The producer of 1939’s The Cat and the Canary is one Arthur Hornblow, Jr. With a surname like that, I like to think he was always bragging—or, to put it another way, tooting his own horn. I also wonder if, however, unlikely, he was the inspiration for the Beastie Boys’ Adam Yauch to adopt the pseudonym Nathanial Hornblower when directing their music videos.
If nothing else, the goofiness of their videos feels akin to this screwball comedy. It is supposed to also be horror, but I doubt anybody was ever scared by any of those elements here, as these are the kinds of things which would later be standards of Scooby Doo. There’s a creepy old mansion (deep in a swamp full of alligators, no less) with secret passageways. Nefarious characters spy through eyeholes cut out of paintings. There’s a missing necklace of immeasurable value, etc. These story tropes were creaky even at the time of the film’s original release, as it was the third adaptation even by then of material which had originally been a stage play.
I’m not sure why the rich owner of that mansion had to be dead for ten years before they would do a reading of the will, but the relatives who could potentially become heirs all make the trip by various canoes. First is George Zucco, the estate’s attorney. Then there’s Elizabeth Patterson and Nydia Westman as dotty old women one can imagine trying to determine the right mixture of poisons to put into their elderberry wine to serve to lonely old bachelors. Then there’s Bob Hope, in the Bob Hope role.
Gale Sondergaard plays the creepy housekeeper who greets each visitor. She is her usual creepy self, in the kind of role in which she excelled. It is uncertain whether she really believes in the supernatural, but she claims her “friends from the other world” tell her things. Lights flicker and she claims, “Sometimes they get into the machinery”. Odd how ghosts like to mess with electricity in pictures like this, but they never seen to actually do any repairs while they’re at it. She can also detect others she believes have the gift, telling Hope there are spirits all around him. His reaction, “Could you put some in a glass?”
She thinks Hope has extrasensory abilities, only because he has correctly guessed Paulette Goddard is the heir named in the will. But he did so only because he catches on early how much the situation they find themselves in is so much like a gothic melodrama. His familiarity is such setups is revealed when somebody asks him if he’s scared of big empty houses: “Nah, I used to be in vaudeville.”
There are some other characters in the mix, such as John Beal and Douglass Montgomery, two guys with leading-man looks and who openly despise each other. They also both have designs on Goddard, which I found creepy since, while I never could figure out what relation the heirs are to each other, they are all related, nonetheless. That also goes for Hope, who also is enamored with Goddard because…I mean, have you seen Paulette Goddard?!
Complicating the plot is the escaped mental patient security guard John Wray has been pursuing in the swamp. The murderous madman he’s hunting is nicknamed “The Cat”, because he tends to crawl around on all fours.
The canoe cab service will not be in operation until the next morning, so everybody will be in and around the house all night. Goddard, as the sole heir, needs to be careful, what with The Cat prowling about. Also, she has to survive a month; otherwise, the inheritance goes to the person named in an unopened envelope.
In a cast this large in a plot this simple, it is inevitable some parts will be more interesting than others. Of the more minor characters, I especially liked Westman. She is both the most easily scared of the bunch while somehow also being the bravest, showing no hesitation when Hope needs somebody to go into the basement with him. They find a generator running down there, and she proves to be mechanically gifted, having worked on them before. Westman may also be the smartest, suggesting they all sleep in the same room overnight. Of course, there wouldn’t be a movie if that happened.
But, like any other picture starring Hope, The Cat and the Canary is really a showcase for him. He was the usual assortment of sharp quips, such as this of the deceased: “They say that he was so crooked that, when he died, they had to screw him into the ground.” Something different about his part here than in many similar pictures is he is less of a coward than usual. Still, he gets lines like this: “Even my goose pimples have goose pimples.” Nobody will experience terror like that watching this, but it is an enjoyable enough way to pass the time.
Dir: Elliott Nugent
Starring Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray