24 October: The Cat and the Canary

 

“On a lonely, pine-clad hill overlooking the Hudson, stood the grotesque mansion of an eccentric millionaire----”

Only seven more days until that most wonderfullest time of the year. That’s right: we are a week out from Halloween, people! Time to get right with the Great Pumpkin and make sure you’ve got full-size candy bars to give out on the big night. I’d hate to hear that anything bad happened to any of you because you skimped where it counted.

Until then, let us continue our daily celebration of All Hallow’s Eve via Cinematic Void’s 31 Days of Voidoween movie challenge. Today’s topic is “Silent Horror,” and I’ve chosen Paul Leni’s 1927 comedy-horror classic for Universal Studios, The Cat and the Canary.

The Cat and the Canary is the prototypical “old dark house” mystery. Based on John Willard’s 1922 play, Leni’s film contains all the tropes and trappings that fans of the genre relish: on a dark and stormy night, a group of would-be heirs meet in the aforementioned ODH to hear the reading of a will. The interior of the house is dusty, covered with cobwebs, and filled with hidden passages. The lone heir named in the will, Annabelle (Laura La Plante), becomes the focus of ire of the other, spurned family members. Everyone seems to be after Annabelle. In another turn of the screw, however, a lunatic known as “The Cat” has escaped a local asylum. A guard from the asylum has tracked The Cat to the ODH. He may be hiding somewhere on the grounds...or in the house itself!

The Cat and the Canary is a hoot. It’s a silent film that holds up really well. This is due partly to its feeling so familiar to genre film buffs and partly to it being so well made. Paul Leni imbued The Cat and the Canary with a lot of energy. The performers, while exuding the histrionics typical of silent era acting, also wouldn’t seem out of place in a more modern film like Clue (1985). The camerawork and editing, too, feel more modern. There are certainly scenes that have the stagey, long takes of the silent era, but for the most part, the camera and the actors move freely around the sets. The editor mixes wide shots and close-ups nicely giving the whole a nice rhythm that never bores the viewer.

All in all, The Cat and the Canary is a wonderfully funny and spooky film that’s perfect for the whole family during the Halloween season.

It is 2 October. There are 29 days until Halloween.

Look, I get it. Silent films are hard to get into for the average moviegoer. Even someone like myself – and I studied film in undergrad and graduate school (I’m a professional, folks) – finds the majority of silents to be stodgy, stagey, and so slowly paced you’d rather watch something exciting like paint drying or Major League Baseball.

The silent era comedies are probably your best bet for finding ingress into the world of movies before Al Jolson uttered his first “Mammy.” The works of Chaplin, Keaton, and Lloyd rely on a fast pace and lots of surreal sight gags to keep their audiences engaged. Buster Keaton having a house front fall around his ears is worth any number of histrionic “artistic” performances in other silent films.

So, I get it. Who the heck wants to waste their time on a silent movie?

Well…what if said silent picture had loads of torture, demons, and folks smooching the butt of Satan? 

Got your attention now, don’t I?

The Danish film Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages has got the above and a whole lot more. Writer/Director Benjamin Christensen’s 1922 movie is essentially a dramatized documentary about the history of witchcraft and the witch hunting hysteria that swept Europe in the Middle Ages.

Everything about Häxan has got it going on. The sets are gorgeous. All the buildings and rooms look like they’ve been in existence for hundreds of years. The use of color tinting lends of different touch to each of the parts of the movie. The special optical effects are amazing. The scenes of the sabbath, as the witches take flight and cavort with beasts and demons is wonderfully achieved. For a 1922 film, the violence in the movie is disturbing to see, especially the way that pious monks tortured alleged witches into confessing their nefarious (and more than likely non-existent) association with Old Hob.

And if all that isn’t enough for you to click here and start watching, then how’s about you track down the cut of the film that came out in 1968 narrated by William S. Burroughs? 

Talk about scary!