The Cat and the Canary: A Melodrama in Three Acts

A Classic, Historic Winner, And Not At All Creaky. During the course of this play, one of the characters utters the line "Gosh, what a spooky house," and boy, does that line ever ring true! The original "old dark house" story, "The Cat and the Canary" was a John Willard stage play of 1922 and has been filmed no less than four times as of 2025. The film shows us what happens when a dead man's will is read in a creepy old house on the Hudson to a bunch of oddball relatives, one of whom, Laura LaPlante, inherits a fortune with the proviso that she passes a sanity test. And poor Laura's sanity IS put to the test that very night, what with an escaped madman on the loose, a possible ghost running around, hands coming out of the walls, show more mysterious disappearances, and a house full of secret passages, swing-out bookcases and so on. Despite some comedic bits that border on the inane but never quite cross that fine line, "The Cat and the Canary" is genuinely creepy in parts. It also features some blatant symbolism, and (I wish) an appropriately strange score. show less