An adaptation of John Willard's 1922 black-comedy play of the same name, the film stars Laura La Plante as Annabelle West, Forrest Stanley as Charlie Wilder, and Creighton Hale as Paul Jones.

As midnight approaches, West's relatives arrive at the mansion: nephews Harry Blythe (Arthur Edmund Carewe), Charles "Charlie" Wilder (Forrest Stanley), Paul Jones (Creighton Hale), his sister Susan Sillsby (Flora Finch) and her nieces Cecily Young (Gertrude Astor), and Annabelle West (Laura La Plante).

Mammy Pleasant leaves to call the police, while Harry searches for the guard; Susan runs away in hysterics and hitches a ride with a milkman (Joe Murphy).

[2] Film historian Richard Peterson notes that "German cinema became famous for stories of psychological horror and for uncanny moods generated through lighting, set design and camera angles."

Influential examples of German expressionist film include Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) about a deranged doctor and Paul Leni's Waxworks (1925) about a wax figure display at a fair.

[4][5] Laemmle turned to John Willard's popular play The Cat and the Canary, which centered on an heiress whose family tries to drive her insane to steal her inheritance.

[6] The Cat and the Canary features veteran silent film stars Laura La Plante, Creighton Hale, and Forrest Stanley.

Hale had appeared in 64 silent films before The Cat and the Canary, notably the 1914 serial The Exploits of Elaine and D. W. Griffith's Way Down East (1920) and Orphans of the Storm (1921).

According to critic John Howard Reid, "He is forever backing into furniture or finding himself in a risqué position under a bed or wrestling with stray objects like falling books or enormous bed-springs.

[12] The villain Charles Wilder was played by Forrest Stanley, an actor who had been cast in films such as When Knighthood Was in Flower (1922), Bavu (1923), Through the Dark (1924) and Shadow of the Law (1926).

After his performance in The Cat and the Canary, Stanley played lesser roles in films such as Show Boat (1936) and Curse of the Undead (1959) and the television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Studio 57, and Gunsmoke.

[11] Lucien Littlefield was cast as deranged psychiatrist Dr. Ira Lazar who bore an eerie resemblance to Werner Krauss's title character in The Cabinet of Dr.

Historian Bernard F. Dick observes that "Leni reduced German expressionism, with its weird chiaroscuro, asymmetric sets, and excessive stylization, to a format compatible with American film practice.

Richard Scheib notes that "Leni's style is something that lifts The Cat and the Canary up and away from being merely a filmed stage play and gives it an amazing visual dynamism.

"[18] Leni used similar camera effects found in German expressionist films such as The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to set the atmosphere of The Cat and the Canary.

[19] Variety opined, "What distinguishes Universal's film version of the ... play is Paul Leni's intelligent handling of a weird theme, introducing some of his novel settings and ideas with which he became identified ....

Otherwise it's a more than average satisfying feature ...."[25] A New York Times review expounded, "This is a film which ought to be exhibited before many other directors to show them how a story should be told, for in all that he does Mr. Leni does not seem to strain at a point.

Dick, however, notes that Leni had only "lighten[ed] [expressionist themes] so they could enter American cinema without the baggage of a movement that had spiraled out of control.

Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice remarks, "[Leni's] adroitly atmospheric film is virtually an ideogram of narrative suspension and impact";[27] Chris Dashiell states that "[e]verything is so exaggerated, so lacking in subtlety, that we soon stop caring what happens, despite a few mildly scary effects", although he admits that the film "had a great effect on the horror genre, and even Hitchcock cited it as an influence.

"[28] Tony Rayns has called the film "the definitive 'haunted house' movie .... Leni wisely plays it mainly for laughs, but his prowling, Murnau-like camera work generates a frisson or two along the way.

It is, in fact, hugely entertaining ...."[29] John Calhoun feels that what makes the film both "important and influential" was "Leni's uncanny ability to bring out the period's slapstick elements in the story's hackneyed conventions: the sliding panels and disappearing acts are so fast paced and expertly timed that the picture looks like a first-rate door-slamming farce .... At the same time, Leni didn't short-circuit the horrific aspects ...."[30] Although not the first film set in a supposed haunted house, The Cat and the Canary started the pattern for the "old dark house" genre.

[35] On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 93% based on 45 reviews with the consensus: "Bringing its sturdy setup thrillingly to life, The Cat and the Canary proves Paul Leni a director with a deft hand for suspenseful stories and expertly assembled ensembles.

Rupert Julian's The Cat Creeps (1930) and the Spanish language La Voluntad del muerto (The Will of the Dead Man) directed by George Melford and Enrique Tovar Ávalos were the first "talkie" versions of the play; they were produced and distributed by Universal Pictures in 1930.