Poe Cinema: The Black Cat (1934)

While I was absolutely fascinated and enthralled by the classic Universal monsters as a young kid, it wasn't until I was older and able to appreciate them that I became a fan of the actual actors who portrayed them. Obviously, I knew of both Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff from very early on, when I read up on their iconic characters in those library books, but I didn't start to become interested in them as actors until my early to mid-teens, when I saw some of the films outside their most famous ones. And once I got a taste, I became determined to see every film of theirs that I could, along with other horror legends like Lon Chaney Jr., Vincent Price, and such. The Black Cat was mentioned near the end of Universal Horror, although I didn't pay much attention to it, since it didn't have a monster. I didn't really become interested in it, or even aware of its significance, until I read up on it in a book on horror films at my high school's library, where I learned it was Karloff and Lugosi's first film together. Over time, I learned about and saw more of it, in repeats of Universal Horror during October and when it was featured on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments, at #68, focusing on the scene where Lugosi's character skins Karloff alive. By the time I did see it in my early 20's, I was aware of two things: it was considered one of the best of the many films Karloff and Lugosi appeared in together, and it was quite controversial in its day, containing some rather sick stuff which helped end the first cycle of Hollywood horror in the early-to-mid 40's. Upon watching it, I could understand why it caused such a stir, but the real question, as always, was whether or not I liked it. To this day, I think it's... fine. It's not my absolute favorite movie with Karloff and Lugosi (staying on the topic of Universal, I'm much more partial to The Raven, which we'll talk about in a few days, and The Invisible Ray), nor is it one of my favorite Universal Horrors, but it's certainly not a bad movie. As expected, the two of them give great performances, the film itself is a visual feast, and for the time, it is very bold in its content. But the story is sometimes muddled, with things just happening without explanation and no bearing on the plot, while others come off as confusing due to the editing.

American novelist Peter Alison and his new wife, Joan, are on their honeymoon in Hungary, when they learn that, due to a mix-up, they will have to share their train compartment with another man. That man is Dr. Vitus Werdegast, a psychiatrist who tells them that he is on his way to meet an old friend, Hjalmar Poelzig. During the journey, it becomes clear that Werdegast has some inner demons, as he tells Peter how he left his wife to fight in World War I and was sent to Kurgaal, a horrendous prison in Siberia. He's only now been released after fifteen years. Arriving in Visegrad, where Poelzig lives, they're joined by Werdegast's servant, Thamal, and transfer to a small bus to take them to their destinations. But the bus crashes due to a raging thunderstorm, killing the driver and injuring Joan. With nowhere else to go, the group heads to Poelzig's remote, isolated house on top of a hill, where Werdegast treats Joan's wounds. While Peter and Joan try to get a good night's sleep in the unsettling house, Werdegast confronts Poelzig. He has come to get revenge on him after he, as commander of Fort Marmorus, the site on which his house now stands, surrendered it to the Russians, resulting in the deaths of thousands and Werdegast's imprisonment. Werdegast is also sure Poelzig stole his wife, Karen, and their daughter while he was imprisoned. Eventually, Poelzig shows Werdegast Karen's embalmed, preserved body, part of a collection he keeps down in his basement, and tells him that his daughter is dead as well. Little does Werdegast know that she is alive, is also named Karen, and is herself now married to Poelzig. Moreover, Poelzig is a Satanist who plans to sacrifice Joan in a ritual that will take place the following night. Now Werdegast must wait for the right moment to exact his revenge on Poelzig, as the newlyweds find themselves caught in the middle of the "game" between the two disturbed men.

The film was the second American production for Edgar G. Ulmer, who went on to make many films from the 1930's up to the early 60's. Just 29 at the time, he'd worked as an art director in Austria since he was a teenager, under a number of notable directors. When he made The Black Cat, he took a lot of inspiration from those experiences, both in the film's visual style and its content. Ulmer also showed some serious guts and slyness while making the film. When Universal executives, appalled by the horrific nature of the film, insisted that he shoot some extra footage to tone it down, he instead shot material that was even more morbid than what he'd already done. Shot in less than three weeks, on a budget of just over $95,000, The Black Cat would go on to be Universal's biggest moneymaker of 1934. However, during production, Ulmer began an affair with his script girl, Shirley Beatrice Kassler, whose husband happened to Carl Laemmle's nephew. When Kassler divorced her husband and married Ulmer, he was barred from both Universal and most of the major studios. He was then forced to work almost entirely at Producers Releasing Corporation, a poverty row studio and, apparently, one of the worst at that. He's actually credited with making the best movies they ever released. But his career never recovered from the scandal, which is a shame, because The Black Cat is proof that he did have a lot of talent and potential. Ulmer died of a stroke in 1972, at the age of 68.

