The Cat and the Canary

Radley Metzger manages to gather quite a decent cast in this 1978 iteration of John Willard's play. Wilfred Hyde-White plays a recently deceased millionaire who has gathered his potential heirs to hear his will - delivered by him via film. What follows is a Cluedo-esque sequence of events as each suspects and conspires against the other until only the one who will inherit the devious old man's fortune is left (or not!). The cast gel quite well, but the screenplay is far too wordy; the pace too slow and so much more could have been made of the original, far more quirky characterisations. Still worth a watch, though - Honor Blackman and an ever-imperious Dame Wendy Hiller add bags of class to the proceedings.

Squabbling money-hungry family members at a vacant mansion in England

On a stormy night in 1934, several potential heirs meet at a manor in the sticks outside London for the reading of the will, which was put on film by the old man (Wilfrid Hyde-White).

"The Cat and the Canary" (1978) was based on the stage play from 1922, which was considered THE 'old dark house' tale and so four feature films were made of it between 1927-1939, followed by a television production in 1959. Interestingly, the locale of the story often changes. For instance, the 1927 film takes place by the Hudson River in New York while the 1939 rendition occurs in the bayou of Louisiana. Here the events are switched to rural England.

Olivia Hussey (Cicily) and Carol Lynley (Annabelle) are highlights on the feminine front, but not enough is done with them. How about learning how to shoot beautiful women? (And I’m not talking about nudity or sleaze).

For THE ‘old dark house’ tale, the manor is too brightly lit with almost zero atmosphere. Besides Hussey and Lynley, the only thing I found compelling in the contrived yarn was the depiction of family tensions and tiffs with an amusing brouhaha between Charlie and (I think) Hendricks on the grand staircase.

While it gets a lot of flack, "House of the Long Shadows" is a far better example of this genre from the same general time period.

The movie runs 1 hour, 38 minutes, and was shot at Pyrford Court in Surrey, about 25 miles southwest of London. It’s the same location used for “The Omen” two years prior.

GRADE: C/C-