Feline spooky… The Cat and the Canary (1927), Kennington Bioscope with Jeff Rapsis

This film is not so much a horror classic but a major step forward in spooky-comedy, paving the way not just for Bob Hope’s talkie remake but a whole sub-genre of scarily-funny movies. Paul Leni’s film looks great and takes many visual tropes from the German style and injects laughs into the resultant combination of eerie unease. From the opening titles, showing the title revealed by a horned hand wiping away the dust, it makes its intentions known and it really does achieve that balance between the unexpected, the unnerving and the uncannily-timed.

This being the Bioscope, we were treated to a watch of Kevin Brownlow’s own 35mm, one that resulted from his own restoration for Photoplay. We also got an introduction full of the insider jokes and insights from the man who – nearly – met the all, capturing silent stars on tape from the fifties to the eighties and preserving the oral history of the birth of film.

Guest pianist Jeff Rapsis had flown over from Boston in the morning and was full of praise for the Bioscope – and it’s (thankfully) ongoing contribution to keeping alive the art of improvised accompaniment for which a live audience is just essential. “I have no sheet music, I have nothing prepared I just go with the film and the audience…”

Courageous Creighton Hale

The film had long languished in poor quality but in the 1960s KB found a good print and restored it from 35mm nitrate it parodies the horror film, which hadn’t really started to dominate, although it was popular on stage, where this story began John Willard’s 1923 stage play. KB interviewed the camera man, Gilbert Warrenton, who told him that they had to dig into the floor to get the right angles. Extra lights were also needed to create the right dynamics between dark and shard.

Leni used a gong to drill his play’s movements and claimed that the shadows were as important to the film as the characters… and so it was to prove. Kevin also got to talk with the film’s striking star, Laura la Plante, was too shy to be interviewed and by that time had forgotten every detail apart from the costumes. Ultimately, he feels that The C&C is a commercial film, superbly well-made and one that is critically under-recognised, certainly it had a major influence on the Universal horrors of the thirties, especially James Whale’s Cold Dark House.

Martha Mattox feels the chills

It starts with a dark and stormy night, as it simply had to, but the director of Waxworks and collaborator with Lubitsch, May, Dupont and a host of European film-makers, knew what he was doing… The opening section shows mad old Cyrus West’s spires cross fade into milk bottles which imprison him, wheelchair bound, as viscous black cats encircle this crippled canary: his greedy relatives waiting to get their share of his fortune all, as set out in his will, to be unveiled twenty years after his death.

The action moves to the interior of the West mansion and Leni treats us to the works, wonderfully lit settings with Gilbert Warrenton’s camera swooping round corners with alarming grace then careering down blustery corridors as drapes and curtains fly wildly in the wind. This is a place full of dark surprise, bad humour and menace.

There’s a knock on the old door and West’s faithfully grim retainer, Mammy Pleasant (Martha Mattox) – not very motherly or, indeed, pleasant – opens the door which is almost held back by sheer weight of cobwebs. Enter Roger Crosby (Tully Marshall) West’s lawyer, here on the dot, two decades after his death to reveal the contents of the will. Opening the safe he finds a moth and knows someone has forewarned themselves of the contents… but no one else has been in the house only Mammy and her un-living companion who stares down with intent from his portrait.

Laura La Plante

The guests, all soon to be suspects, all save the murdered… arrive and Leni gives us portraits of people with something to hide; eyes darting, greed nervously bubbling just under the surface and desperation enough to make anyone of them suspicious. There’s Harry Blythe (Arthur Edmund Carewe) who’s already dark eyes take on additional edginess and who almost snarls as his estranged cousin Charles "Charlie" Wilder (Forrest Stanley) arrives. Charles has more regular features but nervousness around the eyes and a mouth that suggests weakness and desperation.

Their more senior cousin Susan Sillsby (Flora Finch) arrives with her niece Cecily Young (Gertrude Astor) both clinging on to the hope that there will be a windfall to compensate for the many obvious disappointments that have etched themselves on their faces: Susan old with bitterness and Cecily just on the cusp as youth fades. Cue the comedy. Paul Jones (Creighton Hale) arrives in a miss-firing motor car, breaking to avoid crossing the path of a black cat and then running into the house convinced his engine’s back-fire was an assassin’s bullet. He’s no Bob Hope but he’s funny alright.

The entourage is completed by the arrival of Annabelle West (Laura La Plante) – youngest of the group and seemingly as sane as sixpence. La Plante takes top billing on the film and had some of the sharpest haircuts in all of silent film.

Gertrude Astor and Flora Finch are shocked!

Anna is revealed as the sole beneficiary and becomes the Canary and the trick is to work out who the Cat(s) might be with pretty much everyone looking as guilty as can be… personally I was hoping it might be Creighton Hale. The mysterious deaths begin to happen, sliding panels start to reveal clawed hands and an escaped lunatic is revealed to be on the loose. What’s more, Annabelle must be proven sane in order to qualify for her prize or else her inheritance will go to another.

Who’ll it be? And will anyone from this strange family emerge as the unlikely hero to protect the true heir? There’s the usual miss-direction and emotional disturbance of the humour but it’s still a fun watch: golden rule of all whodunits… make ‘em all look guilty and then gradually provide them with alibis/good character.

Jeff Rapsis brought a confident narrative-driven dynamism to his accompaniment, different from UK players or just a man with his own style? The top players go world-wide and so this is music without boundaries and here he was perhaps more influenced by the film’s origins as much as he was last year when playing for Salt for Svanetia (1930).

He gave it his all and came good on his stated aim of recreating the tone and collective response to this wonderfully funny and slightly scary film!

Michelle Facey and Meg Morley - two cool cats!

There were further feline treats in the first half tonight with lots of Felix the Cat films celebrating the mad-cat adventurer’s centenary. We saw Felix in Hollywood – even Mr Brownlow couldn’t spot all the characters… and snatched of a documentary on the cat’s cool creator.

Meg Morley accompanied and then played accompaniment to the popular hit, Felix Keeps on Walking, for the Bioscope’s resident chanteuse, Michelle Facey, to sing. Michelle sells these songs so well and I think we have the beginnings of a regular spot here… Pamela Hutchinson famously described the Bioscope as London’s Silent Speakeasy and will molls like Michelle and Meg, we only need some feathers and more-illicit hooch and we’re there!! It brings the music to life, a human voice singing clearly in the new, old-fashioned way.

Brava!!

Felix learns the Black Bottom from Ann Pennington

Our guides through the life of Felix, Glenn Mitchell and Dave Wyatt