After years of only reading about this-Bob Hope's first starring role in an A picture after a few years struggling in some B's-I finally got to watch this rare showing of The Cat and the Canary on YouTube. Long unavailable on TV and video, this was a very pleasurable experience with the mostly clear print I saw on the site. While director Elliott Nugent provides the right sinister atmosphere for this third film adaptation of this classic mystery play that takes place in New Orleans in my home state of Louisiana (by the way, Crescent City residents would not take kindly to the way George Zucco pronounces their city's name here), Bob Hope provides perfect wisecracks in his role of a radio actor who's one of several possible heirs to a man that's been dead for 10 years. Besides him, there's also the stunning Paulette Goddard as the woman Hope falls for and is willing to protect despite his admitted cowardice (though it's not too emphasized here). As the housekeeper who was long loyal to the late house owner, Gale Sondergaard provides her own haunting beauty to the fore. I was also pleasantly surprised by a couple of familiar character actors who would become recognized on TV: Elizabeth Patterson (later Little Ricky's babysitter on "I Love Lucy"), and Charles Lane (who appeared as Homer Bedloe on "Petticoat Junction" and is another player that is in my favorite movie, It's a Wonderful Life). Even today in this age of more explicit horrors, The Cat and the Canary is great fun to watch. Oh, and I have to mention that one of my favorite lines from Hope concerns dead people coming back. "You mean Republicans?" he asks.