The Cat and the Canary (1978)

★ 5.6 1h 38m IMDb

A group of potential heirs gather in a forbidding old house to learn which of them will inherit a fortune. Later, they learn that a flesh-rending maniac is loose.

The Cat and the Canary

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Cast

Honor Blackman
Honor Blackman as Susan Sillsby Died 2020 · London, England, UK Honor Blackman (22 August 1925 - 5 April 2020) was an English actress, known for the roles of Cathy Gale in The Avengers (1962–64) and Bond girl Pussy Galore in Goldfinger (1964)..
Edward Fox
Edward Fox as Hendricks Age 89 · London, England, UK Edward Charles Morice Fox (born 13 April 1937) is an English stage, film and television actor. He is the older brother of actor James Fox. He played the part of the professional assassin who is hired...
Michael Callan
Michael Callan as Paul Jones Died 2022 · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Michael Callan (November 22, 1935 – October 10, 2022) was an American actor. Born Martin Harris Calinieff in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Callan began his career as Mickey Calin, and it was with this...
Wendy Hiller
Wendy Hiller as Alison Crosby Died 2003 · Bramhall, Cheshire, England, UK Dame Wendy Margaret Hiller DBE (15 August 1912 – 14 May 2003) was an English actress. She won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Separate Tables (1958)..
Olivia Hussey
Olivia Hussey as Cicily Young Died 2024 · Buenos Aires, Argentina Olivia Hussey (April 17, 1951 – December 27, 2024) was an Argentine-British actress best known for her roles as Juliet in Romeo and Juliet, Jess Bradford in Black Christmas, Norma Bates in Psycho IV:...
Carol Lynley
Carol Lynley as Annabelle West Died 2019 · New York City, New York, USA From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Carol Lynley (born Carole Ann Jones; February 13, 1942 – September 3, 2019) was an American actress and child model. Lynley began her career as a child model un...

Audience Reviews

CinemaSerf 6/10 Jun 04, 2023
Radley Metzger manages to gather quite a decent cast in this 1978 iteration of John Willard's play. Wilfred Hyde-White plays a recently deceased millionaire who has gathered his potential heirs to hear his will - delivered by him via film. What follows is a Cluedo-esque sequence of events as each suspects and conspires against the other until only the one who will inherit the devious old man's fortune is left (or not!). The cast gel quite well, but the screenplay is far too wordy; the pace too slow and so much more could have been made of the original, far more quirky characterisations. Still worth a watch, though - Honor Blackman and an ever-imperious Dame Wendy Hiller add bags of class to the proceedings.
Wuchak 4/10 Nov 26, 2023
**_Squabbling money-hungry family members at a vacant mansion in England_**

On a stormy night in 1934, several potential heirs meet at a manor in the sticks outside London for the reading of the will, which was put on film by the old man (Wilfrid Hyde-White).

"The Cat and the Canary" (1978) was based on the stage play from 1922, which was considered THE 'old dark house' tale and so four feature films were made of it between 1927-1939, followed by a television production in 1959. Interestingly, the locale of the story often changes. For instance, the 1927 film takes place by the Hudson River in New York while the 1939 rendition occurs in the bayou of Louisiana. Here the events are switched to rural England.

Olivia Hussey (Cicily) and Carol Lynley (Annabelle) are highlights on the feminine front, but not enough is done with them. How about learning how to shoot beautiful women? (And I’m not talking about nudity or sleaze).

For THE ‘old dark house’ tale, the manor is too brightly lit with almost zero atmosphere. Besides Hussey and Lynley, the only thing I found compelling in the contrived yarn was the depiction of family tensions and tiffs with an amusing brouhaha between Charlie and (I think) Hendricks on the grand staircase.

While it gets a lot of flack, "House of the Long Shadows" is a far better example of this genre from the same general time period.

The movie runs 1 hour, 38 minutes, and was shot at Pyrford Court in Surrey, about 25 miles southwest of London. It’s the same location used for “The Omen” two years prior.

GRADE: C/C-

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