Erbschaft um Mitternacht

It may sound strange, but there was something so cute and appealing about Bob Hope in the '30s and '40s. I loved that guileless, spineless sweet character he played.

Here Hope is in top form in "The Cat and the Canary," the 1939 version also starring Paulette Goddard, Gale Sondergaard, John Beal, Douglass Montgomery, George Zucco, and Elizabeth Patterson. A group of relatives have to spend the night in a haunted house after the reading of their late relatives' will.

Hope and the beautiful, vivacious Goddard are wonderful together -- so good, in fact, that they did it again in "Ghost Breakers." No one could do one-liners like Hope.

This movie is a lot of fun, with secret panels and things that go bump in the night. Delightful, funny, and spooky.

This has always been one of my top10 favourite films, since I first saw it in 1972, at least 14 times since. Bob Hope was still a little green at this stage, but you can almost see (and hear) him coming of age in CATC, his comic delivery technique and timing noticeably improved by the end. The spooky atmosphere generated onto the b&w nitrate stock by the Paramount cast and crew was palpable, compare it - if you can stomach it - to the 1979 remake!

8 people are summoned to a will-reading at a rather eerie old house; the one that wins the fortune seems to be going insane as one of her relatives sweetly puts it, whilst another just says she's going out of her mind. There's only 2 nice people here, Hope and Goddard, the rest are more or less on the make. She's the visual jewel in here - as Hope says, "Terrific". The scene with Goddard and the Cat in the library is my all-time Spooky Moment on Film - nowadays all the "artists" involved in the making of "horror" films don't trouble about niceties like Spookiness, but just get on with the Gore. That of course is the problem for most people coming to this, they've probably inured themselves over the years to see disgusting and vile-ent things - so much so that they would laugh at the most savage scene in this where someone gets knifed in the back. The 1927 Laura LaPlante version is good and nicely atmospheric too, but it's difficult comparing chalk and cheese to silent and talking pictures - they're both great comedy films on their own merits.

A wonderful piece of art, topped the next year with an even better follow up, Ghost Breakers.

Bob Hope murder mystery/old dark house parody film with someone trying to knock off an heiress. A fiendish figure named The Cat appears but all is not what it seems. This was good fun..I quite enjoyed it although it could have benefited from a few more legitimate frights..certainly a good starting point for Hope who went on to make many more delightful films like this.

The silents brought us a number of classic comedians who were skilled at making the audience laugh without uttering a word. With the advent of sound, some of these comedians found the transition hard and most still relied on their old silent routines for their jokes. Bob Hope was the first comedian who's mouth provided the punchline. The Cat and the Canary was his first leading part and yet it's not designed purely for his advantage, this is a great picture, both funny and exciting.

Bob Hope is the star. He's hilarious. He's sympathetic. He's also a coward, which isn't such an asset when you're staying in a house filled with escaped lunatics, suspicious servants, and numerous trapdoors. Hope plays a radio personality who involuntarily becomes the bodyguard to a woman, Joyce, who recently inherited a lot of money. The house is filled with other guests that are upset at having lost out on the inheritance. To make matters worse, if Joyce dies within a month, the money goes to whoever was the substitute inheritor and that person's name lies in an envelope safely hidden in a safe. As guests start dying, the tension increases, as does Hope's one-liner's. "I've got goosepumps. In fact, my goosebumps have got goosebumps."

Today, the plot seems like one from an episode of Scooby-Doo but it's still fun and surprisingly smart. The cast is small but solid and the murderer is never guessed until the end. A few red herrings are thrown in but when the guilty party is revealed, it does make sense, a necessity rarely used in Hollywood today.

As a vehicle for Hope it works a charm. As a movie in itself it should be recognised as a classic.

The late Uncle Cyrus left quite a collection of greedy relatives looking to be the number one heir at the reading of his will at his home on an island in the Louisiana bayou swamp. Among the possible legatees are Bob Hope, Paulette Goddard, John Beal, Douglass Montgomery, Elizabeth Patterson, Nydia Westman and housekeeper Gale Sondergaard. Presiding over the reading of the will is lawyer George Zucco. Besides Bob Hope a lot of the names of the cast spell out sinister.

As usual the deceased always makes out a will with wacky provisions. Winner of the prize is Goddard, but she has to spend some time at the creepy mansion, essential in these kind of films. And if she's driven to madness or killed there is a secret provision for a second heir among the crew that only Zucco knows.

The Cat And The Canary is a nice blend of both comedy and melodrama with of course Hope in charge of the comedy. He's a successful radio star as in real life at that time and Uncle Cyrus's money while nice isn't going to be the difference in where his next meal is coming from. And he's liking what he sees in Goddard so he's protective of her in his own comedic way.

This was the first of three films that Hope and Goddard did. Immediately afterward Paramount put them in The Ghostbreakers which certainly had some similar themes. They worked well together too bad they were not able to collaborate more.

This was a nice film for the career of Bob Hope which was zooming into high gear right about now.