Cyrus West hated his relatives. After he died he left instructions that his will was to be read two years from the day he died at the stroke of midnight in his rundown estate called Glencliff Manor. In charge of discharging the will is Mr. Crosby (Lawrence Grant), the family attorney. The only resident of the mansion is the housekeeper, Mam’ Pleasant (Blanche Friderici), a spooky woman who talks to spirits. The heirs to the estate begin to trickle in. There are six heirs, Paul (Raymond Hackett), Charles (Neil Hamilton), Cicily (Lilyan Tashman), Annabelle (Helen Twelvetrees), Harry (Theodore von Eltz) and Aunt Susan (Elizabeth Patterson).
The will is comprised of three separate envelopes. The first contains the actual will. When the will is read the estate is awarded to anyone who bears the surname of West. Since Annabelle is the only relative with that last name, the estate is awarded to her. In the second envelope is a codicil to the will. The codicil states that should Annabelle be determine to be insane, the estate would then go to the person named in a third envelope. Since Annabelle is of sound mind, the third envelope is not opened.
Due to a raging storm outside, the gathered potential heirs are stuck staying at the house for the night. Before they go to bed, a man who claims to be the head guard at Fairview Asylum, Mr. Hendricks (Montagu Love) arrives at the house and tells everyone that there is an escaped violent mental patient somewhere in the area and that calls himself “The Cat”.
Later Mam Pleasant gives Annabelle a separate envelope given to her by Cyrus before he died. The envelope tells Annabelle about a secret compartment near his bedroom fireplace where a fortune in jewels are kept. She finds the hidden compartment and a necklace adorned with diamonds and pearls. She puts the necklace on and goes to sleep. During the night a hand comes out from a secret passage and steals the necklace. Everyone is left to wonder is the thief is the escape maniac, one of the unnamed heirs, or is there someone else in the house looking to cause trouble?
“The Cat Creeps” was released in 1930 and was directed by Rupert Julian. It is an American pre-Code mystery film. The film was based on the 1922 play “The Cat and the Canary” by John Willard. It is also a sound remake of the 1927 silent version of “The Cat and the Canary”.
The film was lost for almost a century with only two minutes of film known to have survived as part of a 1932 Universal 10 minute short film titled “Boo!”. In 2025 additional footage amounting to an additional seven minutes of clips and snippets were found at the Indiana University Bloomington. Previously, discs containing the movie’s soundtrack were also available. Using the Vitaphone soundtrack and the additional footage, as well as still photographs, film historians pieced together most of the film. The actual restored film presented is mostly comprised of large portions of the 1927 silent film interspersed with the found clips and stills from the 1930 film. The restored film inserts notices when the actual 1930 footage or stills are used. The 1930 footage is also tinted blue. This is nice to see, however, I still consider the movie lost. Ten minutes is not enough to convince me that it is a movie.
This is another Universal film where the English language version was shot during the day and the Spanish language version was shot on the same sets at night. The Spanish language version is still lost.
The short “Boo” is comprised of clips from “Nosferatu” 1920, “Frankenstein” 1931 and “The Cat Creeps” 1930.