Rough and Dirty Girlhood in ANNIE (1982)

In his original review of the 1982 film musical, Roger Ebert offers qualified - and often rather faint - praise for Annie but says he doesn't know if kids will actually like the movie. Ebert doesn't find the story's heroine very compelling or believable, but it's noteworthy that all of the other child characters and performers he mentions in comparison are boys: Oliver Twist in Oliver! (1968), Henry Thomas in E.T. (1982), and Ricky Shroder in general. I recently rewatched Annie, and I have a very different perspective on the picture from the late, great reviewer, having actually been a ten year old girl (the same age as Annie herself) when I first saw the movie in theaters in 1982. While certain elements have aged poorly or lack the same appeal they had when I was a child, I can still see why my younger sister and I were so thoroughly charmed by the spunky heroine and her fellow orphans that we belted out "Tomorrow" incessantly and even got dolls of some of the characters. Yes, we were kids who liked Annie, and although we enjoyed the music and the adult characters very much, what really appealed to us was the depiction of girlhood as we experienced it, a rough and dirty childhood full of fights, conflict, and unbrushed hair.

Our culture as a whole has long imagined girls as more or less the opposite of boys. Girls are dear little things who play with dolls while waiting to grow up into loving wives and mothers. Even when they're protagonists and not merely supporting characters, most of them have to be pretty, kind, and generally well-behaved as models of permissible girl behavior. Shirley Temple, the quintessential "little girl" of Hollywood, wins everyone over with her dimpled sweetness, and even Alice and Dorothy are depicted as very "proper" girls in most of their film and TV adaptations (when their girlhood is not erased entirely by making them teenagers or even adults). There are exceptions, of course, like the Little House on the Prairie books and TV series, but celebrated girl-centered stories are harder to come by than stories about boys, and stories about groups of young girls (not marriageable young women) are even rarer.

Annie dispenses with all of those well-worn stereotypes about who and what girls are, replacing the usual sugar and spice with Depression era spunk. It's both a girl's version of Oliver Twist and a prepubescent take on Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), with a scrappy crew of orphan girls trying to survive by their wits, camaraderie, and sheer stubbornness. Imagine the delight my little sister and I experienced seeing these dirty, grumpy, combative girls playing tricks on Miss Hannigan (Carol Burnett) and fighting amongst themselves just like we often did, much to our mother's dismay. We were girls who played outside, got dirty, tore our clothes, and only brushed our hair under duress. Annie and her friends provided a rare chance to see girls who looked and acted like us on the big screen, and we loved them for it. It helped that they weren't preternaturally cute or beautiful, like so many of the little and big girls Hollywood showcases. Mop wig aside, Aileen Quinn's Annie seemed like a kid we'd like to know, even if we felt disappointed that she had to be rescued by adults in the final act. We were hoping she'd kick Tim Curry's Rooster right off the top of the train bridge and send him screaming to his death, but at least she tore up the ill-gotten check and made her initial escape all by herself, while her friends persevered in their race to uncover the villains' deception.

In the decades since Annie, Hollywood movies have made some progress in telling stories about girls, especially in films like Matilda (1996), but Japan's Hiyao Miyazaki has done far better with My Neighbor Totoro (1988), Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), Spirited Away (2001), and Howl's Moving Castle (2004), just to name a few of the Studio Ghibli movies to center the experiences of young girls as interesting and not idealized characters. Women film reviewers, however, are still well aware of the dearth of great movies about young girls, as Anya Jaremko-Greenwold opines in the 2016 Atlantic essay, "Why Hollywood Doesn't Tell More Stories for - and About - Girls." Given that Hollywood still doesn't make many movies like Annie, I'm glad that today's little girls can see the 1982 version in spite of its dated elements. Maybe, at this very moment, some stubborn little girl with tangled pigtails and a dirty face is watching the movie on Netflix as the orphans sing "It's the Hard Knock Life" and delighting in the vision of girls who look and act like her.

Related Posts:

"My Life at the Movies" (2011)

"High School Movies, Then and Now" (2018)

Modern Movies: HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS (2022)

I often tell people that I love "weird movies," and Hundreds of Beavers (2022) is definitely one of the weirdest, wackiest, and most purely delightful movies I have seen in a long time. This festival darling from Mike Cheslik (writer and director) and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews (writer and star) puts silent comedy, Looney Tunes cartoons, and modern video games into a blender to create an absurdist masterpiece with gags flying by at a breakneck pace for the entire 108 minute run of the picture. If you have the opportunity to see Hundreds of Beavers in a theater, you should skip this review and hurry out the door, but for those who - like me - have to make elaborate travel plans to see indie festival flicks, here's my review to encourage you to book the hotel and gas up the car (or at least make sure you track this one down when it hits streaming or physical media release).

Ryland Brickson Cole Tews plays the hapless Jean Kayak, whose boozy good times making and selling applejack abruptly end when beavers destroy his business. Forced to survive in the relentlessly cold winter, Jean learns by painful trial and error to hunt the beavers and other local critters (all played by actors in cartoonish costumes). He's encouraged in his efforts by an old Master Trapper (Wes Tank) and the attractive furrier (Olivia Graves), but as it turns out the beavers have much more grandiose plans than general mischief against the local humans.

There's so much going on in addition to this basic narrative that it's hard to know where to start, but try to imagine Tex Avery directing Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010) with Charlie Chaplin or Buster Keaton in the starring role and you might begin to get the idea. The movie owes a lot to silent comedy, with many scenes evoking The Gold Rush (1925) thanks to the setting but also Modern Times (1936) and any of the Keystone Cops pictures. There are sight gags and stunts Keaton would love, especially the more meta examples like the holes that dot the landscape or the elaborate Rube Goldberg traps Jean builds. Watching the movie is often like watching someone play a puzzle game (I found myself especially thinking of the 1996 classic, The Neverhood), and the video game vibe is enhanced by action scenes that recall Frogger, Donkey Kong, and other iconic games as well as the intentionally flat and artificial backgrounds against which these scenes occur.

As funny as Cheslik and the other actors are in the human roles - and they are very funny, indeed - the "animals" in the movie are absolutely uproarious, and presenting the story this way is a brilliant stroke that effectively separates us from any expectation of a moral. I won't spoil the dozens of hilarious bits, but a few of my favorites include the two detective beavers, the melodramatic story of the rabbit family, the poker playing sled dogs, and the horse. There are also several delightful puppets to represent smaller animals, including a frog, some fish, and a very annoying woodpecker. Whenever you think the movie has surely reached peak absurdity, it raises the ante again, much to the whooping delight of the audience with whom I saw it. Because it's so maniacally silly, older children will almost certainly love it, but I should add that there's a brief pole dancing scene, a fair bit of sexual innuendo and imagery, and a lot of scatological humor, in addition to non-stop cartoon violence. It's all in service to the comedy, but it's important to consider your own tolerance or that of your children before taking anyone under 12 to see it. There was at least one kid who was about 10 in our small audience, and I could hear him laughing even louder than the adults throughout the movie.

