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| Above, before the mayhem, Lugosi, Karloff and Manners do some social drinking. |
Universal Pictures's
The Black Cat (1934) was the first pairing of their horror superstars Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi and my personal favorite of the pairings. Fortunately,
The Black Cat was produced during the heyday of Universal horror movies.
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| Above, Boris Karloff (Poelzig) and Bela Lugosi (Werdegast). |
The movie centers around a mad architect, Hjalmar Poelzig (Karloff) who lives in an art deco mansion built atop a fortress left over from the first World War. Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Lugosi) is a driven man on a quest to find his wife and daughter (both played by Lucille Lund).
Lugosi is joined by a newlywed couple, Peter and Joan Alison (David Manners and Jacqueline Wells) after meeting them on the Orient Express. They are later involved in an automobile accident and take refuge at Herr Poelzig's mansion.
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| Above, Werdegast is about to be led to the body of his wife by Poelzig. |
Unfortunately, Herr Poelzig is the high priest of a coven of Satan-worshippers who plans to make Joan the sacrifice in the group's next ceremony.
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| Above, Joan tells Werdegast that she saw his daughter Karen alive. |
Werdegast finds out that his wife is dead and her embalmed corpse on display in the chart room of the old fortress below the Poelzig mansion in a glass case. As he is about to shoot Poelzig, a black cat appears, causing Werdegast to recoil in fright.
Werdegast and his assistant take advantage of a diversion caused by a fainting woman at the Satanic ceremony to rescue Joan. As they are escaping, Joan reveals to Werdegast that his daughter Karen (Lund) is alive, but finds that Poelzig had just murdered her. After a fight, Werdegast shackles Poelzig on Poelzig's own embalming rack and proceeds to skin him alive.
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| Above, after being shackled onto his own embalming rack, Poelzig is told by Werdegast that he's about to be skinned. |
The Black Cat was directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and was suggested by the Edgar Allan Poe story.
This was one of Lugosi's best acting roles and Karloff carried off the evil Poelzig role quite nicely. This was David Manners's best roles as he wasn't stiff like he was in
Dracula (1931) and
The Mummy (1932). The art deco sets added to the surreal atmosphere.
The Black Cat also contained some great script lines (Lugosi's "Supernatural, perhaps. Baloney, perhaps not." And, Karloff's "Did you hear that, Vitus? Even the phone is dead!").
The Black Cat was produced while Universal was still controlled by Carl Laemmle and was followed by
The Raven (1935) and
The Invisible Ray (1936), each starring Karloff and Lugosi.
