Gerry Kingsley - The Cat and the Canary

[dem bones]

Gerry Kingsley - The Cat and the Canary (Sphere, 1977)
Based on a screenplay by Radley Metzger

Blurb:
MYSTERY AND MURDER AT GLENCLIFF MANOR....
Twenty years ago, miser millionaire Cyrus West had planned the occasion — a macabre family gathering for the reading of his will. In the uneasy gloom of the ancestral home, the old man-now long dead-would rejoin his loving relatives.... Only one of them would inherit his fortune. The others had an interest in seeing the heir dead or insane. The will was a licence for murder. And the news that an escaped lunatic, bestial in his lust for blood, was on the loose in the vicinity served to deepen the chill and terrifying sense of dread that haunted the guests at Glencliff Manor. Untold horrors were to follow. Could their evil be contained...?
Now a tense film of horror and suspense


"Good evening, leeches."

Enstrath village, Yorkshire, September 27th 1934. On the twentieth anniversary of misanthropic millionaire Cyrus West's death, his surviving relatives travel to Gencliff Manor to learn from his solicitor, Miss Alison Crosby, which of them has inherited the entire estate. The six hopefuls include Dr. Harry Blythe, disgraced surgeon; Miss Susan Sillsby, a noted athlete, and her spoilt, whiny girlfriend, Cicily Young: Paul Jones, American songwriter of modest repute (he's failed to match the success of an early hit, the Pollen Count); Charlie Wilder, war hero, minor Hollywood movie star, notoriously insatiable where other chaps' wives are concerned; and Annabelle West, a top fashion designer, Annabelle West, utterly gorgeous into the bargain. She neither needs nor especially cares about the money, which puts her in a minority of one. The others are desperate.

To prolong the torture, West insists Mrs. Mildrerd, Pleasant, his devoted housekeeper of six decades, serves them dinner while they watch a film of the deceased outlining the terms of his last will and testimony, insulting them the while as parasites and utter bastards. I'm sure you've guessed the jackpot winner. The rest go home with nothing — unless they can drive the beneficiary insane by the next morning. Should that be the case, Cyrus has shot a second film in which he names a substitute heir. There's also the business of the famous West necklace, hidden about the manor. The only clue' "It's been waiting to breathe for twenty years."
A brawl between bitter enemies Charlie Wilder and a very drunk Dr. Blythe ends abruptly when a stranger comes crashing through the window. Dr. Hendricks, chief psychologist at the Fairview Hospital for the criminally insane, gleefully announces the most disturbing news....

TBC