If you want to learn more about Hundreds of Beavers or find the nearest theater screening, head over to the official website. A Blu-ray release is planned for Summer 2024, and the movie will stream on Fandor starting in the spring. I will definitely be buying a copy of the movie so that I can see it again and force all of my friends to watch it.

BEYOND CASABLANCA is Free on Kindle This Week!

As promised in an earlier post, I am now running promos on the ebook version of BEYOND CASABLANCA. Beginning Monday, August 11, 2014, and running through Friday, the ebook is free on Kindle, and I hope you'll either consider the book for yourself or encourage friends to give it a try. It contains many exclusive reviews that you won't find here on Virtual Virago or on my Examiner column.

While you're at it, you might have a look at BEYOND CASABLANCA II, which offers 101 more classic movie reviews, or EVERYDAY MONSTERS, my newly released short story collection.

Thanks to everyone who takes the time to visit the Amazon link and helps me get the word out. I'd really love to give away a  lot of copies this week! The point of the book is to connect readers with great classic films, and hopefully the free promo will promote that aim.

Modern Movies: GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY (2014)

The newest Marvel comic book movie to hit theaters, Guardians of the Galaxy asks viewers to embrace otherwise obscure characters and get beyond the more obvious icons presented by The Avengers or DC's constant reworkings of Batman and Superman. Moreover, director James Gunn blatantly rejects the trend toward darkness by making a film that is almost silly enough to be a parody of the summer comic book blockbuster genre. Stephanie Zacharek of The Village Voice has already criticized the movie for being too "Fun!" and self-conscious of its own humor, but for those of us who have been sick to death of dark this and dark that Guardians is a welcome breath of fresh air. Yes, this movie is silly and Fun! - as Zacharek puts it - but it also has a surprisingly sentimental core, and in spite of some crude language and humor it's one of the most family-friendly superhero movies in a very long time.

Chris Pratt plays Earthling Peter Quill, who was abducted by aliens just after the death of his mother, when Peter was still a child. Twenty years later, he roams the galaxy as a thief and junk trader, and the action is set into motion when he steals a strange orb that everyone seems to want. Arrested and thrown into prison, Peter strikes up an uneasy partnership with green assassin Gamora (Zoe Saldana), tortured muscle man Drax (Dave Bautista), gentle tree being Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel), and bad-tempered talking raccoon Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper). The group become unlikely heroes as they try to protect the galaxy from the orb's power and the evil plans of Ronan (Lee Pace), Nebula (Karen Gillan), and the mysterious overlord, Thanos (Josh Brolin).

Like other comic book blockbusters, Guardians has plenty of explosions and CGI action. Aliens, spaceships, and exotic worlds are onscreen in abundance. It also has plenty of notable stars to swell its ranks: Glenn Close, John C. Reilly, Benicio de Toro, and Djimon Hounsou all make appearances, and of course there's a cameo by Stan Lee. (Joss Whedon fans will also be amused by totally unrecognizable cameos from Nathan Fillion and Alexis Denisof.) These are things that fans expect when they come to this sort of picture, and Guardians delivers them in spades.

The movie could have been a lot darker in the hands of a different director and cast, but Guardians goes for fun rather than self-important seriousness, and, Village Voice criticism aside, that's a great decision. Imagine the movie if Christopher Nolan had made it, and now see it as it actually is. There's plenty of room in which Guardians might have gotten heavy; the characters have all suffered terrible personal losses, both Nebula and Gamora have been turned into genetically altered killing machines, and even Rocket is the product of some unspeakably awful experimentation. The Collector is a terrifying being if you start dwelling on him and the lives of his prisoners. Guardians doesn't ignore these elements, but it leavens them with the characters' quirkier aspects and the life-affirming themes of friendship and the chosen family. Our characters might have succumbed to darkness, but they find each other, and that makes all the difference.

When I took my entire family to see the movie, we all laughed and even cried with these characters. My 13 year old daughter fell in love with Rocket and Groot, and the post-credits scene had us older comic book readers snorting with amusement. We have been waiting for this movie ever since the first "Hooked on a Feeling" trailer ages ago, and Guardians of the Galaxy delivered everything we were hoping it would bring. We had a lot of fun. Sometimes, honestly, that's exactly what people need.

Here's an excellent review by Movie Mom film critic Nell Minow, if you still need convincing to take the kids and see Guardians this weekend.

BEYOND CASABLANCA II is now on Kindle

My second collection of classic movie reviews is now available on Kindle, and to celebrate its arrival it will be free all this weekend. I hope that anyone who enjoys the blog will download a copy!

BEYOND CASABLANCA II: 101 CLASSIC MOVIES WORTH WATCHING offers a whole new collection of classic film reviews to expand your movie watchlist even farther beyond the original book's selections. This time I've moved into the 1960s to include great films like The Music Man (1962), Wait Until Dark (1967), and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). You'll find silent films like The Cat and the Canary (1927), The Doll (1919), and The Phantom of the Opera (1925). As always, the book covers every genre and decade, and the movies selected represent more than 75 directors and hundreds of notable performers.

Unlike the Leonard Maltin guide, which offers only capsule reviews, I provide an essay-length discussion of each movie included, although I try to keep spoilers and plot summary to a minimum so that you can fully enjoy watching the pictures for yourself. Every review ends with suggestions for what to watch next, and the three index sections group movies by year, director, and notable cast members so that you can find more of what you like best.

Right now the new book is only available on Kindle, but the original continues to be in both paperback and Kindle editions. I'll let everyone know if a paperback edition of BEYOND CASABLANCA II becomes an option in the future.

Here's the link to BEYOND CASABLANCA II on Kindle!

Christmas Movie Blogathon: THE MUPPET CHRISTMAS CAROL (1992)

This post is part of the Christmas Movie Blogathon hosted by Family Friendly Reviews. Check out the links for all of the related posts!

Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol has been adapted for the big screen many times, and almost all versions have their merits, but as both a former English Literature professor and a Muppet scholar I have to admit that The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992) is far and away my favorite take on the classic holiday tale. Despite its alterations for the sake of its furry, feathery, and felt-made cast, The Muppet Christmas Carol is surprisingly faithful to the spirit of the original text, and it goes one better than many more traditional adaptations with its inclusion of a Dickensian narrator and its representation of the three Christmas Ghosts.

