Main Cast: Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, David Manners, Jacqueline Wells, Andy Devine, Lucille Lund
Release Year: 1934
Country: US
Run Time: 65 minutes
Plot
The first cinematic teaming of horror greats Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi is a bizarre, haunting, and relentlessly eerie film that was surprisingly morbid and perverse for its time. Peter (David Manners) and Joan Allison (Julie Bishop) are honeymooning in Budapest when they meet mysterious scientist Dr. Vitus Verdegast (Lugosi) aboard a train. When the trio's bus from the train station gets into an accident, the young couple accompanies Verdegast to the castle of the spectral Hjalmar Poelzig (Karloff), an architect and the leader of a Satanic cult. Poelzig's treachery in World War I caused the deaths of thousands of his and Verdegast's countrymen, as well as Verdegast's own internment as a prisoner of war. While Verdegast was detained, Poelzig married first his wife, who later died, then his daughter. Now Verdegast has come back for retribution, and the honeymooners are trapped in the two men's horrifying battle of wits. Corpses preserved in glass cases, frightening Satanic rituals, and a climactic confrontation in which one of the characters is skinned alive add to the film's pervasive sense of evil and doom, along with the stark black-and-white photography by John Mescall that makes Poelzig's futuristic mountaintop mansion even more disturbing. Karloff and Lugosi are both excellent, with Lugosi doing a rare turn as a good guy, albeit one who has gone off the rails. Having little to do with the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name, The Black Cat has grown in stature over the years and is now widely regarded as the masterpiece of director Edgar G. Ulmer and one of the finest horror films ever made. ~ Don Kaye, All Movie Guide
Review
The Black Cat is director Edgar G. Ulmer's masterpiece, and only the commercial considerations of its day prevent it from ranking higher on lists of the greatest films of the 20th century. The story operates on multiple levels, most deeply as a parable for post-WWI Europe. Unlike such anti-war films as All Quiet on the Western Front, which seem to have all the answers worked out before the first scene, The Black Cat presents a series of morally ambiguous metaphors that undermine the story's conventional ending. At its most basic level, The Black Cat works as a great horror film. The Bauhaus-inspired set design is uncomfortably disquieting, and Boris Karloff's performance creates one of the screen's most distinct and credible villains. The monsters in The Black Cat are human, unlike in other horror films of the era, where viewers could leave the theater and be quite sure that they would never be terrorized by a mummy or a werewolf. And while the audience understands that Bela Lugosi is the de facto representation of good, there are uncomfortable shortcomings in his character that hinder the audience's comfort. Regrettably, Ulmer felt the commercial need to include various elements of comic relief, and the stiff, uninteresting performance of David Manners as Peter Allison is a major liability. Nonetheless, in its best moments, The Black Cat is as powerful as any film of its era, and it represents the creative direction in which horror films of the 1930s were headed until censorship and other pressures forced them back into the mainstream. ~ Richard Gilliam, All Movie Guide
Two young honeymooners, Peter and Joan Alison, are vacationing in Hungary when they learn that due to a mix up in the reservations, they must share a train compartment with Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Béla Lugosi), a psychiatrist. The doctor explains that he is traveling to see an old friend, Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff), an Austrian architect. Werdegast had left his wife to go to war 18 years ago, and has spent the last 15 years in an infamous prison camp. Later, when the car the three share crashes and Joan is injured, they take her to Poelzig's home, built upon the ruins of Fort Marmorus, which Poelzig commanded during the war. After Werdegast treats Joan's injury, he accuses Poelzig of betraying the fort to the Russians, resulting in the death of thousands of Hungarians. He also accuses Poelzig of stealing his wife while he was in prison. Poelzig plans to sacrifice Joan Alison in a satanic ritual.
The Black Cat was part of a boom in horror "talkies" following the release of Dracula and Frankenstein in 1931. The film exploited the popularity of Poe and the horror genre, as well as a sudden public interest in psychiatry.[1]
The opening titles and the closing credits do not mention Boris Karloff's first name. Also the advertisements (for example, the poster in this article's info box) referred to him only as "Karloff". At the time, Karloff was the bigger star (a fact that rankled Lugosi, who had burst into stardom earlier with Dracula), hence the special billing. Even though Lugosi had the lead role, Karloff received top billing. Karloff's role is the adversary, and main source of fright of the story, while Lugosi is the tragic hero.
The film – and by extension, the character of Hjalmar Poelzig – draws inspiration from the life of occultistAleister Crowley.[2] The name Poelzig was borrowed from architect Hans Poelzig, whom Ulmer claimed to have worked with on the sets for Paul Wegener's silent film The Golem.
Critical reception and impact
The film was well received by critics and the public. On the movie review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, the movie received an average rating from critics of 85%. On the Internet Movie Database, the movie received an average user rating of 7.3. The film was also ranked #68 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for its "skinning" scene.
^ Neimeyer, Mark. "Poe and popular culture" as collected in The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe, Kevin J. Hayes, editor. Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 0521797276 pp. 216-7
