User reviews

This has to be classed as one of Bob Hope's better films, even though it was one of his first in a starring role. He uses the script to perfection with his one-liners while playing the role of a pretty scared coward, and he is admirably supported by Paulette Goddard as the future heiress. In a very good supporting cast there are a number of stalwarts like George Zucco, Elizabeth Patterson and Gale Sondergaard who add so much to the atmosphere of the film. Take it for what it is - a fun scary romp, and you will be spending a most pleasurable 75 minutes, Oh, and by the way it has the required sliding panels, mists, falling bodies, etc that go such a long way in providing Hope with suitable cracks. Enjoy.

This tale of greedy relatives out to get a fortune had been filmed at least two times before Bob Hope took a crack at it, and the world is a better place for it.

Though not the perfect haunted house film, this is a very funny movie. One of the reason that this isn't perfect is that the wisecracks get in the way of the mystery, or if not the mystery, the suspense. Such is the danger of comedy thrillers, either its too funny so its not scary, or too suspenseful and the comedy destroys the tension at the wrong time, here its simply too much humor before it turns serious.

Fortunately here funny is good, so even if the suspense gets the short end of the stick, its still an enjoyable time at the movies. What more could you want, especially since it gives Bob Hope ample chance to do what he does best.

See this movie. Its a lot of fun. 8 out of 10.

The late Uncle Cyrus left quite a collection of greedy relatives looking to be the number one heir at the reading of his will at his home on an island in the Louisiana bayou swamp. Among the possible legatees are Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, John Beal, Douglass Montgomery, Elizabeth Patterson, Nydia Westman and housekeeper Gale Sondergaard. Presiding over the reading of the will is lawyer George Zucco. Besides Bob Hope a lot of the names of the cast spell out sinister.

As usual the deceased always makes out a will with wacky provisions. Winner of the prize is Goddard, but she has to spend some time at the creepy mansion, essential in these kind of films. And if she's driven to madness or killed there is a secret provision for a second heir among the crew that only Zucco knows.

The Cat And The Canary is a nice blend of both comedy and melodrama with of course Hope in charge of the comedy. He's a successful radio star as in real life at that time and Uncle Cyrus's money while nice isn't going to be the difference in where his next meal is coming from. And he's liking what he sees in Goddard so he's protective of her in his own comedic way.

This was the first of three films that Hope and Goddard did. Immediately afterward Paramount put them in The Ghostbreakers which certainly had some similar themes. They worked well together too bad they were not able to collaborate more.

This was a nice film for the career of Bob Hope which was zooming into high gear right about now.

Most of Bob Hope's films rely heavily on the humour of the times, with references to political and cultural events figuring in significantly. Sometimes this detracts from his films, because the humour is not always self-evident. Not is the case with his performance in the remake of Paul Leni's The Cat and the Canary. Hope has one great one-liner after another in this old dark house mystery-comedy. The story is pretty familiar: a group a relations must stay a night in a house, listen to a will, and then remain there for the evening to see if the inheritor remains sane throughout the evening. Of course, we the audience are treated to secret panels, an occasional murder, hooded culprits, and a great mystery. The Cat and the Canary works so well for a number of reasons. First, it is a very atmospheric film taking place in the swamplands of Louisiana. The film is by no means big budget but does do the most with what it has. The surrounding swampland have an authentic feeling to them and the house itself is magnificently eerie. The cast is quite good with Bob Hope saving the film from tiresome formula with his special brand of humour and his excellent timing. Despite his great performance, he is almost upstaged by Gale Sondergaard as a dark, brooding servant. George Zucco also has a nice supporting role. All in all a nice way to spend an evening.

Bob Hope murder mystery/old dark house parody film with someone trying to knock off an heiress. A fiendish figure named The Cat appears but all is not what it seems. This was good fun..I quite enjoyed it although it could have benefited from a few more legitimate frights..certainly a good starting point for Hope who went on to make many more delightful films like this.

It may sound strange, but there was something so cute and appealing about Bob Hope in the '30s and '40s. I loved that guileless, spineless sweet character he played.

Here Hope is in top form in "The Cat and the Canary," the 1939 version also starring Paulette Goddard, Gale Sondergaard, John Beal, Douglass Montgomery, George Zucco, and Elizabeth Patterson. A group of relatives have to spend the night in a haunted house after the reading of their late relatives' will.

Hope and the beautiful, vivacious Goddard are wonderful together -- so good, in fact, that they did it again in "Ghost Breakers." No one could do one-liners like Hope.

This movie is a lot of fun, with secret panels and things that go bump in the night. Delightful, funny, and spooky.

