The Black Cat

Director: Edgar G. Ulmer

Overview

Boris Karloff meets Bela Lugosi for the first time in this highly-stylized and bizarre horror film that has a devil-worshipping architect, a hateful scientist and an innocent married couple. The scientist meets the couple aboard a Budapest-bound train. The trio end up on the same bus. When it crashes, the mysterious Dr. Vitus Verdegast (Lugosi) invites the newlyweds to take shelter at the mountain-top home of architect Hjalmar Pocizig (Karloff) who greets them dressed in an inky black robe. The couple are also frightened by his black lips and his bizarre haircut. Unbeknownst to the lovers, Verdegast has come for vengeance, for it was Pocizig who caused the deaths of thousands of Verdegast's countrymen during the war. It does not help that Pocizig commemorated the event by building his house upon the grisly site. During the war, the doctor was incarcerated and while serving his time, Pocizig stole Verdegast's wife and then married her daughter after she died. Not wanting to lose the stolen wife forever, Pocizig keeps her corpse perfectly preserved under glass. He does not tell Verdegast that he has married the daughter. As carefully constructed as Pocizig's black world is, it is not flawless and with some help from the newlywed husband, things quickly become unraveled, allowing good to once again triumph over evil.

Product Details

Release Date:	10/07/2014
UPC:	0025192139185
Original Release:	1934
Language:	English
Time:	1:06:00
Sales rank:	3,479

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Boris Karloff	Hjalmar Poelzig
Bela Lugosi	Dr. Vitus Verdegast
Jacqueline Wells	Joan Allison
David Manners	Peter Allison
Julie Bishop	Joan Allison
Lucille Lund	Karen
Egon Brecher	Majordomo
Henry Armetta	Sergeant
Albert Conti	Lieutenant
Anna Duncan	Maid
Herman Bing	Car Steward
Andre Cheron	Train Conductor
Luis Alberni	Train Steward
Harry Cording	Thamal
George Davis	Bus Driver
Alphonse Martell	Porter
Tony Marlow	Patrolman
Paul Weigel	Stationmaster
Albert Pollet	Waiter
Rodney Hildebrand	Brakeman
Andy Devine	Actor
John Carradine	Cult organist (uncredited)
Heinz Roemheld	Composer

Technical Credits

Peter Ruric

Edgar G. Ulmer

Carl Laemmle Jr.	Producer
Peter Ruric	Screenwriter
Edgar G. Ulmer	Screenwriter
John Fulton	Special Effects

Editorial Reviews

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.