NEW OPERA HOUSE

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 147, 16 March 1940, Page 16

NEW OPERA HOUSE

A comedy-thriller, “The Cat and the Canary” lias been transferred to the New Opera House. The setting is an ancient colonial mansion in the Louisiana swamps, cobwebby ami rusty in the hinges, presided over by a lonely housekeeper who has lived in it since her wealthy employer died there 10 years before. There are dusty underground passages, pools of stagnant water, raucous bull-frogs, lichens' —and-, of course, that mysterious creature "The Cat.” The deceased owner of the mansion was an eccentric, and has directed that his will should not be opened till midnight, exactly 10 years after his death, and in his old house. On the appointed day a curious assortment of his heirs, cousins of various degrees, assemble along with the lawyer, and at midnight the will is read to disclose that Joyce Norman is the sole heir, provided she does not go mad or die within the succeeding month. If she does take either of these wrong turnings the name of the next heir is to be found in another envelope not yet opened. What with this revelation, and the obvious and bitter disappointment of the others, news of an escaped- maniac, and the horrible death of ahe lawyer, the requcnccs of events becomes more and more exciting.

Paulette Goddard makes a thoroughly

good job of the part of the frightened but courageous Joyce Norman who might have collapsed under the strain had it not been for the simple—but by no means calm —common sense of Waliy Campbell (Bob Hope).