Relatives of an eccentric millionaire gather in his spooky mansion on the 20th anniversary of his death for the reading of his will.

Quote:
In theory the Lon Chaney silent blockbusters of Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923) and Phantom of the Opera (1925) may be considered the foundational building blocks of what eventually turned into the quote-unquote Universal Horror Movie, but in practice it’s Paul Leni’s run from 1927-9 with The Cat and the Canary, The Man Who Laughs, and The Last Warning (which James Whale himself claimed as a primary influence) which laid down the visual and narrative-tonal DNA. The meticulous attention to art direction and camera set-ups, the gothic essence warped with expressionist flairs here and there, the tongue in cheek approach… it’s really Paul Leni who kicked Universal into those critical last gears away from the more anonymous, more level and flatly melodramatic mise en scene and execution of the Chaney epics to the shadowy Germanic sensibility combined with great fun and lusciously eerie eye-candy. Though not as well known as his other two German silent-era imports– Lang and Murnau– Paul Leni’s impact reverberates on cinema to this day quite profoundly via his effect on Universal.

The Cat and the Canary was Leni’s first film for Carl Laemmle (who brought the portly, jolly director over to the US after being bowled over by the magnificent Waxworks) and it was a great success for Universal. In it his masterful melding of the tenets of American narrative filmmaking with his own very playful, yet visually sinister, style, jumps out fully formed. Taking the ‘old dark house’ genre (which by that time was already old hat on the stage as well as in the cinema) and and pumping it full of sly invention and virtuoso camerawork, Leni created a film that was pure delight. His partnership with Gilbert Warrenton yeilded, via the irresistable setups and camera movements, fantastic results… such a shame that Leni died, like his countryman Murnau, so young, and so needlessly. One can only wonder what Might Have Been….

The.Cat.and.the.Canary.1927.BDRIP.MoC.4K.576p.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 26 min
Size: 	2.41 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	792x576 
Aspect ratio:  	1.375
Frame rate: 	23.976 fps
Bit rate: 	3 000 kb/s
BPP: 	0.274
Audio
#1:  	zxx 2.0ch AC-3 @ 640 kb/s (Main Audio)
#2:  	English 2.0ch AAC LC @ 162 kb/s (Commentary with Stephen Jones & Kim Newman)
#3:  	English 2.0ch AAC LC @ 160 kb/s (Commentary with Kevin Lyons & Jonathan Rigby)

https://nitro.download/view/8CB579586073FEE/The.Cat.and.the.Canary.1927.BDRIP.MoC.4K.576p.x264.AC3.KJNU.mkv

Language(s):English
Subtitles:English Intertitles

The post Paul Leni – The Cat and the Canary (1927) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Plot: The story of the famous battle between the Scots clans of Macdonald and Campbell, and the young woman who comes between them, Annie Laurie.

https://nitro.download/view/1E34B355AC6F4D2/Annie.Laurie.1927.XviD-KG.avi

Language(s):Silent, English intertitles
Subtitles:none

The post John S. Robertson – Annie Laurie (1927) first appeared on Cinema of the World.