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| Paul Leni: The Cat and the Canary (1927). |
EVENTO FINALE
CLOSING NIGHT
THE CAT AND THE CANARY (Universal Pictures, US 1927)
Dir: Paul Leni; pres: Carl Laemmle; sc: Robert F. Hill, Alfred A. Cohn; titles: Walter Anthony; ph: Gilbert Warrenton; sets: Charles D. Hall;
cast: Laura La Plante (Annabelle West), Creighton Hale (Paul Jones), Tully Marshall (Roger Crosby), Forrest Stanley (Charlie Wilder), Gertrude Astor (Cecily), Flora Finch (Aunt Susan), Arthur Edmund Carewe (Harry Blythe), Martha Mattox (Mammy Pleasant), George Siegmann (The Guard), Billy Engle (Taxi Driver), Lucien Littlefield (Doctor), Joe Murphy (Milkman);
35 mm, c. 6468 ft., 84’ (22 fps), imbibito/tinted, Photoplay Productions. Restored by Photoplay Productions, with the collaboration of the Danish Film Institute, The Museum of Modern Art, & Jan Zaalberg; lab work by Cinema Arts, Inc., & Haghefilm.
Didascalie in inglese / English intertitles.
Musica composta da / Music written & arranged by Neil Brand; dirige/conducted by Timothy Brock; eseguono/performed by I Solisti del Conservatorio Jacopo Tomadini di Udine con/with Celia Sheen (theremin).
Per gentile concessione di / Musica performed by arrangement with Photoplay Productions Ltd.
Viewed at Teatro Zancanaro, Sacile, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto (GCM), 16 Oct 2020.
Kevin Brownlow (GCM): "I first saw The Cat and the Canary 40 years ago in a terrible 16 mm print from the Wallace Heaton Film Library, and was bitterly disappointed. I thought another German director had failed in Hollywood. When I finally saw a good print, albeit still on l6 mm, I realized it was an unusually brilliant work."
"Universal had made “old dark house” pictures before, but Paul Leni revolutionized the whole look. He established the style for Universal’s classic horror pictures and director James Whale acknowledged his debt. And not only that. The Cat and the Canary is one of the first films in which one can glimpse some of the revolutionary elements Orson Welles and Gregg Toland would use in Citizen Kane: bold low angles, depth of focus, subjective camera. Gilbert Warrenton, the superb cameraman who shot The Man Who Laughs and Lonesome, was known as the American Karl Freund. One of his assistants was the young Stanley Cortez, who would photograph Welles’s The Magnificent Ambersons."
"On the first day, however, Warrenton was too experimental. The footage had to be reshot; while he had succeeded with the spooky lighting, no one could recognize the actors. Wells had to be cut in the floor of the stage, and men sat in them with spotlights focused on the faces of the players."
"A visitor to the set reported that Leni may have been an excitable director, but he managed to project that excitement into the scene: “I was amazed when he got the most excited, he didn’t relapse into German, which would be his most natural refuge. Instead of that, he takes it out on a Chinese gong, which he uses for several different things.” (Paul Gulick, Universal Weekly, 15 January 1927, p.11) One of which was to frighten the actors!"
"Universal was anxious reviewers should not find the film too foreign. “It is an American picture through and through,” said Universal Weekly (28 May 1927), “with only artistic settings and photographic effects impinged upon it from Leni’s continental past.” They were delighted with the response. “A corking melodrama,” said Photoplay magazine (July 1927, p.55). “Leni is a director to be reckoned with.” The picture did tremendous business."
"Patrick Stanbury and I had hoped for a long time to restore the film onto 35 mm. As far back as 1985, Dutch private collector Jan Zaalberg had shown us a 35 mm nitrate from his personal collection. We realized that although it was of excellent quality, many scenes were missing. We were helped tremendously by the Danish Film Institute, who also had a copy of the European version, which was more complete and in better condition. The Museum of Modern Art provided sections from their print of the American version to enable us to produce the first restoration entirely on 35 mm. Neil Brand based his new score on the sound of Universal’s classic horror films." – Kevin Brownlow
THE SCORE:
Neil Brand: "I have wanted to score this film since 1986. It was the second film I ever accompanied as an improvising pianist, and its theatricality and intensity seduced me on my first viewing of the ropey 16 mm print then available. When Photoplay mooted (some years ago) the idea of writing a new score for the film, with the breathtaking newly available 35 mm material, I wanted that chance very badly. Why? Because I have realized that my love of cinema comes down primarily to a love of genre."
