In short: The Cat and the Canary (1939)

You know the drill as well as the audience in 1939 did: a group of relatives is called to an Old Dark House for the reading of a will, trapped there by eccentric stipulations in said will that put a curious emphasis on death and madness, and somebody starts to murder people. Hidden passages, gorilla or “gorilla” costumes and such abound.

Elliott Nugent’s version of this particular classic of the Old Dark House formula recommends itself highly with an ability to keep hokey thriller and comedy perfectly balanced, never leaving the audience hanging without a joke for long, yet also not making the actual business of heir-murdering and heiress-gaslighting silly in itself. Or at least not sillier than it is by nature. This is a particularly remarkable feat since even by the time when this was made this style of film was not exactly fresh and original anymore. Certainly not in the second - or third, depending which movies you count - movie adaptation of this specific play.

The cast is rather fantastic: Bob Hope is at the point in his career when his persona hasn’t hardened into shtick, making for an actually likeable and funny lead, comedically stumbling through and upon a plot everyone around him plays rather seriously indeed without becoming annoying. Paulette Goddard isn’t exclusively there to be driven insane (INSANE! I tell you) and look pretty, but actually is allowed a degree of agency – not a given in 1939 or today – and never comes over as the fainting hysteric so many female leads of this time and sub-genre are. She projects enough personality to convince one she’d get through this whole affair alive and well even without Hope’s help. That these two have actual chemistry does help their romantic subplot quite a bit, of course.

I’m also particularly fond of the performances of genre stalwarts George Zucco and Gale Sondergaard here. The former does his knowing and dramatic lawyer in a most delightful way (and gets a very slasher-style body discovery moment to boot), while Sondergaard hams up her role as spiritualist, melodramatic housekeeper whose middle name must be DOOM to the delight of everyone who enjoys a good doom-laden housekeeper.

All of which turns The Cat and the Canary into a rather delightful example of its genre.