The Cat and the Canary (1978)

The 1920s. A murder of prospective heirs descend on a somewhat creepy, and definitely creaky, old mansion, to hear the reading of the will of one Cyrus West (Wilfried Hyde-White). In a peculiar turn of events, the old man does the reading himself, via a filmed message that doesn’t just contain the will but also some rather rude remarks about his family, bastards all (or most of them, anyway), he says.

Not surprisingly, the will is about as peculiar as its presentation, seeing as it shows a curious fixation on the mental stability of the heir. Should the chosen heir to judged mentally unstable, the next heir is going to inherit; should that one botch their SAN test as well, it’s the next in line, and so on.

So one isn’t quite sure if one should congratulate West’s chosen victim, ahem, heir, Allison Crosby (Wendy Hiller) for winning the heir lottery, or simply suggest to her to run as quickly as she can.

Alas, running is out of the question in any case, for on the night of the reading of the will, the family is going to be stranded in the old dark house anyway, and soon, curious things begin happening. There’s the curious case of the suddenly appearing local psychiatrist (Edward Fox) on the armed hunt for a supposedly homicidal maniac who believes himself to be a cat; the curious case of the disappearing lawyer; and the many curious cases of the disfigured creep only Allison ever sees. Why, it’s enough to drive a woman mad.

I have no idea why the greatest of the arthouse porn directors Radley Metzger added another entry to the list of adaptations of this most archetypal of all old dark house stage plays; I have even less of an idea how he managed to acquire a cast that also features Honor Blackman, Michael Callan, and Olivia Hussey (among others) for what is clearly a pretty low budget affair.

What I can say is that he managed to turn out a very interesting (in the good meaning of that descriptor) version of the tale. A peculiar one, as well, for The Cat’s most obvious feature is its tendency to fluctuate between two very different tones – about half of the film is very much in keeping with the old-fashioned creakiness of its material (and of the house its plot takes place in), an old-fashionedly staged mystery comedy that might have been done exactly this way in the 30s or 40s. Its other half, on the other hand, seems to be unable to help itself from dragging the material to the borders of sleaze and exploitation cinema very typical of the late 70s; it never quite gets outrageous, but there are suggestions of what you’d have lamely termed “alternative lifestyles” when this was made and hints of outright perversion the old creaky stage play would never have dared even consider.

This latter element never becomes quite as explicit as in a giallo – which Metzger must have been influenced by – yet you never have the impression the film is squeamish. Rather, it feels to me as if part of Metzger’s approach here is meant as a comment on the fluidity of social mores over time, without wanting to quite make fun of the more stuck-up morals of the past (and, alas, sometimes the future) too much, lest the future will do the same to him.

Much of what makes the film as entertaining as it is – apart from some excellently timed jokes like West’s incredible video message and effective old-fashioned, creaky suspense – is in the tension between the very old-fashioned material and the idea of modernity used at the time when this film was made, a feeling of a movie that manages to look at the past and its own time with a degree of ironic distance, but also of sympathy.

So, apparently, I do have an idea of why Metzger might have chosen exactly this material.

In short: Mysterious Island (1961)

This adaptation of Jules Verne's novel whose plot will hardly need any synopsis is - like many a movie featuring the great Ray Harryhausen's stop motion animation - a childhood favourite of mine, so any idea of objectivity goes right out the window. However, I don't think Cy Endfield's movie actually needs the nostalgia factor to deserve praise.

After all, this is a film that begins with a rousing balloon escape, turns into a Robinsonade (and the kind of self-conscious Robinsonade that mentions Defoe's Robinson Crusoe to boot), shows off some dangerous giant stop motion animals - a crabby crab, a rude flightless bird, some peeved bees and a grabby chambered nautilus -, sinks a pirate ship, meets Captain Nemo (Herbert Lom), destroys a sunken city, blows up a volcano, and even finds time to invent what should be a steampunk fashion staple in form of the shortest goatskin dress of the 19th century; all in just 110 minutes of running time, directed by Enfield with a sense of excitement and an enthusiasm for the adventurous incident you don't get to see every day.

Somehow, the film even finds time to be silently progressive: Neb Nugent (Dan Jackson), the black member of our group of heroes, may not have as much agency as one would wish for looking back from times when this sort of this has become important, but is still treated as an actual person whose opinions and emotions are respected by his companions without any condescension, something that was not par for the course in 1961; the English noble woman (Joan Greenwood) is much more practical than her position in life or (again, in an adventure movie in 1961) her gender would lead to expect; in general class, gender and race lines are permanently being overstepped by the characters without it elucidating any comment, with the unspoken subtext that rational beings will overcome such artificial divisions when they have been given the opportunity to. One might find the film's politics naively optimistic, but if we don't even allow ourselves to dream of the improvability of humanity in our SF adventure movies, we might as well all step in line and pray to our corporate overlords. And isn't it a fine irony that Mysterious Island was in fact financed by some of those very same corporate overlords? But I digress.

On the level of pure filmmaking, there's little to criticize about Mysterious Island: Harryhausen's effects are pretty much perfect; Endfield's direction tight in that effective way that has no room for showing off and keeps brilliant direction all too easily from being called brilliant; the script is imaginative and more complex than it has any need to be; Bernard Herrmann's score is rousing and playful in turns. If I needed to find fault with something, it's probably the acting of Michael Craig and Michael Callan, respectively the movie's square-jawed hero and the teenage heartthrob, but they're not that bad, really. The rest of the cast fills their archetypal roles admirably.

So yeah, Mysterious Island. Watch it. It's still awesome.

 

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