I recall being somewhat underwhelmed by this on first viewing (its reputation having ensured it a place in my very first online DVD purchase!) but, rewatching the film now, sees it elevated to its rightful place among the best horror films of the Silent era - indeed one of the great Silents, period.
It's the quintessential "old dark house" film which, in their 1920s heyday, seemed to always incorporate comedy (since many of these had actually originated on the stage). Of its kind, I've also watched THE MONSTER (1925; starring Lon Chaney) as well as the Talkie remake of THE BAT (1926), called THE BAT WHISPERS (1930) - all of these, incidentally, were made by director Roland West; one more I'd love to catch up with is Benjamin Christensen's SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO Satan (1929), though two other films he did in the same vein - THE HAUNTED HOUSE (1928) and HOUSE OF HORROR (1929) - are, regrettably, considered lost! Leni himself directed THE LAST WARNING (1929; though that was actually set inside a theater).
Anyway, the film certainly provided the right atmosphere: visually, it's a real treat (even if the DVD I own is the earlier Image edition, i.e. not the Remastered one) - highlighting Gilbert Warrenton's mobile camera and optical effects and Charles D. Hall's fantastic set design (but even the title cards bring their own inventiveness!). The cast, some of whom are familiar (such as Tully Marshall, Arthur Edmund Carewe, George Siegmann and Lucien Littlefield), is well-assembled - even if none of the roles require much depth and are more or less stereotypes, such as the 'fraidy cat' who eventually makes good, the elder female relative (equally terrified), the sinister-looking old servant-woman devoted to her dead master, the innocent and put-upon heroine, etc.
While the pace is somewhat slow (the plot really gets going during the second half), the film is tremendously entertaining all the way through; when I first watched it, I had felt that too much attention was given to the comic relief but this time around I saw the film's mixture of thrills and laughter as more evenly balanced (and the gags themselves not terribly archaic). With respect to the horror element, it's not so much to the fore - since the film is more of a thriller really; in fact, "The Cat" itself doesn't feature in it all that much, but there's no denying that it's a memorably ghoulish creation!
The end credits themselves are quite amusing: reproducing the cast list (which would come to be a Universal trademark) so that patrons could cite those participants who had particularly pleased them - followed by a request by company President Carl Laemmle, urging the public to write to him personally with their opinion of the film! The score (which is a re-recording of the original accompaniment to the film) sounds awfully familiar and was probably re-used for other Silents or subsequent Universal horror films.
Some years ago I had also watched the 1978 remake of THE CAT AND THE CANARY (surprisingly directed by Radley Metzger, better known for his ventures in Erotica!) and would love to get to the 1939 version which cemented Bob Hope's popularity and is, actually, as highly regarded as the original(!); unfortunately, it's only available in a reportedly atrocious print on Region 2 DVD...
4 out of 4 found this helpful