Rent The Last Warning (1928)

Silent Thriller. - The Last Warning review by Steve

This is chiefly remembered for being the last of German director Paul Leni’s four horror influenced thrillers made at Universal before his death in 1929. It is conspicuously modelled on his success with The Cat and the Canary a year earlier. So it’s a mystery-comedy presented in the style of expressionist horror.

A Broadway production closes down after the leading man is murdered. Years later when the play re-opens, some of the original cast and crew insist the theatre is haunted. Laura La Plante returns from Cat and the Canary and has her name on the posters, but it’s an ensemble cast in which Margaret Livingston stands out as a flirty jazz babe.

Though really, Leni is the star and this is a showreel for the flair and gimmickry he accumulated by the end of the silents. It’s interesting to reflect on what might have been, had he lived. The mystery is serviceable, but the director fills the frame with energy and action even though this is set within a single location.

Which is the studio set for The Phantom of the Opera (1925). There was a version released with music, sound effects and brief dialogue but that has been lost. What remains isn’t as good as Cat and the Canary, but still a lot of fun for fans of silent cinema. And surely influenced Scooby Doo!