The Cat and the Canary

[Ed Kasprowicz]

TCM ran the Bob Hope version of this movie last night. It seemed to be an absolutely pristine copy of this film from the early 1940's, much improved from any other airings that I can recall. Does anybody know if it's been restored, and, if so, by whom? They ran Ghost Breakers, another favorite, last week. I haven't seen either of these movies in quite a while, so I really enjoyed the recent showings. ...Ed K.

[Chris Ellis]

Yes, I watched them both too as I had not seen either in years. I think the Cat and Canary was a TCM premiere so they may have done some restoration work...the last time I saw this I guess was about 35 years ago on Saturday Night at the Movies, a program that showed old movies and ran for years on the educational channel in Ontario called TVO -- but that was so long ago I cannot recall what the print was like! Chris.

[GaryLeeOz]

Universal (aka NBC Universal) released a DVDset in 2010 called "Bob Hope - Thanks for the Memories collection" consisting of "the Cat and the Canary", "Thanks for the Memory", "the Ghost Breakers", "Nothing But the Truth", "Road to Morocco" and "the Paleface". The DVDset has a TCM sticker on it ... which must be TCM's "endorsement" of the product ? Anyway, Universal would have restored these movies ... or at least they would have taken a lot of care with the "film to DVD" transfer.

ps. It's still surprises me whenever I see that Universal logo sequence just before almost every classic Paramount movie.