Many years ago, I felt that ,while Bela Lugosi was iconic as Dracula, Boris Karloff was a much better actor all-around. Now that I've seen many more of his movies, I feel bad about having thought that way. While Karloff was undoubtedly awesome in every film and television appearance he made, Lugosi was just as talented, even if his type of acting was much more bombastic. His performance here as Dr. Vitus Werdegast is an especially great testament to his talent. As he usually was, he's quite charming and polite to the young honeymooners in his introduction, even willing to sleep in the corridor so as not to intrude upon them. When they decide to let him stay with them for just a few hours, he makes small-talk about their ultimate destination of Gombos, but then, when he talks about going to meet his old "friend," Hjalmar Poelzig, you immediately sense that something isn't quite right. Later, while Peter and Joan are sleeping, Peter catches Werdegast softly touching Joan's hair. Werdegast then explains that he had a wife very much like Joan, whom he was forced to leave behind to go to war. He adds that he was taken to a horrific prison camp, Kurgaal, where, as he himself later says, "The soul is killed, slowly." He emphasizes to Peter, "Many men have gone there. Few have returned. I have returned. After fifteen years... I have returned." Later, when they transfer from the train to a bus, the driver's descriptions of what the countryside looked like during the war clearly pains Werdegast, and for more reasons than you would initially think. Following the bus crash, Werdegast and his servant, Thamal, have no choice but to bring Peter and Joan to Poelzig's home, where Werdegast sees to Joan's wounds. When Poelzig is finally introduced, Werdegast confronts him elsewhere in the house, where we learn the full extent of their venomous relationship and the real reason behind Werdegast's pain: "You sold Marmorus to the Russians. You scurried away in the night and left us to die. Is it to be wondered that you should choose this place to build your house? A masterpiece of construction built upon the ruins of the masterpiece of destruction. A masterpiece of murder. The murderer of 10,000 men returns to the place of his crime. Those who died were fortunate. I was taken prisoner to Kurgaal. Kurgaal, where the soul is killed, slowly. Fifteen years, I've rotted in the darkness. Waited. Not to kill you. To kill your soul... slowly."

By this point, it's clear that, despite how charming and pleasant Werdegast was initially, his time at Kurgaal has driven him insane. And yet, while he's been plotting his revenge on Poelzig for a long time, because of the Alisons, he and Thamal bide their time, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. But Werdegast loses control and almost shoots Poelzig when he learns that he not only stole away his wife, Karen, whom he always had his eye on, but he preserved her body after her death in an obsessive attempt to keep her beautiful. Only the

sight of a black cat, which Werdegast is deathly afraid of, saves Poelzig's life. Worried about Poelzig's sudden interest in Joan, Werdegast challenges him to a game of chess, saying that he must let them go should he win. Naturally, though, Werdegast loses and the Alisons are kept at the house against their will. Still waiting for the right time, Werdegast has no choice but to remain idle, with Thamal obeying Poelzig to that end. It's during the satanic ritual Poelzig performs that night

that they act, rescuing Joan from being sacrificed and urging her to escape. That's when Werdegast learns that Poelzig also eventually married his daughter, whom he was told had died along with her mother. Finding that Poelzig recently murdered her, Werdegast is completely pushed over the edge. He and Thamal strap Poelzig to his own embalming rack and Werdegast takes his revenge by flaying the skin from his face. However, Werdegast himself doesn't survive much longer, fatally shot due to a misunderstanding. Still, he has enough strength left to throw a switch that completely destroys the house. 