Michael Caine takes the lead role as Scrooge, playing a rather demented and imposing version of the old miser, while the Muppets fill most of the supporting roles. Kermit the Frog plays long-suffering Bob Cratchit, with Miss Piggy as his loyal if temperamental spouse, and Fozzie Bear appears as Fozziewig, Scrooge's generous old employer. Statler and Waldorf split the Marley role into a duo (Jacob and Bob), and other familiar Muppet characters make appearances throughout the picture. The Great Gonzo lives up to his name as Charles Dickens, who narrates the story with the help of Rizzo the Rat. The collected cast of human and Muppet players goes through a more or less familiar version of the story, with songs and comedy added to bring the text in line with the usual Muppet style.

Several elements of this version stand out. First, Gonzo's performance as Charles Dickens is one of his best roles, combining the wry narratorial voice of the original story with the Muppet's inherent weirdness for a startlingly funny but effective commentary on the action as it unfolds. "I know this story like the back of my hand," Gonzo boasts to Rizzo. When pressed to prove it, he then covers his eyes and begins to describe his hand instead of telling the story. Rizzo is, as always, a hilarious sidekick to the blue daredevil; Dave Goelz and Steve Whitmire had already perfected their comic chemistry with the two characters by the time this film was made, and their dialogue together makes for the movie's most quotable lines. More importantly, Gonzo's presence returns to the story something that is missing in most adaptations. We get back lines like, "He was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge!" and "Darkness was cheap, and Scrooge liked it." Dickens' narrator is a crucial part of the story's humor and appeal, but most versions lose him in the dramatic revision.

The Ghosts are another outstanding element of the Muppet adaptation. Specially created for the film, the Ghosts are strikingly faithful to Dickens' descriptions of them, especially the luminous Ghost of Christmas Past, who floats hauntingly thanks to a special shooting technique that involved the puppet being filmed in a tank of oil. The Ghost of Christmas Present lacks Ignorance and Want hidden beneath his robes, but his forgetful good humor and size make him a delightful presence, combining elements of both Father Christmas and Christ. The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come is so scary that Gonzo and Rizzo abandon the picture until the finale, but the film's creators make the right call by keeping the gravitas and foreboding of those scenes. Taken together, the Ghosts are not only marvels of puppetry innovation but also compelling realizations of Dickens' figures, more spectral and miraculous than human actors because the medium liberates them from mortal constraints.

Like many family friendly adaptations of the story, The Muppet Christmas Carol does shift the focus of Dickens' text by casting its primary figure, Kermit, as Bob Cratchit. This encourages us to see ourselves in Bob and to see him as the story's central figure (the Mickey Mouse version does the same thing). Michael Caine, however, does such a terrific job as Scrooge that we never lose him among the Muppets, and that helps us to keep our attention where it's supposed to be. Dickens never wanted us to see ourselves as Bob Cratchit; his story depends on us understanding that we are Scrooge, selfish and querulous even in the face of our own salvation. Caine revels in Scrooge's meanest lines, but he also conveys nostalgia, regret, and tenderness in the character, all emotions that have to exist within him already in order to be called forth by the Ghosts' visitations. Bob is an object to rouse Scrooge's dormant pity, but A Christmas Carol isn't his story; he has no dynamic narrative arc to pursue. For contrast, you might watch Kermit taking on the George Bailey role in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (2002), which revises It's a Wonderful Life (1946) and prefigures the plot of The Muppets (2011) in quite a few ways.

For more literary Muppetry, you might try Muppet Treasure Island (1996), which features Tim Curry as Long John Silver. Brian Henson, who directed both adaptations, is of course the son of Muppets creator Jim Henson, who died in 1990. The Muppet Christmas Carol was the first feature made after his death, which gives it a certain bittersweet quality for lifelong Muppet fans. Head back to The Muppet Movie (1977) for the first big-screen Muppet adventure, or flash forward to The Muppets (2011) to see what Disney is doing with the characters now. Muppets Most Wanted, the newest Muppet movie, is due out in 2014.

Can't get enough Muppet-inspired criticism and commentary? I really am something of an expert on the subject. Check out Kermit Culture: Critical Perspectives on Jim Henson's Muppets and The Wider Worlds of Jim Henson. Both books were published by McFarland and are available in paperback and Kindle editions on Amazon. If movie reviews are more your thing, try Beyond Casablanca: 100 Classic Movies Worth Watching, which is also in both paperback and Kindle versions on Amazon.

Classic Films in Focus: THE MUPPET MOVIE (1979)

Like Star Wars (1977), The Muppet Movie (1979) was a watershed event in the formation of Gen Xers' cinematic culture. Jim Henson and George Lucas certainly recognized a common spirit in one another, and their films resonated with their youthful audiences in similarly enduring ways. By the time the first Muppet film appeared, The Muppet Show had already been on television for several seasons, but the movie was something larger and more ambitious, in terms of both puppetry and narrative. The Muppet Movie also shares with Star Wars a deep and pervasive debt to the film traditions that had come before, although The Muppet Movie celebrates its relationship to classic movies more overtly and self-consciously than Lucas' film. This playful awareness of itself as part of the great Hollywood tradition is part of the movie's charm, and it helps to set The Muppet Movie apart as a special kind of family film, both smart and sentimental, both wildly creative and instantly accessible, a film that rewards the adult viewer with different but equal pleasures from those experienced by the child.

The plot follows a classic Hollywood line: Kermit the Frog, talented, generous, and completely inexperienced, sets off for Hollywood to become a star. Along the way he picks up a menagerie of companions, including Fozzie Bear, Miss Piggy, and The Great Gonzo. They encounter a number of obstacles on the way to realizing their dream, chiefly embodied by the greedy Doc Hopper (Charles Durning), who intends to use Kermit as the spokesfrog for his fried frogs' legs restaurant chain, whether Kermit likes the idea or not.

The plot of The Muppet Movie combines elements of two popular Hollywood genres, the show business picture and the road picture. The show business plot ties it to films like A Star is Born (pick a version), Singin' in the Rain (1952), and a host of other movies in which starry-eyed kids arrive in Tinseltown looking for their own "standard rich and famous contracts," while the road elements connect it with films like the Hope and Crosby vehicles and even The Wizard of Oz (1939). Both genres can be played as either comedy or drama, and The Muppet Movie incorporates both, although its drama is generally tinged with enough surreal weirdness to render it palatable to the youngest members of the audience. Thinking about it now, it seems to me that the classic film The Muppet Movie most resembles is Sullivan's Travels (1941), with its emphasis on the importance of making people laugh combined with its picaresque adventures and Hollywood self-reflection. There are times in Preston Sturges' brilliant comedy when Sullivan does not feel like laughing at all, becoming downcast and even in despair, and Kermit shares those moments during his own journey. Still, both stories insist on the belief that it will all come right in the end.