"Leaving the cinema as a child with film music echoing in my head prepared me for a career with silent cinema that I could never have predicted. When I watch films now, silent and sound, I love stumbling across the familiar in the narrative, the recognition of situations visited before which speak with a musical voice bringing instant recall and gratification. The comedy horror genre has given me tremendous pleasure and an equal amount of musical ammunition over the years. Whether in theatre, cinema, or fairground I would buy in wholeheartedly to the idea of scary fun. As a composer, to be a player in that game was a huge ambition. Now it has been realized in full, for although The Cat and the Canary may have been the first of its kind, the genre it spawned obviously sprang to life fully formed."
"Paul Leni gave us the Haunted House of childhood and populated it with the characters of Gothic horror filtered through a wit that was pure 1920s. I knew I wanted to create a musical world for these characters to inhabit which was redolent of the Agatha Christie mysteries, and spoofs like Sleuth, Murder by Death, and The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case (a direct descendant of The Cat and the Canary), but which also prefigured the glory days of Universal Horror to come, of The Bride of Frankenstein and The Old Dark House. I knew I wanted laughs and shivers in equal measure (Bob Hope in the remake), but also real warmth and genuine terror when necessary (Psycho and The Spiral Staircase). I wanted the audience to leap out of their seats in shock at the one moment brilliantly directed to make them do just that. Above all, I realized that in a sense the band had to be as eccentric and theatrical as the characters in the play. So out the window went the piano, a crutch I have used in my scoring for too many years. Instead I tried to trust to the colours of a real ensemble: flute cosying up to cathedral organ, vibraphone to harpsichord, string trio to blaring brass. And over them all, like the ghoulish portrait of Cyrus West himself, the glowering presence of the Theremin."
"Celia Sheen taught me all I know about the Theremin, and I am indebted to her for her demonstrations of its warmth as well as its Sci-Fi exoticism. I wanted the Theremin as an hommage to Waxman and Rózsa, but I knew it had to be used sparingly. Thankfully its use was already constrained by the plot. The Theremin is the sound of the Cat."
"Apart from underestimating the problems of a film in real time and consecutive narrative (oh, for the breather of a title announcing “Came the Dawn”!), and the challenge of scoring a film which had so many wonderful things about it that I could potentially ruin, I found The Cat and the Canary a joy to score. The orchestral colouring gave me the chance to “turn on a sixpence” from one emotion to the next, while the themes themselves seemed to grow out of the situations, rather than be imposed on them. My only regret was the lack of screen time to really develop a “Love Theme” (it’s in the Overture). Otherwise the musical opportunities came and went from minute to minute, the film’s dancing intelligence daring the music to share the joke, particularly the lunacies of plot and character, and giggle along with the experience. With the latitude given me by Kevin and Patrick and the enormous and masterly contribution of maestro Timothy Brock, I have been to musical places I never thought I would see as a composer, and I am enormously grateful for the experience."
"The Cat and the Canary is, to my mind, about nothing more than having a thoroughly entertaining time, and being dumped off at the end of the ride with a daft smile wrapped across one’s face. The process of scoring it did that for me. I hope very much the score helps to do that for you." – Neil Brand
AA: * A highlight. A thrilling Evento Finale: The Cat and the Canary, Paul Leni's first Hollywood film, one of the foundation films of Universal Horror, the true breakthrough of the Haunted House subgenre, brilliant Photoplay restoration of a film that has circulated in substandard copies, and a perfect Neil Brand score, complete with theremin. The duration of this screening was 78 min (1:17'09").
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: KAVI PROGRAM NOTE 2016:
BEYOND THE JUMP BREAK: KAVI PROGRAM NOTE 2016:
The Cat and the Canary
[Kissa ja kanarialintu] [KAVI 2016] / Keskiyöllä [1928] / En fasansfull natt
USA 1927. Tuotantoyhtiö: Universal Pictures. Esittää: Carl Laemmle. Tuottaja: Paul Kohner (n.c.).
Ohjaus: Paul Leni. Käsikirjoitus: Alfred A. Cohn – sovitus: Robert F. Hill, Alfred A. Cohn – välitekstit: Walter Anthony – John Willardin näytelmästä (1922). Kuvaus: Gilbert Warrenton. Lavastus: Charles D. Hall. Musiikki kino-orkesterille (1927): Hugo Riesenfeld (n.c.). Leikkaus: Martin G. Cohn – supervising film editor: Lloyd Nosler.
Pääosissa: Laura La Plante (Annabelle West), Creighton Hale (Paul Jones), Forrest Stanley (Charles Wilder), Tully Marshall (Roger Crosby), Gertrude Astor (Cecily), Flora Finch (Susan), Arthur Edmund Carewe (Harry), Martha Mattox (Mammy Pleasant), George Siegmann (vartija), Lucien Littlefield (Ira Lazar).