Though some viewers see Werdegast as much of a villain as Poelzig, I disagree. While Werdegast is definitely a troubled man who makes some questionable decisions and, by the end of the movie, is crazed to the point of taking a grisly revenge, he still makes an effort to save the innocent couple caught up in his and Poelzig's battle of wills. However, there is no sympathy at all intended for Poelzig, who has to be one of the most vile and utterly evil characters Boris Karloff ever played. From the moment we first see him, which is completely in silhouette as he gets out of bed, we know that this guy is bad news, and the air of menace about him when he enters the room where Werdegast is treating Joan's injuries is overwhelming. We then learn just how much of a monster he is, first in how he gave Fort Marmorus over to the Russians, resulting in the death and torture of thousands of Hungarians, and then built his house on top of the ruins, a house where he commits hideous acts like embalming the bodies of his dead wives and performing rituals of Satanism. And as if that weren't enough, when Werdegast was taken to Kurgaal, Poelzig told his wife that her husband was dead and took her as his own wife, later doing the same to her and Werdegast's daughter when she came of age. He's so determined to have everything that was originally Werdegast's that, when his daughter learns her father is still alive, Poelzig kills her off-camera so he won't be able to take her away. After Werdegast fails to shoot him when he sees his wife's preserved body, Poelzig makes his feelings clear: "Are we men or are we children? Of what use are all these melodramatic gestures? You say your soul was killed, and that you have been dead all these years. And what of me? Did we not both die here in Marmorus , fifteen years ago? Are we any the less victims of the war than those whose bodies were torn asunder? Are we not both the living dead? And now you come to me, playing at being an avenging angel, childishly thirsty for my blood. We understand each other too well. We know too much of life." He then adds, "We shall play a little game, Vitus. A game of death, if you like."

Though Poelzig says their game will begin once the honeymooners have gone, the evil glint in his eye when he looks at Joan, even when he's putting on a very thin veil of charm, says otherwise. Werdegast knows exactly what it means, and they play chess to determine whether the couple will leave or not. Though it goes on for a while, Poelzig wins, fundamentally sealing their doom. He also sees to it that there is no way at all for them to escape, as both the car and the phones are sabotaged. Come that night, the Dark of the Moon,

he intends to make Joan a sacrifice in his satanic ritual. However, something unexpected happens during the ceremony, which Werdegast and Thamal use as a distraction to rescue Joan. And when Poelzig follows them down into the cellar, he almost succeeds in overpowering Werdegast in a fight. But thanks to Thamal's intervention, Poelzing is chained to his embalming rack, stripped to the waist, and his face is skinned by Werdegast, making his death just as gruesome as it is painful.

While it didn't require elaborate makeup like Frankenstein's monster or Imhotep, Karloff's look as Poelzig is very striking and menacing. Jack Pierce gave him a gray wig with a very pronounced, wide widow's peak, some very notable sideburns, dark eyebrows, and even some dark eyeliner for just that added touch of evil. Just as noteworthy is his wardrobe, which consisted of form-fitting, completely black sleeping clothes for the film's first act (they kind of remind of the outfit he wore as Ardath Bey in The Mummy), a black sort of smoking jacket for the middle portion, and finally, a black-and-white satanic priest-like robe, complete with the medallion of a pentagram that he wears around his neck.

As was often the case when a movie starred Karloff and Lugosi, the rest of The Black Cat's cast are just kind of there, and that's especially true when it comes to Peter (David Manners) and Joan Alison (Jacqueline Wells). Their only purpose is to be the normal people caught in the middle of this battle between two madmen, but while their performances are certainly not spectacular, they're acceptable, if nothing else. Manners' role as Peter Alison is not much different from those of Jonathan Harker in Dracula and Frank Whemple in The Mummy, as he's, once again, the handsome beau of the female lead and, also like in those movies, not an effective hero at all. In fact, he's confined to a cell in the basement during much of the third act, so Werdegast and Thamal are the ones who save Joan. Even worse, when he tries to escape, he fights with the Majordomo, only to get knocked out again. When he finally does escape near the end of the movie and grabs a gun, he ends up shooting and fatally wounding Werdegast, thinking he's part of Poelzig's scheme. Still, he and Joan are able to escape before Werdegast destroys the place completely. Peter does have some memorable moments. He says Werdegast's assumption that the narcotic he gave Joan has made her a temporary medium is, "A lot of supernatural baloney," to which Werdegast responds, "Supernatural, yes. Baloney, perhaps not." Shortly afterward, Poelzig enters Peter's room, unaware that he and Werdegast switched bedrooms, and makes an ominous threat that awakens him with a start. Once the two men leave, Peter says to himself, "Next time, I go to Niagara Falls." And at the very end of the movie, when Peter and Joan are on another train, they read a review of Peter's latest mystery story in the newspaper. While the work is praised, they're dumbfounded when the critic goes on to say, "We feel, however, that Mr. Alison has, in a sense, overstepped the bounds on the matter of credibility. These things could never, by the furthest stretch of the imagination, actually happen. We could wish that Mr. Alison would confine himself to the possible instead of letting his melodramatic imagination run away with him."