The Muppet characters have their own indebtedness to classic films and types, having been created to reflect the values and conventions of Vaudeville and other old school entertainment institutions, and in The Muppet Movie those relationships get more play because of the opportunities presented by the sustained narrative. While Kermit, for example, possesses a certain affinity with Sturges' Sullivan, he might rightly be called a Capraesque hero, as well. Henson could have named his picture Mr. Frog Goes to Hollywood and summed it up pretty handily. If Kermit were a human being and not a frog, he would be played by Jimmy Stewart (Roger Ebert has called him "Mickey Rooney in a frog suit," but I think he has more romantic charisma than that implies). The sense of common ground between Henson and Capra characters becomes particularly obvious in It's a Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie (2002), which more or less recreates the entire plot of It's a Wonderful Life (1946) with Kermit as its amphibian George Bailey. Miss Piggy has her own classic movie roots; with her diva's ego and talent for self-transformation, she channels the glamor and hard-edged determination of stars like Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. In The Muppet Movie, her lust for fame causes her to abandon Kermit, the frog of her heart, but her porcine melodrama brings her back to him in time to share in his success.

The scores of cameo appearances that populate The Muppet Movie shore up these affiliations. We get, in no particular order, Bob Hope, Edgar Bergen, Milton Berle, Mel Brooks, James Coburn, and Orson Welles, just to name a few of the veteran performers who appear in the film. The presence of Welles is probably the most interesting from a classic film perspective; imagine the man who made Citizen Kane (1941), arguably the greatest movie of all time, appearing in The Muppet Movie! It's the cinematic equivalent of the Pope's blessing. Many of these stars were better known for their television careers, but all had experience in the movies, including Milton Berle, who had been appearing in silent films in Hollywood since the age of 5.

The Muppet Movie was a collaborative effort, as were all of Jim Henson's productions; director James Frawley, writers Jerry Juhl and Jack Burns, and the entire crew of puppeteers all had to share a dream as much as the Muppet characters themselves in order to make the film a success. What they also shared was a very sharp eye for what made classic Hollywood films so good, their energy and spirit, their familiar types and universal themes. They drew from the best that had been done before, and it gave their felt and fur characters a kind of gravity even when they were being the most ridiculous, the way that characters are in the films of Sturges and Capra and Hawks. In that sense, The Muppet Movie is a true classic, and it's just as worthwhile to watch it today as it was more than thirty years ago.

For more films that share the themes and spirit of The Muppet Movie, try 42nd Street (1933), Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936), and Babes in Arms (1939). Round out the classic Muppet trilogy by watching The Great Muppet Caper (1981) and The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984) before moving on to films made after Jim Henson's death, including The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992), Muppet Treasure Island (1996), and Disney's The Muppets (2011).

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.

Postscript
My author copies of The Wider Worlds of Jim Henson just arrived today, which reminded me that it was time to revise and reprint this review of the original Muppet film. The Wider Worlds of Jim Henson is the second anthology of essays I have edited with my friend and colleague, Anissa Graham. It's now available on Amazon and through numerous other book retailers, along with our original anthology, Kermit Culture. Both books were published by McFarland. In case you're wondering, my favorite Muppet is The Great Gonzo, which might explain why I try to do so many different things "while and at the same time!"

Classic Films in Focus: A NIGHT IN CASABLANCA (1946)

Originally intended as a parody of Casablanca (1942), the Marx Brothers picture, A Night in Casablanca (1946), bears only passing resemblance to the earlier film. Not surprisingly, the picture veers off wildly from the ostensible source material, allowing Groucho, Harpo, and Chico to ply their trademark zany gags and one liners to great effect. The funny business gets off to a slow start, but it moves into full swing once the three Marx characters are brought together, and there are moments hilarious enough to make even the most jaded viewer laugh out loud. Though not as famous as Duck Soup (1933) or A Night at the Opera (1935), A Night in Casablanca is a fun film that demonstrates the wacky talents of these classic comedians, and parents might find it very useful as a way to introduce children to the delights of classic movies.

The plot really doesn't matter, but it revolves around a hotel in Casablanca where all of the managers are being murdered by former Nazis who want to find a hidden cache of their ill-gotten loot from the war. Groucho appears as the new manager, Ronald Kornblow, while Harpo and Chico are Rusty and Corbaccio, two bumbling fellows who work a motley assortment of odd jobs around the city. Straight man Zeppo had already departed from the act at this point, so handsome Charles Drake takes the job in the guise of Lt. Pierre Delmar, suitably paired up with romantic interest Annette, played by Lois Collier. Sig Ruman seems to be enjoying himself thoroughly as the leader of the Nazis, while Lisette Verea plays his girlfriend, Beatrice, who attempts to seduce Groucho in an effort to bump him off. Despite their wild antics and relentless bumbling, our comic trio inevitably saves the day, allowing the romantic young people to get together and foiling the Nazis' dastardly plans.

Nobody, however, watches a Marx Brothers movie for the plot, and it definitely takes a back seat to the setting up of various gags and then paying them off. The only roles the brothers are really playing are those of Groucho, Harpo, and Chico, and that's who moviegoers paid to see, anyway. The later Marx Brothers films are basically cartoons staged with live actors, so the jokes are outsized and over the top as a matter of course. Our first glimpse of Harpo arrives as a policeman finds him literally "holding up a building" by leaning against it, and when the cop drags Harpo away, the building promptly crashes to the ground. Groucho slouches around delivering his usual innuendo filled zingers and chewing on his omnipresent cigar, but children won't notice that Groucho's lines are really off-color remarks, so they should cause even the most conservative parent little concern. Young viewers are much more drawn to Harpo, a true chaos engine, whose face lights up at every opportunity to create havoc. The scene in which Harpo and Chico cram customers and tables into a supper club is a great one; there's so much frantic energy going on, and in the midst of it all Groucho serenely dances on with Beatrice and makes wisecracks about the state of the place.

The best scene in the picture is probably the twist on the old hallway gag, where comic characters rush in and out of various hallway doors, often defying physical plausibility as they pop back and forth, much to the characters' confusion and the audience's delight. Shaggy and the gang from Scooby Doo are outstanding practitioners of this sort of humor, but the Marx Brothers offer a great variation on the theme by substituting the closets and luggage in the head Nazi's bedroom for the hallway doors. As the various Nazis attempt to pack up the loot and make their escape, the brothers pop in and out of the trunks and the closet, rearranging everything as they go and causing the Nazis to gnash their teeth in frustration at the strange and inexplicable events. The bit with the mysteriously moving closet doors is especially good, but the whole thing is a perfect example of the Marx Brothers' comedic timing and penchant for visual gags.