A group of relatives converge on a decaying Louisiana bayou mansion for the reading of a will. With only one of the hopeful heirs, vivacious beauty Joyce Norman (Paulette Goddard), inheriting the entire estate, and the whole clan trapped in the gloomy building for the night, it isn't long before someone turns to murder. Easily spooked actor Wally Campbell (Bob Hope) does his best to solve the mystery that unfolds while trying to protect Joyce from the killer.

There may have been 'Old Dark House' films before The Cat and the Canary (including, of course, the 1927 silent version of the same story), but this 1939 murder mystery is the one that clearly defined the genre, knowingly presenting all the tropes one might reasonably expect, from the creepy housekeeper to the escaped lunatic to the house riddled with secret passageways—even the portrait in the library has eye-holes that allow the killer to observe unnoticed. It's all very 'Scooby Doo' but a whole lot of fun, with a great cast who go with the flow, and bags of atmosphere, aided no end by the delightfully creepy setting.

Even Bob Hope's rather dated, vaudevillian delivery of his glib one-liners doesn't spoil matters — there's just too much spooky silliness on offer to make the film anything other than a very enjoyable time-waster.

The silents brought us a number of classic comedians who were skilled at making the audience laugh without uttering a word. With the advent of sound, some of these comedians found the transition hard and most still relied on their old silent routines for their jokes. Bob Hope was the first comedian who's mouth provided the punchline. The Cat and the Canary was his first leading part and yet it's not designed purely for his advantage, this is a great picture, both funny and exciting.

Bob Hope is the star. He's hilarious. He's sympathetic. He's also a coward, which isn't such an asset when you're staying in a house filled with escaped lunatics, suspicious servants, and numerous trapdoors. Hope plays a radio personality who involuntarily becomes the bodyguard to a woman, Joyce, who recently inherited a lot of money. The house is filled with other guests that are upset at having lost out on the inheritance. To make matters worse, if Joyce dies within a month, the money goes to whoever was the substitute inheritor and that person's name lies in an envelope safely hidden in a safe. As guests start dying, the tension increases, as does Hope's one-liner's. "I've got goosepumps. In fact, my goosebumps have got goosebumps."

Today, the plot seems like one from an episode of Scooby-Doo but it's still fun and surprisingly smart. The cast is small but solid and the murderer is never guessed until the end. A few red herrings are thrown in but when the guilty party is revealed, it does make sense, a necessity rarely used in Hollywood today.

As a vehicle for Hope it works a charm. As a movie in itself it should be recognised as a classic.

CAT AND THE CANARY still is a great mystery/comedy film. With it's two young stars Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard, who go on to make yet another two films together, THE GHOST BREAKERS and NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH, there is great fun and thrills as they spend the night in a spooky old house with several guests that disappear or are found killed mysteriously. Paulette inherits the place through a will, including a jewel necklace which she promptly places under her pillow before going to bed. There is a scary scene with the damsel in distress in bed sleeping, and a hairy grotesque hand slowly starts to creep over her pillow. A wonderful performance by the supporting cast including Gale Sondergard as an evil-looking housekeeper, George Zucco, again in a thriller, and Elizabeth Patterson and Nydia Westman as the two dizzy relatives. This film put both of the leads over the top and onto major star caliber. Rarely on television, it can be seen around Halloween on American Classics.

This is the 'talkie' remake (well, in fact, more of a spoof than a remake) of the famous silent mystery classic from 1927; this time we start directly on the evening the millionaire's will (who died 10 years ago, in this case) will be read to all the more or less greedy relatives. Again, the attorney (George Zucco, an 'old friend' from many a scary movie) notices at once that the safe has been opened, and again the strange housekeeper Miss Lu (Gale Sondergaard) receives the guests. This time, there IS electric light in the house - but it isn't too reliable...

And the last ones to arrive are actor Wally (Bob Hope) and beautiful artist Joyce (Paulette Goddard), our protagonists of course. The will is being read, and Joyce is the 'lucky one'; and again under the condition that she won't become insane - and what's more, that she won't die within a month... 'An invitation to murder', as one of her cousins remarks quite rightly...

Then the warden from the asylum comes and warns them about the escaped lunatic they call 'the Cat'; then the attorney disappears behind a moving bookshelf, Joyce is getting more and more nervous, and Wally's already shaking with fright - and so the 'horror' spoof goes on; only with the ending slightly altered to give Miss Lu a little more attention...

