When a wealthy eccentric dies, his relatives gather at a secluded mansion to hear the reading of his will only to find themselves trapped in a labyrinth of secret passages, eerie noises, and a lurking killer. Paul Lenis The Cat and the Canary (1927) is a silent-era classic that blends German Expressionist style with Hollywood gothic mystery, setting the template for countless haunted house and old dark house thrillers to follow.

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Paul Leni (The Man Who Laughs) directs one of the most important and influential films in the early history of American genre cinema, which perfected the old dark house formula and set the stage for the Universal horror cycle of the 1930s.

Twenty years after the death of millionaire Cyrus West, his surviving relatives are called together in a decaying mansion on the Hudson River. There, they gather to hear Wests lawyer Roger Crosby (Tully Marshall) read his last will and testament and discover that West has left everything to his niece Annabelle (Laura La Plante). That is, at least, on the condition that she is judged to be legally sane. As the family settles in for the evening, tensions rise when they are informed that a murderer nicknamed the Cat has escaped from a nearby asylum and is suspected to be somewhere on the grounds. Crosby soon disappears in mysterious circumstances, which proves to be just the first in a series of horrifying events that will punctuate a long, dark night of terror during which Annabelles sanity will be called into question again and again.

Based upon the 1922 stage production by John Willard, The Cat and the Canary is a perfect blend of horror and black comedy and stands at the apex of a cycle of films adapted from mystery plays throughout the 1920s. It later inspired James Whales The Old Dark House and has been remade several times but never bettered. The Masters of Cinema series is pr