Studio: Universal City (Kalifornia). Helsingin ensiesitys: 22.1.1928 Apollo – tarkastus 14711 – K16 – 2350 m – 2016: 2K DCP Universal Pictures 85 min
Restauroituja laitoksia: Photoplay 2004, David Shepard, Universal Pictures.
2016: Forssan Mykkäelokuvafestivaali on tuottanut Kari Mäkirannan orkesterin kinokonserttikiertueen, jossa esitetään Universal Picturesin 2K DCP suomeksi tekstitettynä.
Paul Lenin ohjaama Broadway-menestysnäytelmän filmatisointi Kissa ja kanarialintu on kauhuelokuvan genreen eniten vaikuttaneita teoksia. Aiheesta on tehty sittemmin neljä suoranaista uudelleenfilmatisointiakin, mutta Kissa ja kanarialintu, vaikka ei ollutkaan ensimmäinen (The Bat oli edeltänyt sitä), oli myös todellinen läpimurto ja esikuva koko ”vanhan pimeän talon” alalajille, jonka suurin mestariteos, James Whalen The Old Dark House (1932), sai sekin suoria vaikutteita siitä.
Kissa ja kanarialintu oli myös koko Universal-kauhun kantateos Lon Chaneyn spektaakkelien (Notre Damen kellonsoittaja ja Suuren oopperan kummitus) rinnalla. Siinä missä Chaney oli Hollywoodin ensimmäinen suuri hirviötähti Kissa ja kanarialintu osoitti ensimmäisen kerran unohtumattomasti, miten vanha pimeä talo voi olla elokuvakauhun tyyssija. Kenties vielä Hitchcockin Psykokin (sekin Universal-levitykseen valmistettu teos) oli velkaa sille.
Ohjaaja Paul Leni (1885–1929) oli Saksassa kehittynyt monipuoliseksi taiteilijaksi. Hän oli taidetakoja, maalari, lavastaja, graafikko, pilapiirtäjä, Berliinin ensimmäisen kinopalatsin sisustaja, lennokas mainosmies, Der Sturm -ryhmää lähellä oleva ekspressionisti ja armeijan elokuvayksikössä Bufassa palvellut sotaveteraani. Elokuvamiehenä Leni hallitsi ekspressionismin, animaation, satuelokuvan ja traagisen kamarielokuvan lajit. Lenin elokuvaa Das Wachsfigurenkabinett (1924) Siegfried Kracauer arvosti Weimarin tasavallan elokuvan kulta-ajan viimeisenä huipentumana.
Universalin neuvokas johtaja Carl Laemmle kutsui Lenin Hollywoodiin, jossa tämä ohjasi neljä elokuvaa ennen kuolemaansa lyhyen sairauden jälkeen kesken parasta luomiskauttaan. Lenistä tuli keskeinen taiteilija Weimarin tasavallan kauhuperinteen siirtymisessä Hollywoodiin. Merkillepantavaa oli varsinkin lavastustaiteen ymmärtäminen koko vaikutusvoimaisuudessaan, missä saksalainen ekspressionismi oli ollut uranuurtaja.
Carlos Clarens kiteyttää, että Paul Leni toi saksalaisen katseen periamerikkalaiseen tarinaan. Leni ei tuonut kummitustaloonsa vain hämähäkinseittejä ja liukuovia vaan myös aidon mysteerin tunteen.
Eksentrisen miljonäärin testamentti luetaan 20 vuotta hänen kuolemansa jälkeen. Annabelle West (Laura La Plante) nimetään ainoaksi perijäksi – paitsi jos hän osoittaa henkisen tasapainottomuuden merkkejä. Pian Annabellea alkavat järkyttää pois tolaltaan hirvittävät ilmiöt...
Leni loihti elokuvaan tunnelmaa sen ensimmäisestä otoksesta alkaen: käsi pyyhkii pois hämähäkinseittejä, joiden alta paljastuvat alkutekstit. Oudossa symbolisessa kuvassa nähdään miljonääri Ambrose West suunnattomien lääkepullojen ympäröimänä, valtavien, pahansuopien kissojen naukuessa ja lymyillessä taustalla. Vaikuttavassa ristikuvassa nähdään jyhkeän kellokoneiston toiminta keskiyön koittaessa. Valot himmenevät, ja huolestuneet perijät kerääntyvät yhteen. Lenin kaikkitietävä kamera hiipii hiljaa autioilla käytävillä. Tuuli liikuttaa käärinliinoja muistuttavia verhoja. Silmänräpäyksessä kamera muuttuu murhaajan silmäksi, joka tuijottaa muotokuvan takaa, tai samastuu sankarittareen, joka halvaantuu pelosta kaamean naamioidun hahmon ilmestyessä pimeydestä.
– Antti Alanen (kolmen loppukappaleen lähteenä Carlos Clarens: Horror Movies, 1967) 13.11.2016
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