"The Cat and the Canary" is a 1922 stage play by John Willard about the death and inheritance of old Cyrus West, a rich eccentric who felt that his relatives "have watched my wealth as if they were cats, and I--a canary". He decrees that his will be read 20 years after his death, at which point his relatives converge at his old family home, now a spooky old haunted mansion. The will reads that his most distant relative still bearing the name of West will be his sole heir, provided that s/he is legally sane. The rest of the night spent in the house calls into question the sanity of Annabelle West, a fragile young woman who is legally Cyrus West's heir.
—Paul Gerard Kennedy