On a dark and stormy night, greedy relatives gather in a gloomy mansion for the midnight reading of a 20-year-old will and are unnevered by sinister events: a clawed hand emerging from the wall, a body falling from behind a secret panel, and word that an escaped lunatic is at large. Adapted from a popular melodramatic stage play, "The Cat and the Canary," the clever, stylish wellspring of all "old dark house" mysteries, delivers as many laughs as thrills.
