Review: The Black Cat

Writer David Manners and wife Jacqueline Wells are honeymooning in Hungary when they get caught up in the conflict between old acquaintances Dr. Vitas Werdegast (Bela Lugosi) and an Austrian-born Satanist named Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff, credited here as just ‘Karloff’) in the latter’s rather bizarre modern-looking house/lair. It seems the evil Poelzig has committed some very great wrongs towards Dr. Werdegast, and they are set to hash it all out.

 

Director Edgar G. Ulmer (“My Son, the Hero”, “Detour”) and his co-writer Peter Ruric (“Twelve Crowded Hours” with Lucile Ball) take nothing more than the title and an on-screen cameo by the title character for this 1934 Universal horror film. Whatever it may lack in Edgar Allen Poe (it’s closer to Aleister Crowley territory), it makes up for by looking great and being good, sinister fun.

 

Released prior to “Bride of Frankenstein”, Karloff gets one of his best early showings here as the sinister and creepy – but cordial and gentlemanly on the surface – Satanist named Poelzig. How much of a sinister and creepy Satanist is he? He reads a book about Satanism in bed! Yeah, that’s a curious bedtime story choice. The film is rich in thundery atmosphere from the outset, but Karloff’s classic entrance is the first thing that really makes you sit up and take notice. He also looks bizarre and rail-thin, whilst not playing a traditional ‘monster’ he looks positively other-worldly (the art-deco house interiors are also quite unusual). His sly and truly diabolical villainy steals the show, though Bela Lugosi gives one of his better performances too. Getting to play a rather complex character (but far from villainous), it’s saddening to see how good Lugosi is here and how dreadful he became in his latter, drug-addicted years. It’s like two completely different people. This film marked the first of eight on-screen pairings between Lugosi and Karloff, and a rarity in that each plays the role that would normally go to the other. David Manners is pretty good too, in one of the more colourless roles. Hell, there isn’t a bad performance in the film, really. The finale is creepy as hell and jolly good fun.

 

Although Ulmer isn’t as famous as say Tod Browning (“Freaks”, “Dracula”) or James Whale (“Frankenstein”, “Bride of Frankenstein”), he creates a damn good-looking, atmospheric film. Karloff is outstanding, Lugosi in solid form. Good stuff, if not on the level of “The Body Snatcher” or “Bride of Frankenstein”.

 

Rating: B-