The Last Warning

"The Cat and the Canary" (1927) must've been a popular entry in what was already a crowded field of old-dark-house horror comedies in the final years of the silent era. One need look no further for evidence of that fact than this followup film, "The Last Warning," which reunited director Paul Leni and star Laura Le Plante, as well as a couple of the same writers and art director, for a similar spooky murder mystery with the slight novelty that it's set in a theatre this time. Moreover, the next year, following Leni's death, Universal released a talkie remake of "The Cat and the Canary," the now-lost "The Cat Creeps" (1930). (Likewise, "The Last Warning" was later remade as "The House of Fear" (1939), which is the title of the book from which the play and, thus, the films were derived.) Although Leni's two films were based on different plays, it seems that many of these narratives tended to be strikingly similar, with perhaps the stage version of "The Bat" being the originator of the formula, which itself was made twice for the screen by Roland West ("The Bat" (1926) and "The Bat Whispers" (1930)). The other successful Universal property that "The Last Warning" clearly borrows from is "The Phantom of the Opera" (1925) by reusing its auditorium set, and like Gaston Leroux's story, the stage setting of "The Last Warning" features a play-within-a-play structure--offering a self-reflexive twist on the familiar old-dark-house formula.

Personally, although I've been reviewing quite a few of these films lately, I'm not a fan of the formula--at least not until James Whale introduced a more campy sense of humor and more twisted subject matter with "The Old Dark House" (1932). Before that, they tended to be exceedingly silly, relying on characters' fear of ghosts, and the mysteries are hardly interesting, if not appallingly convoluted. That of "The Last Warning" is especially of little concern, with nary a clue offered throughout the proceedings before an intricate resolution clumsily ties everything together in the end. The main point of the construction, though, was to replay the antics of the 1927 film. So, once again, there's a whodunit, the body of which disappears, and a group of suspects are brought together under one roof, where they're excessively scared that a ghost is behind all of the horrors. As in "The Bat" and "The Cat and the Canary," there's a masked menace creeping through hidden passages haunting the place. By employing "The Phantom of the Opera" set, the similarity between these haunted house plays to Leroux's story becomes blatant, as well, with both featuring a masked menace terrorizing its occupants. Unlike Leroux's Phantom, however, this one has no Christine, but rather insists that no play be performed at all.

Like "The Cat and the Canary," Leni's style here goes a long way in at least making them visually appealing. The superimpositions, including kaleidoscopic images, the moving title effects and moving-camera shots stand out. Originally, there were also sound effects and dialogue scenes, making this late silent film a goat gland and offering the additional technical marvelry of sound. More interesting, though, and why I like this a bit more than "The Cat and the Canary" and most of the other early old dark houses is the honesty of the self-reference of how shamelessly this film imitates its predecessors. In it, the same cast and crew are brought back together to perform the same play they performed years ago, when the original murder occurred, and this is essentially what Leni and the rest of the Universal staff were doing in making the film--bringing back the same cast and crew to perform basically the same play they performed years ago. Even where the cast isn't exactly the same in the two films, the different actors mimic some of the same types of the prior one--so much so that I initially thought that at least a couple others besides Le Plante had appeared in "The Cat and the Canary" as well. Appropriately, the play-within-the-play is titled "The Snare," the play itself being a snare to uncover the murderer in the narrative. In fact, the most we ever get of the inner play is from the point-of-views of the producer and stage hands as spectators of the culprit being lured in by their ruse, and not of the actual play performed for the theatre audience, whose perspectives we don't share. But, the real snare is the trap set by the filmmakers to lure audiences back for the same film in a new guise.

(Note: The reduction prints out there for home viewing are horrendous, but there is a restored version that has appeared at festivals. Hopefully, it'll receive a home video release someday like its companion piece, "The Cat and the Canary.")

Essentially this is part "Cat and the Canary" and part "Phantom of the Opera" - also silent Universal properties. It has some slack parts but the visual atmosphere helps to cover them up, and it has some very inventive title cards where the writing may be initially blurry and come into focus, or the writing may start up clear and then appear to melt down the page, or it may appear to be underwater.

The film is about an actor, John Woodford, in a theatre on Broadway, who dies suddenly when he gets to the part of the play where he is backed into the fireplace by another actor and picks up a candlestick. The lights go out, and when they come back on there is Woodford dead on the floor. The police come to question everybody who was present, then Woodford's body disappears before the coroner gets there. It is discovered by the police that Woodford and another actor, Richard Quayle (John Boles) were arguing in actress Doris Terry's (Laura LaPlante's) dressing room, and both were suitors of hers.

So without a body, the investigation cannot go on, the theatre is closed, and the papers are shown having a field day with the "love triangle" that is insinuated to have something to do with the killing. Several years later, Woodford's close friend (Montagu Love as Arthur McHugh) decides to reopen the theatre with the same cast as the night of the killing and the same play. Why does the entire cast return? Because to not return would make them look guilty.

But somebody does not want the play to open. Heavy scenery comes crashing down. Smoke bombs go off. Threatening letters are written to members of the cast that they perform at their peril, and some mysterious masked figure is running and jumping about the place and even stealing Doris' purse and putting her personal possessions in strategic places to make her look like she is in on all of the strange happenings. Is it the ghost of John Woodford trying to avenge himself? Well of course not. But it might be the real John Woodford, having faked his own death, and still mad at Boles and LaPlante for his romantic rejection. Watch and find out what is behind all of this.