Personally, I think A Night in Casablanca is funnier than some of the earlier Marx Brothers films, like Animal Crackers (1930) and Horse Feathers (1932), in part because it seems a more cinematic experience, while the earliest pictures can be a little too aware of themselves as stage routines merely being acted out in front of a camera. They are all funny, however, and if you show one to junior film fans you might very well have to show them all, since the basic schtick remains constant throughout, and Harpo in particular is a delightful master of silent physical comedy, something that even very young viewers can appreciate. Older viewers should take a moment to savor the musical interludes; Chico and Harpo each get a chance to shine in the film, and their skills at the piano and the harp are truly impressive, proving that there was more to the Marx Brothers than the zany jokes for which they are chiefly remembered.

For more from the brothers, see A Night at the Opera (1935), A Day at the Races (1937), and Go West (1940). Groucho also teams up with Carmen Miranda in Copacabana (1947), and the two of them make for a very funny pair. Archie Mayo, who directed A Night in Casablanca, also headed up The Petrified Forest (1936), Charley's Aunt (1941), and Angel on My Shoulder (1946), as well as the famously lost pre-Code picture, Convention City (1933).

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.

Classic Films in Focus: MAD LOVE (1935)

Also known as The Hands of Orlac, Mad Love (1935) offers an unusually literate and even lyrical take on the mad doctor motif, a staple of the classic horror genre. This MGM production from director Karl Freund features well-known horror stars like Peter Lorre and Colin Clive in the leading roles, and it retains its creepy charms thanks to their performances and a number of startling flourishes that modern viewers will still find unsettling more than 75 years after the film's original release. Mad Love is an especially good place to enjoy the peculiar talents of genre icon Peter Lorre, here cast as a strangely sympathetic monster whose worst actions stem from passionate but unrequited love.

Lorre plays the brilliant but unhinged surgeon Dr. Gogol, who spends his days curing lame children and his evenings obsessing over the beautiful actress, Yvonne (Frances Drake). When Yvonne's pianist husband, Stephen Orlac (Colin Clive), loses his hands in a train wreck, Gogol secretly replaces them with the hands of Rollo (Edward Brophy), a knife-throwing murderer recently sent to the guillotine. Stephen soon becomes disturbed by his hands' predilection for hurling sharp objects, while Gogol hatches a plan to drive Stephen mad in order to claim Yvonne for himself.

In addition to his bald head and unnerving expression, Dr. Gogol possesses a curiously poetic soul. He seizes upon a wax figure of Yvonne as his personal Galatea, hoping that his love for the original will make him another Pygmalion. Later, having decided with Oscar Wilde that "each man kills the thing he loves," Gogol tries to strangle Yvonne with her own hair while reciting "Porphyria's Lover," the Robert Browning poem about a similarly homicidal lover. The literary connections underline Gogol's dual identity as a man who might give life or take it away. We see these opposing sides of him in various scenes throughout the film, as he operates on crippled children but also compulsively attends executions. Because he has the capacity to do good and appreciate beauty, Gogol demands our sympathy even as we recoil from his madness. He evokes the same conflicted response in Yvonne, a dangerous reaction given its results.

Colin Clive might seem an odd choice for the romantic lead, for he is not at all handsome, but there's great poetic justice in having the former Dr. Frankenstein fitted with a dead man's hands. The dead man, Rollo, is himself a character from Tod Browning's 1932 film, Freaks, with Edward Brophy reprising the role. Frances Drake makes a lovely heroine, especially in her costume from the theater of horrors where she performs, although some of her transitions with the wax figure can be jarring.

Don't miss the scene in which Gogol impersonates a resurrected Rollo, definitely one of Lorre's scariest and most hysterical performance highlights. Karl Freund is best remembered today as the director of The Mummy (1932). For more of Peter Lorre's villains, see M (1931), The Man Who Knew Too Much (1934), and The Maltese Falcon (1941). Colin Clive plays Dr. Frankenstein in both the 1931 film and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), but you'll also find him in Christopher Strong (1933) and Jane Eyre (1934).

Classic Films in Focus: CARNIVAL OF SOULS (1962)

Herk Harvey made Carnival of Souls (1962) in three weeks, with a budget of around $30,000. He came up with the idea, raised the money, directed the picture, helped write the screenplay, and even appeared in it, which says something about how much this production was his personal baby. Despite his love for the project, it flopped, even as a B horror picture on the drive-in circuit. Today, Carnival of Souls is regarded as a "cult classic," which means that people who weren't even born in 1962 caught the film on some late-night television airing and fell in love with it, partly for its charms but more likely for its sheer clunky weirdness. I won't call Carnival of Souls a great movie, or even a good one, but it doesn't exist in that "so bad it's good" territory, either, since its creator seems to take his work very seriously, indeed. There is, however, an artistic vision at work in the film, and the moments in which we glimpse that help to account for the movie’s reputation among certain groups of classic horror fans.

The movie is much more interested in images than story, but it does hang the pictures together on a very thin narrative thread. Organist Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) is involved in a car accident at the opening of the film, the result of a drag race between the female driver of Mary's car and some boys who pull up alongside them at a stoplight. The girls' car ends up in the river, and, long after the searchers assume it's too late, a bedraggled Mary wanders out of the water. People comment on her strange behavior, but she has a job offer in Utah, so she heads out, and along the way she begins to see visions of a frightening, ghoulish man. The visions become more unsettling after she arrives at her destination, and other strange things happen, as well. Nobody else seems to see the things Mary can see, and everyone who meets her is struck by her cold, anti-social demeanor. Drawn to an abandoned carnival ground, Mary hopes to dispel her rising hysteria by confronting her fears.

The performances in the movie don't merit much attention, overall, since Harvey used local talent as much as possible to save money, and it really shows, especially in the character of the doctor. Candace Hilligoss is fine as Mary; she seems stunned through most of the movie, and that's the right note for her to strike. She possesses an unearthly, empty-eyed kind of beauty, and she holds herself like a bird, nervous and fragile. Harvey delights in close-up shots of her delicate, shell-shocked face. Sidney Berger reeks of sexism and lust as Mary's neighbor, Johnny, which would be great if the movie knew what to do with him, but he simply vanishes from the plot. There never was a horror film character more marked for a just and terrible death, but Harvey doesn't seem to be conscious of the genre's conventions in this regard. Poetic justice could easily be served by having Johnny go out to the carnival with Mary and be properly disposed of by the lake ghouls, but, sadly, it doesn't happen.