Of course, there's no comparison on ANY level to the original mystery masterpiece; this is clearly romance and comedy entertainment of the late 30s, with a few scary moments thrown in - of the fans of the CLASSIC kind of mystery, only those with a very good sense of humor will find it interesting; otherwise, the good acting and funny lines will be quite entertaining for friends of the 'lighter' side of old Hollywood.

Oh my gosh, how scary is this film? I first saw it when I was about six, and I only remember the hand coming through the wall to strangle the woman in bed, and the body falling out of a cupboard. This was enough to make me stay away from cupboards and beds for many years to come! I saw it again recently and found it more comical this time around, especially Bob Hope's performance, but I'm still scared of cupboards!

Alrighty folks, this is a quick and easy one. The Cat and the Canary is classic proto-gothic mystery stuff, straight out of an episode of Scooby Doo. You've got an old manor, supposedly haunted, a cast of characters gathered for a purpose (the reading of a will), and, Bum Bum Buummmm, a killer on the loose! Who could it be?? The scared old lady? The doting ex-boyfriend? The cat man, loose from the insane asylum? Tune in to find out!!!

The eyes of paintings replace themselves with those of the watchful scoundrel, secret passages steal people away from in front of bookcases, and suspicion abounds as all the characters, along with the audience, participate in a Whodunnit. You know all you need to know, just from this sentence.

So is it any good? Well, the black and white photography is great, particularly the lighting, so we're covered on the looks front. Bob Hope is fun to watch as the classic character Bob Hope (not really, but you know what I mean), flustered and quippy and affable, and the rest of the cast shines as well, the ensemble and their interplay being the highlight of the movie.

Narratively, it's about what you'd expect. Things play out, clues are found, the mystery deepens, and is resolved. If there's a kink in the machine, however, that keeps this fun movie from being totally solid, it lies within the details. Certain character motivations remain unanswered, and logical details about the functioning of the house itself and aforementioned supernatural elements are never properly elucidated. It's as if the movie put them in because that's what you do in a movie like this, and then hopes you'll forget to ask why and how. Scooby and the Gang would have explained these mechanics with aplomb in a nice end scene, so it's mildly frustrating that the movie sees fit not to.

However, at the end of the day, these things don't matter too much. You're not watching a movie like this for the superb logic of its machinations, most likely, but to indulge in some good old fashioned murder mystery fun, and at an incredibly light 70 minutes, it does all it needs to do in order to scratch that itch.

FINAL TAKE: The Cat and the Canary isn't going to blow anybody away, but at this point in history, that's almost the point. It's a comfy blanket of a type we no longer get anymore in movies, a relic of a bygone story archetype long since parodied to extinction, but it does said archetype earnestly. Some mechanical and character logic problems aside, it thoroughly entertains.

For years I have heard that "The Cat and the Canary" was a very good movie. For some reason--rights, maybe?--I have never seen it before. Well, I finally caught up with it. As a number of previous reviews have pointed out, "The Ghost Breakers" was better--far better. Even the politically incorrect aspects of the second film worked. Hope and, especially Goddard (no wonder Chaplain was so bewitched), were much better the second time out.

I saw the Laura LaPlante silent version on Turner Classic Movies recently, so the identity of "the cat" was no surprise, although I suspect most viewers would have figured it out not too far into the movie. The best performances in the 1939 version were by Gale Sondergaard and Nydia Westman. On the other hand, John Beal and Douglass Montgomery gave confirming evidence of why they are now largely forgotten.

Still, I would rather watch Goddard and Hope in this "Cat" than the gore-fests--"Saw," anyone?--that are ground out like rancid sausages today for the mystery/thriller market.

A group of relatives, including pretty artist Joyce (Paulette Goddard) and cowardly actor Wally (Bob Hope), gather at a creepy old mansion in the Louisiana bayou for the reading of the will of millionaire Cyrus Norman. In the will, everything is left to Joyce. As the relatives spend the night in the mansion, scary things start to happen and Joyce fears that her relatives might be trying to kill her.

Hope has lots of one-liners and funny comebacks. This was his first big hit movie. Goddard plays it straight but does a good job as the heroine. Hope and Goddard re-teamed a year later for the similar Ghost Breakers. They're both good movies but I prefer Ghost Breakers to this. George Zucco and Gale Sondergaard have supporting roles here. I hopefully don't need to tell you all how that's a big plus for any movie.

The Cat and the Canary began as a play but it's been filmed several times. The first was in 1927 and that version happens to be one of my favorite silent movies. The play and the first movie were highly influential, being imitated often in what would come to be known as the "old dark house" subgenre of horror/thriller. This 1939 version of The Cat and the Canary mixes things up by turning the original into a comedy. Today more people are probably familiar with this than the silent classic. I suppose there's no harm in that but I would recommend you seek out the earlier film as it's very good.

