The Cat and the Canary (1927 film)

The Cat and the Canary 1927 is an American silent horror film adaptation of John Willards 1922 black comedy play of the same name. Directed by German Expressionist filmmaker Paul Leni, the film stars Laura La Plante as Annabelle West, Forrest Stanley as Charles Charlie Wilder, and Creighton Hale as Paul Jones. The plot revolves around the death of Cyrus West, who is Annabelle, Charlie, and Pauls uncle, and the reading of his willyears later. Annabelle inherits her uncles fortune, but when she and her family spend the night in his haunted mansion they are stalked by a mysterious figure. Meanwhile, a lunatic known as the Cat escapes from an asylum and hides in the mansion.

In a decaying mansion overlooking the Hudson River, millionaire Cyrus West approaches death. His greedy family descends upon him like cats around a canary, causing him to become insane. West orders that his last will and testament remain locked in a safe and go unread until the 20th anniversary of his death. As the appointed time arrives, Wests lawyer, Roger Crosby Tully Marshall, discovers that a second will mysteriously appeared in the safe. The second will may only be opened if the terms of the first will are not fulfilled. The caretaker of the West mansion, Mammy Pleasant Martha Mattox, blames the manifestation of the second will on the ghost of Cyrus West, a notion that the astonished Crosby quickly rejects.As midnight approaches, Wests relatives arrive at the mansion nephews Harry Blythe Arthur Edmund Carewe, Charles Charlie Wilder, Paul Jones, his sister Susan Sillsby Flora Finch and her niece Cecily Young Gertrude Astor, and niece Annabelle West. Cyrus Wests fortune is bequeathed to the most distant relative bearing the name West Annabelle. The will, however, stipulates that to inherit the fortune, she must be judged sane by a doctor, Ira Lazar Lucien Littlefield. If she is deemed insane, the fortune is passed to the person named in the second will. The fortune includes the West diamonds which her uncle hid years ago. Annabelle realizes that she is now like her uncle, in a cage surrounded by cats. ........

Source: Wikipedia