Silent Film Star Laura La Plante Autographed photo and movie.

Please click here to view the movie:The Cat and the Canary in full

The Cat and the Canary (1927) . A silent horror film adaptation of John Willard's 1922 black comedy play of the same name. Directed by German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni. Cast: Laura La Plante, Forrest Stanley and Creighton Hale.

The story comes 20 years after the the death of Cyrus West, who is Annabelle, Charlie and Paul's uncle. Annabelle inherits her uncle's fortune, but when she and her brothers spend the night in his haunted mansion they are watched over by a mysterious presence. Meanwhile, a mad mad known as "the Cat" escapes from an asylum and hides in the mansion.

The film is considered "the cornerstone of Universal's school of horror." The play has been filmed five other times, with the most notable in 1939 starring Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard.

A Tribute to Laura La Plante

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A Tribute to Laura La Plante

The natural, down-home beauty of silent film actress Laura La Plante was matched by an easy going charm and personality. Her characterizations were generally wholesome and refreshingly light, a welcome relief from the exoticism of other leading ladies of the 1920’s. 

Although mainly a comedienne, Laura’s early personal life was marked by poverty and her parents’ divorce seemed far from the antics of her screen characters. Born on November 1, 1904, in St. Louis, Missouri, Laura was not motivated by any artistic aspirations, but rather, the need to help with the family’s finances. Following a divorce, Laura’s mother moved her and her sister from St. Louis to California. 

In 1920, Laura was sent to stay with her aunt in Los Angeles and obtained work with the Christie Comedy Company. Laura spent the formative years of her career developing her skills in short comedies, serials and westerns. At the age of nineteen, Laura was teamed with Reginald Denny in the comedy Sporting Youth (1924) and was on her way to the top. 

Laura’s big break came when Charles Ray cast her as the love interest, Myrtle, in The Old Swimmin Hole (1921). After two minor films at Fox, Laura moved over to Universal, where she was to spend the rest of the decade.  Laura was often in comedies, and her role as the feminine half of a couple striving for upward mobility was one she made all her own. In Skinner’s Dress Suit (1926), for instance, Laura and Reginald Denny are a young married couple living beyond their means as they “try to keep up with the Joneses.” In Poker Faces (1926) opposite Edward Everett Horton, Laura is a wife who takes a job to earn additional money to buy a new rug. 

As the heroine of The Love Trap (1929) directed by William Wyler, Laura as a chorus girl married to a taxi driver, played by Neil Hamilton, exposes sexual hypocrisy, takes control of her life, and ends up demonstrating how much wiser and more mature she is than are the men around her. However, Laura was not always the clever wife outwitting a husband. She demonstrated her range in films like Smouldering Fires (1924), and The Midnight Sun (1926). In the Cat and the Canary (1927) Laura is charming as the heiress to an estate that includes a haunted house. 

With the dawn of sound in 1929, Laura had the part of Magnolia, the romantic lead in the first version of Show Boat (1929) co-starring Joseph Schildkraut. Success seemed assured in talkies, but in 1930, Laura abruptly left Universal before her contract had expired. Amidst the upheavels caused by sound, the studio apparently lost interest in her career. 

In 1933, Laura moved to Europe where she divorced her first husband, director William A. Seiter to marry Irving Asher, a former publicist  who was then heading Warner Brothers’ British studio. Laura had not intended to make films in England, but at her new husband’s suggestion, she starred in five: Her Imaginary Lover (1933), The Girl in Possession (1934), The Church Mouse (1934) Widow’s Might (1935), and Man of the Moment (1935), the last opposite Douglas Fairbanks Jr. Laura La Plante and Irving Asher might have remained in England had it not been for WWII, but they had two small children and they wanted to get to California. 

Back in the United States, Laura made a few films through 1957, but she had no real interest in reviving her career. Laura and her husband retired to Rancho Mirage near Palm Springs. Laura died at the Motion Picture Country Hospital on October 14, 1996. She was 91 years old. 

It’s interesting to note that Laura La Plante was considered the Doris Day of her era because of her girl- next-door persona in an age of glamour queens. 

Laura La Plante appeared in about 100 films in a career that spanned from 1920-1957.

Silent Film Star: Laura La Plante .

Laura La Plante (November 1, 1904 - October 14, 1996). During the 1920s she performed in more than sixty films. A couple of her early film performances were: Big Town Round-Up (1921), with cowboy star Tom Mix, and the serials Perils of the Yukon (1922) and Around the World in Eighteen Days (1923).

One of her earliest surviving films is, Smouldering Fires (1925) directed by Clarence Brown and costarring Pauline Frederick. Some of her best remembered films are: The Cat and the Canary (1927), Skinner's Dress Suit (1926), with Reginald Denny, the part-talkie The Love Trap (1929), directed by William Wyler, and the 1929 part-talkie film version of, Show Boat (1929). In her mid-twenties, La Plante proved to be a natural in early talkies but the huge wave of new stars overshadowed her.

For a while she free-lanced, performing in, God's Gift to Women, directed by Michael Curtiz and co-starring Frank Fay, and Arizona, co-starring a young John Wayne.

La Plante also performed in , Man of the Moment (1935), with Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. La Plante was briefly considered to replace Myrna Loy in the Thin Man series when Loy thought about leaving. She retired from the screen in 1935.

THE LOVE TRAP (1929)

"The Love Trap" (1929) is a rare part silent/part talkie that is one of my favorite romantic comedies. Directed by William Wyler in one of his earliest full-length features, "The Love Trap" is a charming and entertaining Cinderella story. Laura La Plante plays Evelyn Todd, a dancer and aspiring actress who is fired from her chorus line job. Since she desperately needs the money, Evelyn accepts her friend's invitation to a wealthy man's house party where a girl can make fifty dollars just for showing up. The owner of the house attempts to seduce Evelyn and this is observed by Judge Harrington, whom Evelyn had attempted to flirt with. Offended by the wealthy man's advances, Evelyn leaves the party without her fifty dollars.




Upon returning home, Evelyn finds all her belongings on the street as she has been evicted from her apartment for not paying the rent. It begins to rain but luckily she is rescued by handsome Peter Harrington, played by Neil Hamilton, who turns out to be a wealthy businessman. Peter marries Evelyn after a whirlwind romance. Evelyn now has to contend with Peter's arrogant mother as well as his narrow-minded uncle, Judge Harrington, who recognizes her from the house party he had attended. When the judge tries to bribe Evelyn into divorcing his nephew, she sets a trap for his uncle who misinterpreted an incident that happened at the house party.
"The Love Trap" is worth watching just for being a curiosity from the transition from silents to talkies. The first half of the film is a wonderful silent picture with continuous music and sound effects while the sound scenes have such engaging dialogue. Neil Hamilton, who was quite handsome, and Laura La Plante give great performances as the young lovers during the silent part of the film. However, when they begin talking I noticed that Hamilton's performance remains strong while La Plante seems a bit awkward. La Plante was a great comedienne with an expressive face that was ideal for silent films, but apparently she was having a difficult time acting verbally. It is not surprising that the advent of talkies shortened her career. Hamilton, on the other hand, learned quickly and had a lengthy film career.


I love the film not only because I am a fan of romantic comedies but also because of its exquisite sets and jazz age costumes. Director William Wyler certainly shows brilliance in this early work. The ending of the film is both amusing and surprising; the heroine exposes sexual hypocrisy and demonstrates she is more mature than the men around her.





* It is interesting to note that Neil Hamilton is best known to audiences as Police Commissioner Gordon in the "Batman" TV series. Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch in "The Wizard of Oz", was a distant cousin.