This has always been one of my top10 favourite films, since I first saw it in 1972, at least 14 times since. Bob Hope was still a little green at this stage, but you can almost see (and hear) him coming of age in CATC, his comic delivery technique and timing noticeably improved by the end. The spooky atmosphere generated onto the b&w nitrate stock by the Paramount cast and crew was palpable, compare it - if you can stomach it - to the 1979 remake!

8 people are summoned to a will-reading at a rather eerie old house; the one that wins the fortune seems to be going insane as one of her relatives sweetly puts it, whilst another just says she's going out of her mind. There's only 2 nice people here, Hope and Goddard, the rest are more or less on the make. She's the visual jewel in here - as Hope says, "Terrific". The scene with Goddard and the Cat in the library is my all-time Spooky Moment on Film - nowadays all the "artists" involved in the making of "horror" films don't trouble about niceties like Spookiness, but just get on with the Gore. That of course is the problem for most people coming to this, they've probably inured themselves over the years to see disgusting and vile-ent things - so much so that they would laugh at the most savage scene in this where someone gets knifed in the back. The 1927 Laura LaPlante version is good and nicely atmospheric too, but it's difficult comparing chalk and cheese to silent and talking pictures - they're both great comedy films on their own merits.

A wonderful piece of art, topped the next year with an even better follow up, Ghost Breakers.

I saw this movie in 1939 when I was just nine years old. It was a comedy, to be sure, but it scared the heck out of me. It was at night when I saw it and when I left the theater alone, I ran all the way home. That was just three blocks but a dark and spooky three blocks. For many nights I couldn't sleep because of a skeletal hand that kept reaching out of my headboard and was creeping ever closer to my throat. No scary movie, before or since, ever scared me as much as this comedy. It made a star of Bob Hope and he and his co-star, Paulette Goddard, appeared in a similar scary old house movie later that became more well known than Canary, but it was the canary that kept me awake every night for a week or two. I have never seen this film for sale or rent and never have seen it on TV and I have always wondered why. It was such a gem.

What a silly, silly, silly film. If not downright, for want of a better word, stupid. Not that it has to make sense - no need for that, given the nature of the beast - but it ought to have had some semblance of sensibility. Stilted and forced, nothing flowing easily. A petulant and cranky John Beal, unusual for him; a good-looking but vacuous Douglass Montgomery who has been better; Elizabeth Patterson as Elizabeth Patterson only a shade meaner; Nydia Westman perfectly cast as the jittery screamer; George Zucco, gone too soon; malevolent Gale Sondergaard who never fails; Paulette Goddard as Paulette Goddard and lovely at that; and Bob Hope in one of his worst efforts from that time period. His films from the late 30's through the late 40's were usually fun and he was usually fun, but if he gets to say something like "shut up", and mean it, to Patterson, something is not right. It's not in character for him. I've wanted to see this for years and have never found it and now that I have, I can rest easily. I'll never have to see it again. (All in all - it was silly silly silly, but wonderful because, well, just because.)

I'm not a huge Bob Hope fan, but he seems perfectly cast here (as he is in the not quite so good 'Ghost Breakers' (1940) - also with Goddard!) The atmosphere generated in this movie is perfect for all you who like the early 'old dark house' movies. Creepy internal and external sets, secret passageways, lurking danger, mysterious housekeeper and house guests.

Hope is the focal point for the film and injects darkly comic humour at all the right moments, which not only provides laughs but also cranks up the tension beautifully.

This film is great to watch on a Friday night with a bottle of wine, but will also be a hit with the kids at Halloween! Superb entertainment.

Paulette Goddard is infinitely a much better romantic lead for Bob Hope than was Martha Raye, who was very funny, but not terribly attractive. This makes the on-film chemistry much more believable as a couple. The setting, unfortunately, is the hackneyed haunted house and reading of the will scenario; only done a few hundred times before in other films. However, Hope and Goddard make this predictable plot acceptable to the audience through their crisp dialogue (thanks to Hope's writers). A fun hour.

At a winner-takes-all reading of a will in an isolated mansion, a surprise condition provides motive for murder ...

Corny murder mystery played for mild laughs, mainly through the hero's glib patter - although he does seem a bit edgy when telling one of the old ladies to shut up. Lots of running down corridors from room to room, people splitting up when they should stay together, and responses to cries for help that come slowly or quickly, according to the needs of the scene.

Nothing special about the production. The music is overbearing, but not hugely.

Overall, faintly amusing ancestor of Scooby Doo.