Jacqueline Wells has even less to do as Joan Alison. While she initially reminds Werdegast of his long lost wife and becomes the focus of Poelzig's evil intentions, she doesn't do anything that memorable except scream and faint. Save for the scene where she enters the room after Werdegast has killed Poelzig's cat and behaves and speaks very strangely, like she is in a trance (she later tells Werdegast that she has no memory of what happened), the only notable thing she does is discover that Werdegast's daughter, Karen, is still alive and is Poelzig's latest wife. She later tells Werdegast this when he and Thalmus rescue her and, combined with the discovery that Poelzig has since murdered Karen, it prompts him to take his gruesome revenge on his enemy. Other than that, Joan is no different from a typical leading lady of horror films from this time period. 

One character who I find kind of awesome is Thamal (Harry Cording), Werdegast's servant. A big, burly guy who never says a single word, he obeys Werdegast just as implicitly as the Majordomo obeys Poelzig. After Werdegast has learned of his wife's grisly fate, Thamal is suddenly about to take the initiative and go kill Poelzing but Werdegast stops him, telling him that they must bide their time and, until he says so, he must do what ever Poelzig says. To that end, he even prevents the Alisons from leaving and helps imprison Peter. But once Werdegast seizes his chance, Thamal helps him rescue Joan. He also proves to be extremely tough as, when they're confronted by the Majordomo, he shoots Thamal, but he's still able to grab him and beat him into submission before collapsing. A few minutes later, despite being mortally wounded, Thamal pops up again and helps Werdegast overpower Poelzig and tie him to the embalming rack, before finally dying.

The Majordomo (Egon Brecher) is also pretty sinister and proves to be more formidable than you would think by looking at him. He follows Poelzig's bidding to the letter, putting Peter in a cell down in the basement, helps Poelzig plan the ceremony for that night, and fatally shoots Thamal during the climax, though it doesn't stop him from beating him to death. Karen (Lucille Lund), Werdegast's daughter who is now Poelzig's wife, is only in a few scenes, as Poelzig orders her to stay in their bedroom while everyone is there, but I still

cringe when I think about a young woman like her being married to and sharing a bed with a middle-aged creep like Poelzig. We know that Karen was very young, perhaps only two years old or so, when Werdegast was sent to Kurgaal, and if you add on the fifteen years, that wouldn't even make her twenty. Ugh. Also, is Karen just dumb or something? Right after Poelzig tells her to stay in their bedroom the next day, he says out loud, "No one shall take you from me. Not even Vitus, not even your father." And yet, when Joan tells Karen she knows her father, she says her father died in prison. You could argue that she was asleep when Poelzig spoke to her but she was awake just a moment earlier, asking him what was going on, and in a wide shot, where Poelzig looks through a book on the Rites of Lucifer, you can see that Karen is awake beside him. Then again, she doesn't react at all when Joan insists that her father is in the house and has come for her, so she may be a little slow on the uptake. Lund also appears as the preserved body of Werdegast's wife in the glass case.

The day after the accident, a police lieutenant (Albert Conti) and sergeant (Henry Armetta) come by Poelzig's house to gather what information they can. However, they become distracted when the lieutenant gushes about his hometown, Gombos, the Alisons' ultimate destination, only for the sergeant to insist that his hometown, Pisthyan, is better. It's not important but it's a funny little exchange, with the sergeant telling the lieutenant, when he says Pisthyan was "alright" ten to fifteen years before, that he's taking things a bit too far. After the lieutenant tells Peter that he hopes they can go on to Gombos, the sergeant again insists upon Pisthyan as soon as the lieutenant is out of ear-shot. And finally, if you look closely at the cultists who attend Poelzig's ceremony, you can see John Carradine among the crowd. He's later plays the organ in an overhead shot. Also, according to IMDB, one of the cultists is King Baggot, the star of 1913's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

