Haunted Castle (1927)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Haunted castle |
| Original title | The Cat and the Canary |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1927 |
| length | (2350 meters on eight acts) 82 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Paul Leni |
| script |
Alfred A. Cohn Robert F. Hill |
| production | Paul Kohner |
| music | Hugo Riesenfeld |
| camera | Gilbert Warrenton |
| cut | Martin G. Cohn |
| occupation | |
| |
Spuk im Schloß is the German title of the silent film The Cat and the Canary , which Paul Leni shot in the USA in 1927 for Carl Laemmles Universal Pictures Co. The screenplay based on the 1922 black comedy by John Willard was written by Alfred A. Cohn and Robert F. Hill . Paul Kohner was the producer . Walther Anthony wrote the subtitles. The cinema music presented Hugo Riesenfeld together. Gilbert Warrenton was responsible for the photography. As a cameraman in America he enjoyed about the same respect as Karl Freund in Europe .
The title refers to the situation in which the young heiress finds herself among greedy relatives: like a canary "in a cage surrounded by cats".
action
Cyrus West, a wealthy old eccentric, stated in his will that his great fortune could only be distributed to his relatives 20 years after his death. The day has barely come when the expectant bereaved arrive at his dilapidated mansion on the Hudson River to finally be able to take the inheritance: the nephews Harry Blythe, Charles "Charlie" Wilder and Paul Jones, his sister Susan Sillsby and their daughter Cecily. But to her great disappointment, West bequeathed all of his wealth to a more distant relative, the young Annabelle West - unless she can be proven to be mad. A second will is provided for this case.
This led to all sorts of mysterious incidents that could actually drive the young heiress insane. The first shock is triggered by the news that “The Cat”, a lunatic who has escaped and who thinks himself a cat and tears up his victims as if they were mice, is on the premises or even in the house. The security guard brings them while they're at dinner. When West's attorney Roger Crosby tries to warn Annabelle, he is dragged into a secret passage by a clawed hand with claws protruding from behind a bookcase. When Annabelle reports that he has disappeared, she is immediately thought to be crazy. The same hand reappears when Annabelle is asleep and secretly takes the diamond jewelry from her neck. Her mind is again questioned when she talks about it, but when Harry and Annabelle examine the room, they discover a hidden alcove in the wall and in it the body of Roger Crosby.
Now the caretaker calls the police. While Harry searches for the security guard, Susan panics and runs away to be picked up by a milkman in his car. Paul and Annabelle discover that Crosby's body has disappeared, and Paul also disappears into the secret passage in the wall. While walking around there, he is attacked by "The Cat" and left for dead. He regains consciousness just in time to save Annabelle. The police appear and arrest the madman: it is Charlie Wilder who had dressed up, the security guard was his accomplice. Wilder is the man whose name is in the Second Testament. He hoped to get the inheritance by driving Annabelle insane.
background
The film was made at Universal Studios Hollywood , 1000 Universal Studios Blvd, Universal City, California, USA.
The author of the play Willard initially resisted the film adaptation, because it would make the tricky ending of the story known to everyone, so that it could no longer be used profitably in the future. But Carl Laemmle managed to persuade him.
The film premiered on September 9, 1927 at the Colony Theater in New York City and was a box-office hit. The film was also used with success in Europe; in Germany it was called Spuk im Schloß , in Austria either as Ghosts in the Castle or From Elf to Elf , in France as La Volonté du mort , in Italy as Il castello degli spettri .
reception
The film set the style. He founded the genre of the “comedy horror” film, which was inspired by various Broadway stage plays in America in the 1920s, in which the uncanny and humor are mixed. In Germany, director Leni had already worked in this direction in 1925 with Das Wachsfigurenkabinett ; with Haunted Castle he made his debut in Hollywood.
Leni's directorial style influenced the “old dark house” horror film species that thrived between 1930 and 1950.
The material was filmed five more times; the most famous film adaptation is that of 1939 with Paulette Goddard and the comedian Bob Hope .
While in the USA the film was mostly received positively ...
“The Cat and the Canary pleased critics as well. Mordaunt Hall in the New York Times called it 'one of the finest examples of motion picture art… Mr. Leni has not lost a single chance in this new film to show what can be done with a camera.' Highbrow cineastes were less enthusiastic. As film historian Bernard F. Dick writes in his study of Universal Pictures, 'Exponents of Caligarisme, Expressionism in the extreme… naturally thought Leni had vulgarized the conventions… yet all he did was lighten them so they could enter American cinema without the baggage of a movement that had spiraled out of control '. " (Margarita Landazuri)
"German horror stylist Paul Leni brings his expressionist flourishes to this compendium of haunted clichés, creating one of the most stylish horror movie spoofs ever, a delightful mix of the gothic and the goofy." (according to the journal Variety )
... he met with reservations in Europe, but especially in Germany:
The critic Willy Haas was not satisfied . He wrote in the Film-Kurier on August 25, 1927: "Interesting, exciting, directly captivating from a criminal psychological point of view, there is really only one thing about this matter for me: why the finest, aesthetically differentiated, most well-groomed and even snobbishly sophisticated talent in German film, Paul Leni, debuted in Hollywood with just such a crime kit; why he looks at himself with an obsession, a passionate, tortured, scrupulous devotion, which one looks at every shot, every detail, every one of the infinitely original and bizarre decorations, every magical light and shadow effect, every photographic trick, every piece of furniture, every actor's mask - why does he kneel into such a crime kitsch with this insatiable, greedy, immoderate job fury? "
Illustrations
- American movie poster for The Cat and the Canary
- Program booklet of the “Königsbau” cinema in Bad Cannstatt from December 2nd to 5th, 1927 on Spuk im Schloß
- Still photo: the hairy hand
- Still photo: the "community of heirs"
- Still photo: overwhelming the masked offender
Republication
A restored version of The Cat and the Canary was released on DVD on February 1, 2005 by Image Entertainment . On October 9, 2007, Kino International released a DVD edition with a musical accompaniment written by Neil Brand , performed by the Prague Philharmonic Orchestra .