The chief ghoul, the one who haunts Mary throughout the film, is played by Harvey himself, and I can't fault his performance, such as it is, since he is only seen in flashes and never speaks. He leers at the camera quite convincingly, and he looks perfectly creepy in the make-up. In fact, we could stand to see rather more of him and his fellow ghouls than we do; they are a strange, shuffling horde with vacant expressions, but they are really more interesting than most of the live people who populate the rest of the movie.

There are plenty of people who love Carnival of Souls, and they are not necessarily wrong to admire it. Given its shoestring budget and slapdash production, it achieves more than one might expect, and Harvey clearly had a vision of creating a dreamy, unsettling excursion through the borderlands between life and death. He manages some striking images, mainly of his heroine and himself, and I do love those shots of the lake zombies rising slowly from the water. With more money and time, Harvey might have made a really good picture, something more akin to the nightmarish fantasies of foreign film luminaries like Ingmar Bergman or Georges Franju, to whom Harvey is rather optimistically compared by some commentators. As it is, the film drags, the narrative doesn't quite come together, and much of the acting is wooden, if not laughable, and yet there are moments when the camera captures something better, a fleeting idea of the vision that lived in Herk Harvey's imagination.

Whatever its flaws, Carnival of Souls makes a perfect movie to run on mute in the background at your Halloween party. If low-budget, cult horror classics are your thing, try Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959), The Little Shop of Horrors (1960), and George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead (1968).

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.

Classic Films in Focus: THE BAD SEED (1956)

The Bad Seed (1956) ranks pretty high on the list of classic "evil children" movies, although it's not exactly a straightforward horror film. Director Mervyn LeRoy, working from a stage adaptation of William March's original novel, presents the story more as dark melodrama, like Mildred Pierce (1945) cranked up to eleven. Film historian David Thomson hates the picture and provides a scathing review of it in his book, Have You Seen?, but The Bad Seed might well reveal its true horror only to a female audience, for this movie strikes at the very heart of maternal experience and fear.

Nancy Kelly stars as Christine Penmark, the mother of a seemingly perfect eight year old girl. Pig-tailed princess Rhoda (Patty McCormack) is not, however, as sweet as she appears. When one of Rhoda's classmates drowns at a school picnic, the evidence indicates that Rhoda knows more about what happened than she wants to say. Soon Christine realizes the horrible extent of Rhoda's homicidal tendencies, the hereditary product of a dark secret in Christine's own past.

Male characters exist mostly on the periphery of the story. Christine's husband (William Hopper), leaves town for an extended business trip, and the male criminologists utterly fail to spot the perfect little sociopath in their midst. Only Leroy (Henry Jones), the deranged handyman, sees through Rhoda and plays an active role in the characters' daily lives, and he intentionally taunts the infant serial killer and makes matters worse. All of the other significant characters are female, from bossy Monica Breedlove (Evelyn Varden) to grief-stricken Hortense Daigle (Eileen Heckart), whose little boy becomes one of Rhoda's victims. This women's world of domestic entrapment, uncertainty, and suppression inevitably unhinges many of the characters. Even the teacher, Miss Fern (Joan Croydon), has developed a nervous, strained manner, while Christine completely falls apart, clutching desperately at the useless men as she succumbs to her guilt and horror at Rhoda's amoral acts.

The horror of The Bad Seed derives from this stifled, segregated world in which women have few outlets for their hopes and fears. Maternity is the only accomplishment either Christine or Hortense can claim; each one loses her child in a different way, but the loss triggers similar collapse and self-destruction. Fear of a child's death is one kind of horror, but fear of giving birth to a monster is something even worse. New mothers look hard at their infants and count their fingers and toes, fearful lest anything wrong should have issued from their wombs. A pregnant woman obsesses over every action because blame for a damaged child invariably falls on her. Does the monstrous child repay us for our own failures, or is it some changeling trick, the work of the devil or an evil star? This fear of unnatural offspring drives stories as diverse as the Greek myths, King Lear, and Rosemary's Baby (1968).

The ending of the film pointedly asks viewers not to give away the final twist, so I'll refrain from commenting too much on the subtexts of those scenes. I will, however, say that I think the movie might have ended better about ten minutes earlier than its actual conclusion. You'll know the moment when you reach it. There would have been greater poetic justice, at least for Christine, had the credits simply rolled after that shocking - but absolutely necessary - act.

The Bad Seed earned four Oscar nominations, including nods for Nancy Kelly, Patty McCormack, and Eileen Heckart, all of whom had also appeared in the stage production. Mervyn LeRoy also directed I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang (1932), Random Harvest (1942), and Mister Roberts (1955). For more awful offspring, try Village of the Damned (1960), The Omen (1976), and The Good Son (1993).

Classic Films in Focus: THE MUMMY'S HAND (1940)

Universal produced a steady stream of horror movies during the 1930s and 40s, and not all of them reached the artistic heights of Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931). Among the lesser pictures of the era we have entries like The Mummy’s Hand (1940), director Christy Cabanne’s contribution to a series of follow-ups to the 1932 classic, The Mummy. More pedestrian than Universal’s original mummy movie, The Mummy’s Hand falls short of greatness but still offers classic horror fans a reasonably good time, thanks in large part to the presence of talented supporting players like George Zucco and Cecil Kellaway.

Dick Foran stars as Steve Banning, an American archeologist down on his luck in Egypt until he stumbles upon clues to the secret location of the Princess Ananka’s tomb. With backing from the magician Solvani (Cecil Kellaway), Steve and his sidekick Babe (Wallace Ford) set out to find the tomb, but the high priest Andoheb (George Zucco) opposes them at every turn. Determined to protect the princess’ resting place, Andoheb unleashes her mummified guardian, Kharis, on the intruders.

The story repeats many elements from the 1932 film, including the history of Kharis’ love for the princess and his gruesome punishment for trying to resurrect her. Gone, however, is the connection between the dead princess and the modern heroine, Marta Solvani (Peggy Moran), which makes the mummy’s kidnapping of her seem like an odd course of action. The mummy himself, played by Western actor Tom Tyler, lumbers about in an unconvincing suit of bandages, his face devoid of the detail and expression that make Karloff’s visage so memorable. The addition of Wallace Ford’s Babe as a comic sidekick does nothing to help the film, either, since he’s an obnoxious lout whose wisecracks inevitably fall flat.

