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Review by E.C. McMullen Jr. |
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USA Release: Nov. 10, 1939 Paramount Pictures, Flair Communications Rating: USA: N/A |
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In this COVID-19 period of the 2020s, what history may look back and call the era of angry uncertainty, a phrase among Horror movie fans is growing and its called "Comfort Horror". Across various scocial media people ask each other to name their "Comfort Horror" movies. Those Horror movies they can relax with and enjoy with the family. Nightmares from watching such a movie would be unlikely.
Was there ever such a thing?
Yes there was and it took place in an era of fearful uncertainty. NAZI Germany was in ascendence, as was the threat of war, as was the "New Normal" of the Great Depression. Also part of that New Normal was the 1918 "Spanish Flu"
that was clearly here to stay and suspected by some of artificially coming into existence as part of World War One's new Germ and Chemical warfare strategies, only recently outlawed. People were going to movies in record numbers both for the cheap entertainment as well as the new fangled cool air-conditioning in the Summer (Thank you Conrad Hilton!) and heating in the Winter (sometimes too hot, fires in theaters were common enough that everyone agreed the First Amendment didn't cover yelling "Fire" in a crowded theater, even as a joke).
Prohibition only ended 6 years before as the U.S.A. went through a "THrow the Bums out!" election that removed the president and every lawmaker that supported Prohibition. A newly invigorated criminal element rose out of prohibition and was here to stay: Crime run like a corporation. Organized Crime.
All of this history isn't vital to enjoying this movie, but if you want to know why the people behave the way they do, you'll understand that, for its era, this was all believable characterization. Even the comedy: especially the comedy as, more than most forms of entertainment, it has to work within its period for the audience of that time.
...Not far from New Orleans there still exist in strange solitude the bayous of Louisiana...
THE CAT AND THE CANARY opens at night on the Louisiana bayou and a canoe holding two men. There is the rower who moves and guides the canoe and his passenger, an older gent who is wildly out of place considering that he's sharply dressed in button up suit, tie, and hat: professional business attire of the day.
Whatever else is about to happen, I'm already as out of my element as the gent going to his rendevous.
The dapper gent is the Lawyer, Crosby (George Zucco: LONDON BY NIGHT, CHARLIE CHAN IN HONOLULU, THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME, THE MUMMY'S HAND, THE MONSTER AND THE GIRL, THE MAD MONSTER, THE MUMMY'S TOMB, DEAD MEN WALK, THE BLACK RAVEN, THE MAD GHOUL, VOODOO MAN, THE MUMMY'S GHOST, THE RETURN OF THE APE MAN, SHADOWS IN THE NIGHT, HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN, FOG ISLAND, THE FLYING SERPENT, SCARED TO DEATH, WHO KILLED 'DOC' ROBBIN?). He asks his guide if Miss Lu (Gale Sondergaard: THE BLACK CAT, THE SPIDER WOMAN, THE INVISIBLE MAN'S REVENGE, THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK, HOLLYWOOD HORROR HOUSE, THE CAT CREATURE), the Creole servant of the long deceased Cyrus Norman, is still at the old mansion.
According to his guide she is the only one left alive there.
They arrive at the mansion and though Crosby tells his guide to wait, the man tells the lawyer that he won't be back tonight, not until morning daylight. The tension between the lawyer and Miss Lu is palpable. Crosby is there to read the will of Cyrus Norman to his potential heirs, 10 years after the man's death.
The heirs are next to arrive as three travel together in a decrepit motorized boat. They are,
Cicely (Nydia Westman: THE GHOST AND MR. CHICKEN),
Aunt Susan (Elizabeth Patterson: THE CAT CREEPS, SECRET OF THE BLUE ROOM, EARTHBOUND, WHO KILLED AUNT MAGGIE?, I MARRIED A WITCH), and
Fred Blythe (John Beal: THE VAMPIRE [1957], DARK SHADOWS [TV - 1966-1971], THE BRIDE [1973], AMITYVILLE 3D).
