thinbeach The fortune of a man is left behind to his relative (Cousin West), on the condition she is proved by a doctor to be perfectly sane. If she fails the condition, the will passes to another. Set in a large mansion, rumoured to be haunted, at midnight (for when else would you do such a thing?), with a creepy house maid, shadowy lighting, and lunatic on the loose, various personnel who come for the will reading are snatched away from a hand that appears out of moving walls, while the rest are plunged into fear. As the disappearances happen with only Cousin West as witness, the others start to believe she is crazy, and we wonder who is behind it all?It is all done with a large wink, very hammy, and with brief moments of humour inserted throughout, showing not even the scriptwriters could take it seriously. Perhaps it was meant more for the comedy genre than the suspense, as if the very act of working in this genre was funny, but in that case I would say Keaton ("Electric House", "The Haunted House" and "The Navigator") got far cleverer laughs from similar themes, as did Lloyd, who the style of humour often reminded me. To it's credit though, it does create enough mystery to avoid being a bore, and the knowing silliness makes it more fun than it might have been if made with a completely straight face.

tavm The version I watched on Amazon was the one issued by Kino with the music score intact. This was quite both a scary and funny movie with Creighton Hale a hoot as the comic hero. This must have been one of the early movies in which a group stays at a haunted house after a reading of a will and the one who stands to inherit it all is the one who gets almost scared of his/her wits. This is the kind of plot I used to regularly watch on "Scooby Doo" cartoons on Saturday mornings when a kid during the '70s. Anyway, I quite enjoyed this silent version of something I watched a talkie version of years back-the one with Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard from 1939. So yeah, that's a recommendation of this version of The Cat and the Canary.

Jack Macdonald Story Line: The story line was actually really good in my opinion a lot better than I expected at first I was expecting to falling asleep soon but ten seconds later I was attracted to the film 7/10Cast/Acting - 8/10 I loved the cast in this film everyone lived up to their character they were portraying.Scares Not scary, Just interesting. 3/10Location 5/10 Not really any beautiful sets but it had some fancy cute rooms. Best Bit: The sleeping scene where the "cat claw thing" grabbed her necklaceWorst Bit: I found the ending a bit disappointing.

funkyfry German director Paul Leni seems, from my personal experience with his films, to be one of the more lighthearted directors to apply expressionist horror techniques to his films. At first glance this might make his films appear as somewhat routine, but there has to be something said for taking horrific subjects and turning them into comedy or adventure, as he's done here in this much-imitated mystery/suspense vehicle derived from the Broadway hit. He exists in roughly the same tradition as the French "Grand Guignol" -- the elaborate setup makes it possible for the audience to have fun with being "chilled." In this case, we have what would today be a very standard haunted house situation. Relatives of an old man who went insane return to his mansion 20 years later to hear the reading of his Will. As part of the Will's conditions, the person receiving the inheritance (who turns out to be a character played by lovely Laura La Plante) must be adjudged sane by a doctor, so someone in the group is trying to drive her insane or make her appear insane so that they can win the money.It's very obvious to the audience from the beginning that there are no real ghosts, so the fun in the movie is largely watching the way that the characters are scared by the possibility. There is one character, played by Creighton Hale (who later made B movies for AIP and other companies) who is just completely there for comic relief, and yet he is also the only man in the movie who's sincere and wants to help Annabelle (La Plante). A lot of elements in the movie were probably cliché already by the time it came out, but others were inventive.I didn't find the film visually as exciting as some other films in the same genre such as Roland West's "The Bat" or James Whale's "The Old Dark House". Also the performances are pretty much by rote. However there's just a kind of breeziness to the whole thing that makes it fun. And a couple of scenes were very well done visually, such as the scene with Annabelle's pearls being stolen. The use of the looming title card there would be an ideal example of how title cards were used to enhance film artistry rather than as a limitation. In fact that scene in particular very much reminded me of the way Alfred Hitchcock shot the very beginning of "To Catch a Thief" with the jewelry theft. None of the images are quite as disturbing today as those in Whale's and West's films.