Horror Double Feature: The Bells & The Cat and the Canary

In today’s Shocktober Double Feature, we encounter mesmerism, murder, insanity, a spooky house and an escaped madman, in two wonderful old silent films! It’s The Bells and The Cat and the Canary!

THE BELLS (1926)

The Bells is a very fine silent movie from 1926 that is not at all creaky and should manage to impress modern-day viewers. As revealed in my beloved Psychotronic Video Guide, this story was, remarkably, filmed no less than four times prior to this 1926 version, and three times subsequently in 1930s Europe! It made a huge star of British actor Henry Irving in 1872, when performed on stage. Anyway, the plot is a simple one, and concerns family man Mathias (here played by the great Lionel Barrymore, looking younger than you’ve probably ever seen him), who, in order to pay off his mortgage debt, kills a wealthy Polish Jew merchant for the gold in his money belt. He soon goes insane with guilt, and begins to hallucinate the ghost of the Polish Jew, hear the bells of his victim’s sleigh, dream of himself on trial in court and, in one impressive scene, play cards with the murdered man. It is an excellent performance from Barrymore. The FX in this film are pretty fine, too, and director James Young makes the film visually striking by filling his frame with great detail and constant movement. And Boris Karloff, six years before his Frankenstein breakthrough, is memorable in his small role as a freaky-looking mesmerist. To add to the viewer’s pleasure (at least on the disc that I just watched), the fine folks at Image Entertainment have given us a very crisp- and clean-looking DVD, with beautiful color tinting. (I’m still not sure why I despise colorization for old talkies but don’t seem to mind it for silents!) Two problems, though: The film ends kind of abruptly, and although the picture is widely quoted as being 92 minutes long, the film I saw recently was just a shade over 70 minutes in length. What’s up with that?

THE CAT AND THE CANARY (1927)

During the course of this film, directed by Paul Leni, one of the characters utters the line “Gosh, what a spooky house,” and boy, does that line ever ring true! The original “old dark house” story, The Cat and the Canary was based on a John Willard stage play of 1922 and has been filmed no less than four times as of this date. The film shows us what happens when a dead man’s will is read in a creepy old house on the Hudson to a bunch of oddball relatives, one of whom, Laura LaPlante, inherits a fortune with the proviso that she passes a sanity test. And poor Laura’s sanity IS put to the test that very night, what with an escaped madman on the loose, a possible ghost running around, hands coming out of the walls, mysterious disappearances, and a house full of secret passages, swing-out bookcases and so on. Despite some comedic bits that border on the inane but never quite cross that fine line, The Cat and the Canary is genuinely creepy in parts. It also features excellent photography, interesting camera angles, expressionistic and surrealistic backdrops, some blatant symbolism, fascinating use of superimposed images and an appropriately strange score. The dialogue cards are at times very imaginative, and the crisp-looking print that I recently watched has been nicely color tinted for our viewing pleasure. As usual in many silents, the comedic, cowardly character proves to be more than he initially appears. But I’m not giving anything away here; most viewers will never guess who the murderer/ess is in this film. It’s a classic, historic winner, not at all creaky, and even suitable for the kiddies. I do recommend it.

COMING ATTRACTIONS: Giant insects, a smoldering volcano, prehistoric animals, and a very mixed-up caveman … it’s The Black Scorpion and Dinosaurus!, in the Shocktober Double Feature #3….