Review of The Cat and the Canary

I saw this movie in 1939 when I was just nine years old. It was a comedy, to be sure, but it scared the heck out of me. It was at night when I saw it and when I left the theater alone, I ran all the way home. That was just three blocks but a dark and spooky three blocks. For many nights I couldn't sleep because of a skeletal hand that kept reaching out of my headboard and was creeping ever closer to my throat. No scary movie, before or since, ever scared me as much as this comedy. It made a star of Bob Hope and he and his co-star, Paulette Goddard, appeared in a similar scary old house movie later that became more well known than Canary, but it was the canary that kept me awake every night for a week or two. I have never seen this film for sale or rent and never have seen it on TV and I have always wondered why. It was such a gem.