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The Supernatural and the OccultFilm 17 of 20
The Cat and the Canary
Twenty years after Cyrus West dies, the heirs meet in a river mansion to hear the will; Laura La Plante is the one named, if she stays sane.
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Paul Leni, Universal, 1927, from John Willard’s 1922 play. Twenty years after Cyrus West dies, the heirs meet in a river mansion to hear the will; Laura La Plante is the one named, if she stays sane. A claw through a wall, sliding panels, a guard who talks about a cat. Leni, late of Waxworks, gives Hollywood the German hallway. The AFI files it as the haunted-house comedy the studio would remake. Eighty-seven minutes. The title is the old man’s joke about his relatives. Leni makes the joke architectural.
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The Supernatural and the Occult
Leni brings the German hallway to Hollywood and invents the old dark house. A will, heirs in a river mansion, a claw through a wall, curtains that move. The uncanny as architecture. Every haunted-house comedy after it is standing in these corridors.
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