These three converse with each other normally, giving us exposition and backstory. The reason old Uncle Cyrus Norman's magnificent yet decaying mansion was built deep in a crocodile and alligator infested swamp was because he was not only rich, but their old Uncle was... "eccentric". Aunt Susan and Cicely are well known to each other, but barely aware of their distant relative, Fred.
At the house, spooky things happen which Miss Lu takes in stride but intimidates the others.
Soon distant cousin Charlie Wilder (Douglass Montgomery: MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD, FORBIDDEN) arrives and soon after him Wally Campbell (Bob Hope: THE GHOST BREAKERS) makes his splashy entrance to the irritation of the rest of the distant family. Eventually the final family member, Joyce Norman (Paulette Goddard: THE GHOST BREAKERS, THE UNHOLY FOUR) arrives and the reading can begin.
All of them, have a dread of becoming mad themselves, as if familial insanity might be hereditary. This fear was real if mostly misguided. Long incurable syphilis caused insanity and the new vaccine could only work if it was administered almost immediately. The longer you waited - often unaware - the less effective it was.
That's a lot to take in at once so let me pause for a ...
!!!SCIENCE MOMENT!!!:
It's easy for modern folks to dismiss vaccines all under one umbrella. Neither they or likely their grandparents were alive before vaccines existed. At the time of this movie, however, fear of being in the prime of your life and suddenly, capriciously struck down or maimed by Polio (Vaccine in 1955), Mumps (Vaccine in 1967), Rubella (Vaccine in 1969): The terror of losing your mind to insanity brought on by Measles (Vaccine in 1963), and Syphilis (Cure, in the form of Benzathine penicillin G in 1942), was always at the forefront of everyone's mind. Marrying a virgin was the only safeguard to avoiding sexually transmitted disease and people whose minds were slowly decaying from syphilis could exist as a maddened rapist for years before the disease was so advanced it couldn't be passed on.
By 1939 the cure for Syphilis was still experimental and the treatment for long time sufferers was non-existent.
Rape was virtually a punishment free crime as virginity was prized in a marriage and rape victims were treated only slightly better than prostitutes by society. As recently as the new millennium, many unscrupulous trial attorneys would try to convince a jury that the victim really wanted it. That is, victims who were able to get their case past a mocking, uninterested police force.
Like most movies and plays, and for that matter novels made before the end of World War II, deadly disease and insanity are always a topic of discussion as common as talking about the weather, politics, religion, or a sports team.
In this movie its played for laughs. You might as well, you can't do anything about it anyway.
The will is read, the sole heir is revealed, and the deceased Uncle Cyrus's unusual stipulations of inheritance come into play. In short, this group of distant relatives with no real love for each other all have a motive for killing the sole heir or driving that person mad, and so have a more equitable distribution of the money.
Worse, they all have to spend the night in Uncle Cyrus's spooky old mansion.
Cicily: "It's awful spooky down here. Do you believe in reincarnation?"
Wally Campbell: "Huh?"
Cicily: "You know... that dead people come back?"
Wally Campbell: "You mean like the Republicans?"
THE CAT AND THE CANARY was based on the 1922 play by John Willard. In addition to being a popular play, it was previously made in 1927 (silent), again in 1930, and this one. Further, it was a hit all three times, most of the audience knew the story from start to finish, and they loved going to theaters to see another remake with different actors (three individual box office hits in 12 years!).
In fact, THE CAT AND THE CANARY was so popular and so imitated that many of the imitations in that same 12 years became hits as well (and the main influence for the game and movie CLUE). Wally can't stop joking about his having played on stage and in movies that were just like what they're experiencing in "real life". This reference makes more sense than simply the popularity of Willard's play, as the 'Distant relatives called to a spooky house for the reading of the will' was an old bromide in mystery novels and plays by 1922 and John's THE CAT AND THE CANARY was making fun of this sub-sub-genre of mystery (Agatha Christie herself wrote a few novels in this form).
With offscreen murder, as well as madness, chills, thrills, and comedy, THE CAT AND THE CANARY might be the Comfort Horror movie you're looking for.
Four Shriek Girls.
This review copyright 2023 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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