The Cat and the Canary│Eureka Entertainment
Courtesy of Eureka Entertainment
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
The last UK Blu-ray premiere from Eureka! which I reviewed on these pages was The Saphead. I mention this as it was a remake of a film that was originally based on a play, whose location had been moved to New York from the Wild West. Now Eureka! have released the 4K restoration of The Cat and the Canary which happens to be a remake of a film that was originally based on a play, whose location has been moved from New York to the wilds of Louisiana. These things happen. And it’s full of good things, not least Bob Hope and a raft of great lines (Hope, who plays the quintessential scaredy-cat, quips, “I’m so scared, even my goose pimples have goose pimples”).
Occasionally, I watch old black-and-white films on TV, but more often than not the pictorial quality is so poor I find it hard to stay the course. I think part of the reason for this is that the crisp quality of Eureka’s 4K restorations are so good, it’s like watching a brand-new movie –were it not for the charm and the language of the original. The Cat and the Canary is a remake of the 1927 silent which, itself, was an adaptation of the 1922 play by John Willard, which ushered in the “old dark house” genre. The remake, which stars Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard and John Beal, has moved the story’s location from New York to the backwater bayous of Louisiana to give the piece an added sense of the eerie – and I did find it all rather creepy, but also very funny, thanks largely to Bob Hope. This was the film that put the comedian on the map and cemented his persona as the urbane, wise-cracking “flutterbrain” (to quote one character in the film).
If the plot now sounds familiar, it wasn’t at the time and set the template for a particular kind of comedy-thriller in which a group of people find themselves trapped in a large bleak house with outside forces at play. Here, Bob Hope is totally at ease with his spinelessness, knocking out the one-liners with consummate skill. He plays Wally Campbell, a famous actor and would-be ladies’ man, whose honesty proves more endearing than the chiselled smarm of the other male characters – all vying for the attentions of Paulette Goddard. She, he and the others are all summoned to the house for the reading of the will of an eccentric millionaire who died ten years previously. Whosoever is named the main beneficiary has to prove their sanity for a whole month after spending the first night in the house, which is haunted by strange sounds and flickering lights. There’s also a mad killer on the loose, who has just escaped from the local insane asylum. Poor old Cicily (played by Nydia Westman), is thoroughly unnerved, and says to Wally: “Don’t big empty houses scare you?” To which he replies: “Not me, I used to be in vaudeville.” And, to bring the film more up to date, she adds: “It’s awful spooky down here. Do you believe in reincarnation? You know... that dead people come back?” and he replies, “You mean like the Republicans?”
Some of the film does feel a little old-fashioned now, but that’s part of its charm, while some of it feels totally modern. Funny to think that it is a remake of a movie that was made just twelve years earlier. The cinema seemed to move so much faster back then in its innovations in technology and style. Do films like The King’s Speech, Inception and Black Swan really feel like they were made twelve years ago? But that was the period of time between the silent The Cat and the Canary and this sophisticated remake. In addition to this, the Blu-ray has an excellent commentary by the actor-historian Jonathan Rigby and as so often with the Eureka Classics range, I found myself watching the film again with the commentary on, just because I found Jonathan Rigby such an engaging, informative and fascinating guide to the minutia behind the scenes. Here, I learned that the alligators in the film noticeably have their jaws taped shut (which I didn’t notice the first time) and that George Zucco, who played the executor, had two of the fingers on his right hand withdrawn – like Bill Nighy – having been shot in the arm during the First World War. Unlike Bill Nighy. Paulette Goddard has also been much on my mind of late, as she was married to the German novelist Erich Maria Remarque, whose 1928 book, All Quiet On the Western Front, has just been made into one of the best films of this year – available now on Netflix. Of course, we mustn’t forget that she was also married to the actor Burgess Meredith, and indeed, to Charlie Chaplin. Here, she’s delightful.
The Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard double feature The Cat and the Canary and The Ghost Breakers is now available on Blu-ray from Eureka Entertainment: https://eurekavideo.co.uk/movie/the-cat-and-the-canary-ghost-breakers/
Eureka Entertainment is the leading independent distributor of classic silent/early films in the UK. In 2004, Eureka! established the award winning Masters of Cinema Series, a specially curated director-led Blu-ray and DVD collection of classic and world cinema using the finest available materials for home viewing. In 2014, Eureka! established Eureka! Classics intended to highlight a broader selection of classic and cult cinema, and in 2017, Eureka! established Montage Pictures, a label celebrating ground-breaking and thought-provoking world cinema from new and upcoming directors.