The visuals are just great here. The opening scene reminds me somewhat of 1929's Broadway with all of the pictures of the Broadway nightlife of 1929. Also, the theatre, from the outside, looks like the face of some frightening creature complete with eyes, a nose, and mouth. I just wish better prints were available.

Paul Leni's last film after which he died from sepsis brought on by an infected tooth (seriously, go to your dentist), this is probably the first film in his Universal contract where he had real freedom after the large series of successes that had preceded it. Smaller in scale than his previous The Man Who Laughs and more than somewhat reminiscent of his first Universal feature, The Cat and the Canary, The Last Warning is a whodunit with a real sense of fun about its mystery and the movements through the plot without ever quite becoming a comedy. It stands on this razor's edge of tone and balances quite nicely, I think. It's not a great film, but it is a solidly fun one.

John Woodford, the actor whose theater shares his name, dies suddenly during a performance of the play The Snare when he grabs an electric lamp and dies instantly. It's a mystery that the police cannot solve, and the theater shuts down that very night for years.

Years later, the Bunce Brothers, Josiah (Burr McIntosh) and Robert (Mack Swain), reopen the theater under the supervision of Arthur McHugh (Montagu Love) who wants to do The Snare again with the same cast. McHugh is actually a police officer doing those sorts of weird, out-there investigations of a cold case that's going to get the culprit to reveal themselves out of guilt. I mean, it's nonsense, but it makes for some good melodramatics.

Anyway, the cast includes leading lady Doris (Laura La Plante), Richard (John Boles), and lothario Carleton (Roy D'Arcy). There's also the electrician Tommy (Slim Summerville) who points at every returning man and whispers that they're the one who killed Woodford, and the stage manager Mike (Bert Roach). They're all suspects, but the main focus falls on our leading lady and the man who loves her, Doris and Richard.

Things start going weird when people start seeing ghostly figures about as McHugh tries to organize rehearsals. There are messages hidden in the drawer with the scripts. There's a fire suppressant that gets uncorked just outside the room. There are power outages. It's all spooky and scary, and it's made all the worse by the fact that McHugh breaks into Woodford's old dressing room which has been shut up for the five years since the last show and discovers hidden passages leading to other parts of the theater, including Doris' dressing room.

The only way Robert can clear Doris' name given this evidence is to take up the role Woodford had been playing despite the warnings (including the titular last warning) at risk of his life. Okay, it's kind of dumb, but if Leni were taking it more seriously with less tongue in cheek that would be a problem, and this points to how Leni made his movies. It's this great combination of German Expressionism and a light touch that pushes the visuals into a greater camp direction. It's the combination that James Whale would continue later with things like The Old Dark House and Bride of Frankenstein in the sound era, a time that I am convinced Leni would have thrived in if he had just visited his dentist at some point in 1928.

So, it runs like minor, lightly comic Agatha Christie brought to the screen, and it kept me going for its brief runtime of about 80 minutes. I got Leni's playfulness in intertitles, interesting use of shadows and editing that sometimes replaced the use for actual sound (which, of course, the early-sound soundtrack makes somewhat redundant) and some campy performances from everyone. It's not high art, but it's playful fun.

I strongly suspect that if Leni had been given the early reins of the Universal Monster movies, like was reportedly the plan, he would have taken it in a similar direction as James Whale did. The early movies would be largely similar, but while I do enjoy films like Bride of Frankenstein, the camp feels amped up to a degree that takes me out. I like to think that Leni would have found a more delicate balance.

This movie pops up on ebay once in a while and for fans of mystery or horror films, particularly those of Universal, this is a must.

The plot is unimportant - it is about a haunted old theater where an old Broadway play is being brought back despite threats from the ghost of a dead actor.

This film was the last directed by the great Paul Leni. It is really the work of a virtuoso working at his peak. It has everything The Cat and the Canary had and more. The version that seems to be relatively available on video has a good music track too, but unfortunately it seems that the experimental sound sequences the film originally contained have not survived.

Nevertheless, we are lucky that this film has survived as it is such a joyous romp of horror cliches with inventive, wild camera moves and stunning lighting and spooky set design. It foreshadows the great horror classics that were less than two years away for Universal. It is just wonderful filmmaking from a forgotten great director who was at his peak, so if you are into old dark house mysteries or Universal horror movies - FIND IT! - It is one of the best!

8/10 - even better than The Cat and the Canary.

Astute producer Carl Laemmle invited talented German director Paul Leni to join Universal. This proved to be a masterstroke. Before his untimely death in 1929 Leni directed four films one of which, 'The Chinese Parrot' is considered 'lost', the other three of which are superb. From its astonishing opening sequence 'The Last Warning' is a brilliantly inventive and imaginative piece that holds our attention throughout. A great deal of credit must surely go to cinematographer Hal Mohr who, although American born, had assimilated European film techniques during a brief sojourn in Paris. His greatest achievement is the 'Midsummer Night's Dream' of Max Reinhardt. The specially composed score although a little over-orchestrated, is far superior to the usual incongruous, excruciating, tacked on scores with which so many restored silent films are cursed. Such a sadness to lose a director of Leni's gifts but his influence on Universal's classic horrors of the 1930's is there for all to see.