THE CAT AND THE CANARY
US, 1939, 74 minutes, Black-and-white.
Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, John Beal, Douglass Montgomery, Gale Sondegaard, Elizabeth Patterson, Nydia Westman, George Zucco.
Directed by Elliot Nugent.
The Cat and the Canary can be considered a small classic of the 1930s, capitalising on the popularity of Old Dark House scenarios, mysterious killers, the reading of wills at midnight… It is an early Bob Hope film but he presents his familiar screen persona, charming, the touch of the coward, all the quips and wisecracks that he was to show in his later and long career. And he is teamed with Paulette Goddard with whom he appeared next year in a film in a similar vein, The Ghost Breakers.
Elliot Nugent directed many popular films of the 1930s and 40s. Here he has a reputable supporting cast with Douglass Montgomery as the charming, seeming-hero, Gale Sondegaard, a variation on her often sinister presence, Elizabeth Patterson a much stronger fussy type, George Zucco, not villainous but a lawyer.
The film takes place over a couple of hours in a mansion on an island, the reading of a will by the lawyer at midnight, relatives assembled, and the longtime housekeeper still present. The will indicates who is to inherit but there is a second sealed envelope with the name of the alternate inheritor should the first one fail or succumb to fear and madness.
Needless to say, a number of scares, secret passages and disappearance, a mysterious hand, a guard from the local asylum, the presence of an escaped criminal, The Cat.
So, within an hour and a quarter, a variety of chills, a variety of comic situations and jokes. We have Bob Hope at the beginning of his career and certainly at his best. And Paulette Goddard provides a strong and determined heroine. The mood and design of the film, while having lights going out and mysterious sounds, is very much up-to-date for 1939 (and Bob Hope with a lot of quips about conventions for this kind of story).
And, of course, the most charming character at the reading of the will turns out to be the villain!
Director, Radley Metzger (noted for some pornographic films), directed a more straightforward version of The Cat and the Canary, with a Hollywood cast, in 1977.