The main attractions here are George Zucco as the fanatical Andoheb and Cecil Kellaway as the charming magician, Solvani. Zucco, an expert heavy, is much scarier than the shuffling mummy, even though we feel some sympathy for him, too, as Andoheb strives to defend his people’s sacred tomb from the greedy Western infidels. His predecessor, played with perfect intensity by Eduardo Ciannelli, also appears as an early highlight of the film. Cecil Kellaway makes an excellent foil to the serious mystics as a paternal stage illusionist, a genial fellow who can fill drinks with a finger and pull bowls of goldfish out of his hat. It’s the kind of role for which Kellaway is perfectly suited, and he provides the effective comic relief that Wallace Ford fails to deliver.

The mummy character Kharis returns for The Mummy’s Tomb (1942), The Mummy’s Ghost (1944), and The Mummy’s Curse (1944), although in each of the later films he is played by Lon Chaney, Jr. Christopher Lee plays Kharis in the 1959 remake, The Mummy. See more of George Zucco in The Cat and the Canary (1939), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), and Dr. Renault’s Secret (1942). Cecil Kellaway also stars in I Married a Witch (1942), The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946), and Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964). There are plenty of other classic mummy movies to keep you busy, but I’m especially fond of the 2002 horror comedy, Bubba Ho-Tep, which features cult favorite Bruce Campbell as a geriatric Elvis battling an Ancient Egyptian threat.

Classic Films in Focus: I MARRIED A WITCH (1945)

Classic horror makes an obvious choice for Halloween, but comedies can also fit the bill, especially when they offer a seasonably supernatural twist. Few Halloween treats could be more delightful than I Married a Witch (1942), an adorable screwball comedy from director René Clair that stars the very bewitching Veronica Lake as an immortal enchantress who falls for a human male. With an excellent cast that also includes Fredric March, Cecil Kellaway, Susan Hayward, and Robert Benchley, I Married a Witch is certain to cast its spell over almost any classic movie fan.

Lake plays Jennifer, a beautiful witch condemned to death by the local Puritans in colonial New England. She and her warlock father (Cecil Kellaway) are burned at the stake, and their spirits are then trapped inside a tree planted over their ashes. When they finally escape this prison several centuries later, the pair set out to avenge themselves on the descendant of the man responsible for their fate. Their unsuspecting target is Wallace Wooley (Fredric March), an aspiring politician already suffering from Jennifer’s dying curse that all Wooley men should be unlucky in love. Wallace’s luck, however, might be changing when Jennifer herself falls in love with him, thanks to a misdirected magic potion meant for him.

Although we remember her primarily as a noir star, Veronica Lake really shines in this comic role, perhaps her best aside from Sullivan’s Travels (1941), which had come out the previous year. Lake brings great vivacity to her strange but charming heroine, who represents a humorous mix of feminine types, from the immortal seductress to ingénue to madcap minx. It’s no wonder that Fredric March’s baffled hero doesn’t know what to make of her. Various sources report ill will between Lake and March on the set, but it doesn’t show up on the screen.

March takes the straight man role and plays it admirably; his character spends most of the picture uncomfortably caught between his intended bride (Susan Hayward) and the determined interloper. Cecil Kellaway, however, has all the fun as Jennifer’s mischievous, drunken father. A talented comedian and character actor, Kellaway plays the warlock as more devilish scamp than true villain, even though he’ll stop at nothing to end Jennifer’s romance with her mortal beloved. Luckily, his fondness for liquor proves a convenient Achilles’ heel that prevents him from doing too much damage.

Be sure to enjoy the special effects that open the movie and pop up periodically throughout the picture. Of course, I Married a Witch, along with Bell Book and Candle (1958), helped to inspire the later production of the classic television series, Bewitched. I Married a Witch earned an Oscar nomination for its score, but there were 18 nominees for the award that year, which finally went to Now, Voyager (1942). René Clair also directed The Flame of New Orleans (1941), And Then There Were None (1945), and The Gates of Paris (1957). See more of Veronica Lake in This Gun for Hire (1942), The Glass Key (1942), and The Blue Dahlia (1946). Fredric March won Oscars for his performances in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931) and The Best Years of Our Lives (1946). Don’t miss the marvelous Cecil Kellaway in Harvey (1950), The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953), and Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964). Ironically, Kellaway also turns up as Santa Claus on an episode of Bewitched.

While you’ll have trouble getting a copy of I Married a Witch on DVD, and it’s not available at all on Netflix, it does air sometimes on Turner Classic Movies. The Criterion Collection version of the film is also available for streaming on Hulu Plus.

Classic Films in Focus: THE VAMPIRE'S GHOST (1945)

Streaming services like Netflix Instant make a lot of obscure classic movies available for the first time in years, but often one watches them only to confirm the reasons they fell into obscurity in the first place. Director Lesley Selander’s 1945 film, The Vampire’s Ghost, comes as a pleasant surprise, then, as an example of an obscure, low-budget picture that actually tells an interesting and entertaining tale. Its unique setting and muted tone, along with an original story by Leigh Brackett, help it to age better than many of its peers, and The Vampire’s Ghost also offers one of cinema’s most remarkably underplayed vampiric characters in John Abbott’s immortal Elizabethan, a very different vampire from any of his more famous bloodsucking kin.

The story focuses on an African community of natives and English transplants, where numerous odd murders have the jungle drums talking. Roy (Charles Gordon) and his fiancée Julie (Peggy Stewart) find the events unsettling, but only Roy learns their true cause. Webb Fallon (John Abbott), a mysterious bar owner who has recently arrived in the area, is really a centuries old vampire, cursed to live forever on the blood of his victims. Roy falls under Fallon’s control even as Julie becomes the lonely vampire’s new obsession. With the natives in turmoil, Roy must break free of the creature’s power in time to save Julie from joining the ranks of the undead.

Webb Fallon is a curiously quotidian monster, who uses his own unremarkable appearance as a tiger uses its stripes. He is very English, short, and rather frail, wearing sunglasses during the day and complaining of a “touch of malaria.” He wears no cape, and he definitely does not sparkle. The actor John Abbott might seem like the last man on earth to play a credible vampire until we see his mesmerizing eyes. There his power reveals itself, as he bends first Roy and then Julie to his will.

You’ll probably wish that more screen time were devoted to the captivating Adele Mara, who plays the dancer, Lisa. Fallon speaks of her vampiric resurrection, but it would have been better to see it for ourselves. Mara would have made a fabulous vampire seductress with her dark tresses and intense, exotic beauty. Her dance number, however, remains a highlight of the picture. The ending lacks panache and might have made a better use of its villain’s inevitable demise, although the death cult temple makes a provocative setting. Despite such shortcomings, the story packs plenty of entertainment into a very compact 59 minutes of running time.