According to his daughter, Arianne Ulmer Cipes, Edgar Ulmer was heavily involved with the film's visual style, particularly when it came to the distinct look of Poelzig's house. While the few other sets, like the inside of the train (the opening scene at the station is stock footage from another film) and the Visegrad station exteriors, are definitely normal, once the characters enter Poelzig's home, it feels as if they've left the real world behind and entered into his. Situated at the

top of a large hill, his house looks like nothing you'd expect to see in films made at this time, combining his own dark, disturbed mindset with his prowess as an architect. Ulmer based its design on the architecture of a German art school called the Bauhaus, giving it a very modern, Art Deco feel, with everything looking as though it were made of stainless steel, and with such interesting details like a short, spiraling staircase in front of a wall made up of many small squares, a section 

underneath that's shaped like an inverted triangle, with circles in its center, sliding doors to the various rooms, as well as the front door, rather small, compact chairs, and even high-tech stuff like an intercom in Poelzig's bedroom and what looks like a digital clock at Peter's bedside. Speaking of Poelzig's bedroom, it's striking in that it has what looks like a veil surrounding it, and a bizarre screen to the right of it. The other bedrooms are also unusual, looking more like rooms in a hotel rather than someone's house, and they're connected

to each other through sliding doors. The sitting room is probably the most normal-looking one in the house, kind of looking more like an office, but it still has that feeling of being off-kilter. But it's in the house's lower levels, reached by another spiraling staircase beyond a door, where it goes from off-putting and bizarre to downright horrific. In the dark, underground tunnels and corridors where the fort's weapons were kept, Poelzig has built rooms housing the bodies of his preserved wives, as well as the room containing the

embalming rack and medical instruments, and a rotating room that moves away from the door, with the opening now blocked by the wall, which is where Peter is kept prisoner (although he escapes very easily). Poelzig's satanic ritual is conducted upstairs, in a spot where Joan is tied to an altar that looks like a slumped over cross with beams going through it, surrounded by bizarre shapes that look straight out of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, and which also contains an organ that Poelzig plays. 

Not surprisingly, given his background, Ulmer and his cinematographer, John J. Mescall (who was working frequently with James Whale at the time), totally bathed the movie in the look and feel of German Expressionism, with incredible instances of light and shadow. Notable examples include the first time you see the interior of Poelzig's house, with the lights slowly coming up as the front doorbell is rung; Poelzig's own introduction, where he's first seen in silhouette after he rises up in bed 

and switches on the beside lamp (isn't his head shaped like the Frankenstein monster's in that shot?); all of those shots down in the basement early on, especially when Werdegast is shown his wife's body and when you see the shadow of the black cat in the doorway, which badly frightens Werdegast as it falls along the wall to his right; and the shadow of Werdegast skinning Poelzig alive at the end of the movie. Besides the lighting, Mescall also shows off his penchant for moving the camera almost completely through a stage, as seen during

the first shot of the interior of the house, when Poelzig walks through the house and basement, and, most notably, in an extended tracking shot that starts on Werdegast after he's been frightened by the cat and goes out the door, through the hallway, and back to the staircase that leads down from the upper section. There is a dissolve here and there during that sequence but it's very impressive, especially since it appears to be Poelzig's POV, as he talks to Werdegast about how they're both "the living dead" and mentions the game that they're

going to play. Poelzig's growing unhealthy interest in Joan is visualized early on in a close-up of his hand gripping a small sculpture of a nude woman, leaning back on her hands, by the arm. And when he's being skinned, his agony and inability to escape is emphasized with a close-up of his hand writhing within the shackle.

Ulmer took inspiration from German cinema in other ways. Poelzig is not only named after Hans Poelzig, the art director on 1920's The Golem (which Ulmer claimed to have worked on, among other notable German movies of the time, but there is no evidence that this was true), and based him on legendary director Fritz Lang, whom he was an admirer of but also felt was a complete and total sadist. (Lucille Lund, who played Karen, said that Ulmer himself was sadistic towards her when she rejected being his girlfriend.) And the bus driver who dies early on was based, visually, on a similarly unlucky character in F.W. Murnau's The Last Laugh.

As with most of these early films, this isn't exactly a special effects tour de force, but what few effects that are here are done effectively. They both involve exterior shots of Poelzig's home, such as the establishing shot of it sitting up on a hill, a graveyard at its base, and at the end, when it's destroyed in a massive explosion. The explosion itself is not much to write home about, as it's just a bunch of flashing lights and old-fashioned blasting sounds, but it serves its purpose.

