the Canary his own.

As with the Bob Hope version, The Cat and the Canary follows a group of six distant relatives brought together for the reading of their patriarch’s will – in this case, the wealthy Cyrus West (played by an uncredited and seemingly unidentified actor!), was seemingly driven to madness by the extreme greed of his estranged family. Gathering in their father’s gothic former homestead, left empty and cobweb-ridden for the 20 years since his passing, the group of wannabe heirs learn that the late West, bitter at his descendants’ avarice and hunger for his wealth, left his entire estate to the only relative still bearing his family name – Annabelle West, played by Laura La Plante, the closest thing that silent film could possibly have to a “scream queen”. Unfortunately for the newfound heiress, the group is informed by a local prison guard (George Siegmann) that an escaped maniac known as “The Cat” is loose on the premises, looking for potential “canaries” to dig his claws into. As members of the household start to go missing, tensions rise, and hysteria begins to set in – at an almost perfectly inconvenient moment, too, as Miss West must go through a medical examination that night in order to prove her sanity, and claim her inheritance…

It’s a classic concept, and undoubtedly influential upon practically every screen murder-mystery that would follow it – in many ways, it’s a proto-Knives Out (2019), albeit with more cobwebs and candlesticks. The aforementioned expressionist visual style particularly shines in the film’s opening minutes, depicting the madness and death of Cyrus West, his house of medicine bottles surrounded by giant, ravenous, watchful felines; this is almost immediately followed by an impressive early POV-shot, taken from the perspective of what could potentially be the wandering, restless spirit of the manor’s dearly departed prior inhabitant. These elements, unfortunately, are but a rare example of this adaptation’s visual strengths – because, in spite of its critical acclaim and fan following, Leni’s The Cat and the Canary pales, for the most part, in comparison to its ‘39 sound remake.

Early sound cinema is often criticised for coming off as “stagey”, yet strangely this silent version of The Cat and the Canary suffers from a completely opposite direction; adapted from a dialogue-driven stage play, Leni’s attempts to adjust the material towards the strengths of silent cinema are admirable, but not entirely effective. Naturally, most of the verbal wit of the stage version is exchanged for silent comedy, and actor Creighton Hale tries to do his best Harold Lloyd in playing the film’s comic lead, but even though he manages to pull off the occasional fun gag, his performance just isn’t nearly as consistently funny as Bob Hope’s take on the same role in the ‘39 version. Even with that considered, The Cat and the Canary is a mess of tone and pacing, with the spooky atmosphere being sidelined after a matter of minutes, and the villainous “Cat” barely having a presence at all outside of a couple of brief appearances. Scenes of tension and terror are inter-cut with irrelevant moments of, to put it nicely, nothingness. The most criminal example of this taking place during the film’s climactic scuffle, where we’re treated to an extended scene of an unrelated character having a ride on a milk truck halfway through the fight. There were always going to be difficulties in adapting a dialogue-heavy production for a sound-free medium, and in this case, the end result of said difficulties is, unfortunately, exactly what you would expect.

Yet, nonetheless, Leni’s flair as a filmmaker shines; the lighting is moody and well-coordinated, the editing is frequently experimental and clever, and the camera movement is shockingly smooth for a film released in 1927. The use of title cards in The Cat and the Canary is, at times, inspired, and their more experimental uses are commendable and memorable (zooming into the heroine’s mouth as she screams “HELP!”) – yet for all of the film’s lovable German-influenced quirks, it’s still a fairly dull and plodding affair, and in spite of it being the earlier adaptation, I can’t say I’d actively choose to re-watch it over the ‘39 sound remake, which manages to be the funnier, more engaging, and overall far more enjoyable picture of the two. Nonetheless, it’s still a great demonstration of the talents of director Paul Leni, and one of a sadly small number of features that his name was attached to – Leni would tragically pass away in 1929 at the age of just 44, his final filmmaking effort being this film’s spiritual follow-up, The Last Warning (1928), which Laura La Plante would return to star in.

As always, it’s great to see silent genre cinema resurrected and preserved on physical media, and Eureka thankfully have a great track record in that department, having now released all four of Leni’s silent chillers, from Waxworks (1924) to his Hollywood horrors, on remastered Blu-Ray. Thankfully, as one of the more well-known titles of its era, the transfer used on this new Blu-Ray edition is a restoration using the original negative, courtesy of the folks at MoMA in New York; as such, this print of The Cat and the Canary is far cleaner than you would expect for a movie of its vintage, with a clear picture quality that nonetheless manages to retain the hazy, shadowy vibes of its expressionist style. The new soundtrack by composer Robert Israel, inspired by music cue sheets from the original ‘27 theatrical release, manages to be effectively playful and ghoulish in equal measure, complimenting the film’s atmosphere in a fittingly fun fashion. Extras include short performed audio excerpts from Willard’s original script, which make for interesting comparison to how the silent film tackled adapting certain sequences, as well as a mildly humorous dramatic reading of a vintage advert in which Paul Leni endorses the “Lucky Strike” brand of cigarettes – which he purportedly smoked concerningly large amounts of whilst shooting this film.

Robyn’s Archive – The Cat and the Canary (1927)