literature
- Douglas Brode: Edge of Your Seat - The 100 Greatest Movie Thrillers. Citadel Press, New York 2003, ISBN 0-8065-2382-4 .
- Ian Conrich: Before Sound: Universal, Silent Cinema, and the Last of the Horror Spectaculars. In: Stephen Price (ed.): The Horror Film. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NJ 2004, ISBN 0-8135-3363-5 .
- Bernard F. Dick: City of Dreams - The Making and Remaking of Universal Pictures. The University Press of Kentucky, 1997, ISBN 0-8131-2016-0 .
- Daniel Hermsdorf: Film Image and Body World - Anthropomorphism in Natural Philosophy, Aesthetics and Media Theory of Modernity. (= Film - Medium - Discourse, Volume 34). Königshausen & Neumann, Würzburg 2011, ISBN 978-3-8260-4462-5 .
- Margarita Landazuri: The Cat and the Canary. Essay. San Francisco Silent Film Festival 2013. (online at: silentfilm.org )
- Steve Neale: Genre and Hollywood. Routledge, London 2000, ISBN 0-415-02606-7 .
- Sonja Richter: Paul Leni, graphic designer, film architect and director. In: Irene Stratenwerth, Hermann Simon (Ed.): Pioneers in Celluloid. Jews in the early film world. Henschel, Berlin 2004, pp. 281-283.
- Cristina Stanca-Mustea: Carl Laemmle - The man who invented Hollywood. Murmann Verlag, Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-95510-014-8 .
- Irene Stratenwerth, Hermann Simon (Ed.): Pioneers in Celluloid. Jews in the early film world. Accompanying volume for the exhibition of the same name in the Centrum Judaicum Berlin. Henschel, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-89487-471-6 .
Web links
- Haunted in the castle in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Haunted Castle in the online film database
Individual evidence
- ↑ When Paul Josef Levi was born in Stuttgart in 1885 as the son of a banker, died on September 2, 1929 in Los Angeles , California, a key figure of German Expressionism in film, cf. Richter pp. 281–283, and film-zeit.de ( memento of the original from December 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .
- ↑ See Kevin Brownlow on jstor.org ; Freund went to Hollywood in 1929 .
- ↑ See intertitle No. 64 on intertitleorama.webs.com
- ↑ See Douglas Brode: Edge of Your Seat . P. 32.
- ↑ See cinematreasures.org and nycago.org
- ↑ Their stories go back to the topos of the “haunted house” from the “gothic novel”, cf. Hermsdorf p. 596.
- ↑ Cf. Neale p. 95, examples in Conrich p. 47.
- ↑ “The plot has a distinctly comical appeal, but without neglecting the tension, the bizarre-comic horror is perfectly balanced. In addition, the masterful use of the camera still gives the viewer the feeling of being in the middle of the action. And if the story is American through and through, its creative implementation clearly reveals the influence of German expressionist cinema, ”cf. stummfilmfestival.de
- ↑ See Stanca-Mustea: “The plot of this production was based on the Broadway hit The Cat and the Canary and has now been adapted for the film version. Although he could have chosen a European material as the first project, Leni was looking for the challenge with this production. Laemmle understood this and let his new director have it. "
- ↑ Cf. Kevin Hagopian, Penn State University, on the first of these films ( The Old Dark House , James Whale 1932) on albany.edu : “Shrill, sly, and terrifying, The Old Dark House would coin a new horror subgenre, just as Frankenstein had; this time, the species would bear the name of Whale's remarkable film. ”; also Margarita Landazuri: “[I] t was The Cat and the Canary that established the template for the 'Old Dark House' genre. According to film historian Carlos Clarens, 'Leni filled his haunted house not only with the standard cobwebs and sliding doors but with a genuine sense of mystery… The Cat and the Canary became the cornerstone of Universal's school of horror'. ”
- ↑ cf. en.wiki The Cat and the Canary (1939 film) , Gary Alston 2013 on houseofretro.com , premiered in Germany as an inheritance at midnight on July 4, 1954, cf. imdb.com
- ↑ Quoted from stummfilmfestival.de
- ↑ See moviepilot.de ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ See trixum.de ( Memento of the original from December 14, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ See cultreviews.com
- ↑ See imageshack.us
- ↑ See fdb.pl
- ↑ K557, UPC 7-38329-05572-1
- ↑ See silentera.com