Lesley Selander directed mostly B Westerns, although writer Leigh Brackett helped shape real classics like The Big Sleep (1946), Rio Bravo (1959), and even The Empire Strikes Back (1980). You might recognize John Abbott’s refined English accent as the voice of Father Wolf in Disney’s The Jungle Book (1967), but he also appears in Mrs. Miniver (1942), Humoresque (1946), and Gigi (1958). Charles Gordon made few other films, but Peggy Stewart, still alive and well in 2012, has appeared in dozens of Westerns and television programs, including The Office. See more of the gorgeous Adele Mara in You Were Never Lovelier (1942), The Inner Circle (1946), Wake of the Red Witch (1948), and Sands of Iwo Jima (1949).

Thanks to my friend, horror expert Jonathan Lampley, for recommending The Vampire's Ghost as another classic horror movie worth watching! Check it out for yourself on Netflix Instant, where I hope it will remain available at least through the end of the Halloween season.

Classic Films in Focus: THE INNOCENTS (1961)

Adapted from Henry James’ 1898 novella, The Turn of the Screw, director Jack Clayton’s The Innocents (1961) is a masterpiece of supernatural suspense that claims its place among cinema’s greatest ghost stories. Visually and thematically, The Innocents occupies a space halfway between Jane Eyre (1943) and The Haunting (1963), combining the conventions of Victorian Gothic with modern psychological insight. The result is a thoroughly chilling horror story whose insidious suggestions take root in the viewer’s mind and blossom like poisonous flowers.

Deborah Kerr stars as Miss Giddens, who arrives at the great country estate of Bly as the new governess of Flora (Pamela Franklin) and Miles (Martin Stephens), the orphaned wards of a distant, disinterested uncle (Michael Redgrave). Although both of the children seem charming at first, Miss Giddens begins to experience strange, disturbing visions that she believes are connected to her charges. Convinced that the spirits of the former governess (Clytie Jessop) and her sadistic lover (Peter Wyngarde) have possessed the children, Miss Giddens adopts increasingly desperate measures to reclaim their souls.

Imagination is an important theme of the story. Gothic hysteria invests ordinary things with extraordinary horror, from an insect in a broken statue’s mouth to a music box that plays a familiar tune. What does Miss Giddens imagine, and what does she really hear or see? We never know for certain, and therein lies the sense of dread that lingers in the mind long after the picture is finished. Camera angles and lighting add to our doubts, infecting us with the same paranoia that troubles our heroine. Lights reflected in the characters’ eyes give them an unearthly expression, as if they looked indeed beyond the veil between the living and the dead.

Deborah Kerr gives an excellent performance as the nervous Victorian woman rapidly unraveling beneath the strain of her own fevered imagination. She obviously longs for male attention, has no professional experience, and suffers from a turn of mind that rural isolation can only exacerbate. She is, in short, the perfect candidate for a complete psychological breakdown. Like any traditional Gothic heroine, she climbs shadowy staircases and wanders through whispering corridors in her white nightgown, but unlike most of her forebears she lacks the spirit to recover from the inevitable shocks. Jane Eyre would give Miss Giddens a hard slap and command her to get a grip on herself.

Of course, Miss Giddens does have two rather unnerving charges in Miles and Flora. Miles in particular, a miniature copy of his dissipated uncle, seems morally empty, his coy remarks accompanied by an inscrutable look in his emotionally dead eyes. Both children smile at strange moments, evade their keeper’s questions, and run off at every opportunity. The secret to their uncanny effect, however, is the way that they are underplayed. This is not The Bad Seed (1956) or Village of the Damned (1960). Nothing that Miles and Flora do really suggests more than the influence of their upbringing, as pernicious as their past experiences with Miss Jessel and Peter Quint might have been. Are they really possessed, or are they simply damaged by the unnatural actions of the adults who ought to have protected them?

Jack Clayton also directed The Great Gatsby (1974) and Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983). See more of Deborah Kerr in Black Narcissus (1947), From Here to Eternity (1953), and The King and I (1956). Martin Stephens, ironically enough, turns up as the leader of the alien children in Village of the Damned (1960). Pamela Franklin also appears in The Nanny (1965), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), and The Legend of Hell House (1973). For more classic movie adaptations of Henry James, try Berkeley Square (1933), The Lost Moment (1947), and The Heiress (1949).

Classic Films in Focus: THE CAT AND THE CANARY (1927)

Silent horror films rely on provocative images and creative camera work for their thrills; therein lies much of their charm. Paul Leni's 1927 picture, The Cat and the Canary, is a great example of this kind of horror, although it leavens its spookier aspects with a liberal dose of humor. Its lively, well-defined characters fairly jump from the screen, and it takes the "old dark house" genre of horror films through all the usual conventions with energy and imagination. Like most silent films, it requires a certain amount of patience from its audience, but even novice viewers will find The Cat and the Canary sufficiently entertaining.

Laura La Plante stars as the lovely Annabelle West, who will inherit her deceased uncle's immense wealth only if she is officially declared sane after spending a night in the dead man's mysterious mansion. Her fellow guests in the house are her disinherited relations, all of whom might have abundant reasons to hope Annabelle sees something to scare her out of her wits over the course of the night. Rumors of the uncle's ghost give the visitors a chill, but their dread increases with the news that a maniacal killer, The Cat, is on the loose and may be hiding inside the house.

While several of the characters are played for laughs, there are plenty of thrills to be found as Annabelle encounters one strange event after another, including secret doors, dead men, and a disfigured murderer. The housekeeper, ironically named Mammy Pleasant and played by Martha Mattox, is especially creepy. Her droopy eyes and dry humor make her one of the picture’s most fascinating figures, as well as an excellent example of a Gothic stock character.

The Cat and the Canary started out as a stage play in 1922, and it has been adapted for film several times. In 1939, Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard starred in the most notable remake of the original movie, but it was also remade in 1930, 1961, and 1979. Although it is not as well known today as other early horror films from Universal, the 1927 version holds up well, and it makes a perfect atmospheric backdrop to a Halloween party or a solid choice for a quiet October night curled up on the couch.

See more of Laura La Plante in the 1929 version of Showboat and The Love Trap (1929). Director Paul Leni also oversaw the Victor Hugo adaptation, The Man Who Laughs (1928). For more silent horror, try The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), Nosferatu (1922), and The Phantom of the Opera (1925). Other examples of the old dark house genre include James Whale’s The Old Dark House (1932), The Haunting (1963), and House of the Long Shadows (1983). Comedy and parody treatments abound, as well, including The Ghost Breakers (1940), Haunted Honeymoon (1986), and quite a few episodes of Scooby Doo.

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.