xREL.v3

S A P H i R E

PRESENTS: THE CAT AND THE CANARY (1927)

MOViE iNFORMATiON

[ THEATRE DATE....: 9/22/1927
[ RELEASE DATE....: 3/31/2005
[ STORE DATE......: 2/1/2005
[ GENRE...........: Horror/Mystery/Comedy
[ RUNTiME.........: 84 Minutes
[ RATiNG..........: 7.1/10
[ NO. SCREENiNGS..: ???

[ ViDEO BiTRATE...: 1008 kBit/s XviD at 22.849fps
[ AUDiO BiTRATE...: 147 kBit/s Stereo MP3 at 48KHZ
[ ASPECT RATiO....: 1.31:1
[ RESOLUTiON......: 544x416
[ ARCHiVES........: sph-tcatc.rar *50x15*
[ AVi SiZE........: 701 MB * 718,678 KB * 735,926,272 B ]
[ SUBTiTLES.......: None, English Intertitles

M O V i E   S U M M A R Y

Frank Willard's barn-storming stage melodrama Cat and the Canary was
filmed four times over a fifty-year period. This silent 1927 version
stars Laura LaPlante as one of several potential heirs to a huge
fortune. Brought to a foreboding mansion on the 20th anniversary of
their eccentric benefactor's death, the heirs must sit in silence as
the lawyer recites the terms of the will. The legacy hinges upon three
sealed letters, each to be opened at a strategic point in the evening.
Also crucial to the inheritance is the insistence that all the heirs
spend the night in the creepy old mansion. Nervous Creighton Hale
appoints himself LaPlante's protector--a far from simple job, given
the many hidden panels and revolving doors which festoon the house.
When the lawyer is murdered, LaPlante is the principle suspect. Cat
and the Canary was remade as The Cat Creeps in 1930, and under its own
title in 1939 (with Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard) and 1979.

Director ..........  Paul Leni

Laura La Plante ...  Annabelle West
Creighton Hale ....  Paul Jones
Tully Marshall ....  Roger Crosby
Forrest Stanley ...  Charles 'Charlie' Wilder

M O R E  i N F O R M A T i O N

IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0017739/
RETAIL DVD: http://www.dvdempire.com/Exec/v4_item.asp?item_id=643103

DVD REVIEW: http://www.dvdtalk.com/dvdsavant/s1517cat.html
DVD REVIEW: http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=14842

N O T E S

A blended video because of another bad PAL to NTSC conversion. I did
my best to get rid of the blends. This is the original of the "Old
dark house" genre of horror films, so if you think you've seen the
hands reaching out and the hidden passageways before, this was the
first. The director, Paul Leni, came out of the German Expressionist
film movement, and he has many of the nice Expressionist touches in
here.

ASCii PROUDLY DONE BY: fumita