The Cat and the Canary
The director Paul Leni died just as the talkies were coming in, but even so his name still has clout 100+ years on. 1927’s The Cat and the Canary reminds us why. It’s not only a cracking whodunit, and a demonstration of technical wizardry but is also a masterpiece of gothic expressionism… done only semi-seriously. Leni later directed The Man Who Laughs and he’s also having a lot of fun here. The plot is so familiar Agatha Christie might have written it – a group of people gather in a spooky old house to hear the reading of the will of a relative who died 20 years before. This will make one of the … Read more