The Black Cat is definitely one of the darkest and most somber of the Universal Horrors, an atmosphere that's punctuated all the more by its striking and shadowy visuals. Very early on, when Werdegast is first introduced, we get hints of his sad, tortured character when he looks out the train's window, then looks at Joan as she sleeps and reaches at her hair in a melancholic manner, before telling Peter a bit of his tragic backstory. Then, when they arrive in Visegrad, it's raining and

miserable, and as the bus driver talks about the war and how many men died during it, Werdegast grimaces at the memories he's bringing back up, especially when he notes that Poelzig built his house at the site of Fort Marmorus. Even before we enter Poelzig's home and see how bizarre it is on the inside, we get that establishing shot of it sitting up on a hill in the midst of the thunderstorm, overlooking a graveyard down below, an image that becomes more significant when we learn that he betrayed the men under his command at the fort

and left them to die. And as the movie goes on and we learn just how depraved Poelzig is, and how the, ultimately, good but unhinged Werdegast plans to take revenge on him, the atmosphere outside the house continues to be downbeat and miserable. The sky remains overcast throughout the day, and the transition to night, with the wind blowing through the trees, signifies the Dark of the Moon, where Poelzig plans to sacrifice Joan as part of his satanic ritual.

The film is also among the most depraved and perverse horror films made during the Pre-Code era. For one, Satanism is a part of the plot, with Edgar Ulmer and his co-screenwriter, Peter Ruric, taking inspiration from notorious occultist Aleister Crowley (if you look at pictures of Crowley in his ceremonial garb, you may notice that he looks quite a bit like Poelzig), and I've read that it was one of the first movies to deal with this subject matter. For another, you have the aforementioned

hideous idea of Poelzig sharing a bed with young Karen, as well as his preserved wives, which give serious hints of necrophilia. All of that is made even more hideous when Werdegast discovers Karen's body in the embalming room, ready to take her place with Poelzig's other wives. Speaking of which, the sequence where he walks past their bodies, before bringing Werdegast down there, was the result of a reshoot. Universal executives were appalled by what Ulmer was filming, particularly the skinning alive scene, and gave him two days to

shoot new material in order to tone down the horror. Instead, Ulmer shot this, and the executives were completely oblivious as to how even more horrific it made the film, and let it pass (it's baffling to think that they didn't get it). That brings us to the skinning scene itself. Even though Poelzig is an evil person and deserves everything he has coming to him, it's still cringe-inducing to see that close-up of Poelzig's hand wriggling in the shackle, the shadow of Werdegast scraping the skin off his face, and the sound of him yelling in agony.

As bold and striking as the film is, it has virtually nothing to do with the Edgar Allan Poe short story. Ulmer himself admitted that the title was nothing more than a ploy by the studio to pique the public's attention, and it wouldn't be the last time they would do that. The only real connection is Werdegast's intense case of ailurophobia, or fear of cats, so strong that he actually throws a knife at a black cat when it appears in the sitting room's doorway. You don't ever learn why he has this phobia, it only comes up a couple of times altogether, and its only significance is that it prevents Werdegast from killing Poelzig after he sees Karen's preserved body.

That serves as a nice segue into one aspect of the movie that keeps me from absolutely loving it: it's a case of style over substance. While it's top notch on a visual and technical level, the story is sometimes convoluted. The basic plot is simple enough, but the way it builds and builds on the depravities that Poelzig has committed makes it feel like it's trying very, very hard to just shock you over and over. There are also random things that happen and don't amount to much, if anything, in

the long run. After Werdegast gives Joan a narcotic while treating her injuries, she walks around in a trance-like state for a bit. When Werdegast kills Poelzig's cat, Joan enters the room, just stares at Peter when he talks to her, then walks up to Werdegast and says, in a seemingly amused tone, "You are frightened, doctor?", before sleepily turning to Poelzig and saying, "You are our host." Joan is taken back to her room, and when Peter asks Werdegast why she's acting this way, he

explains, "Hyoscine affects certain people very oddly. One cannot be sure. Sometimes these cases take strange forms. The victim becomes, in a sense, mediumistic. A vehicle for all the intangible forces in operation around her." It doesn't matter, because when Joan wakes up the next morning, she doesn't remember anything after the crash, and the issue is never brought up again. Then there's the black cat itself. Not only is Werdegast's fear of cats random, with no impact on the story whatsoever, but so is a

conversation that he, Poelzig, and Peter have about the mystical qualities of the black cat. Peter brings up how Joan was affected when Werdegast killed the cat and the doctor writes it off as coincidence, but then says, "Certain ancient books say that the black cat is the living embodiment of evil. At death, that evil enters into the nearest living thing." Poelzig adds, "The black cat does not die. Those same books, if I am not mistaken, teach that the black cat is deathless. Deathless as evil. It is the origin of the common superstition of the cat with

nine lives." I bring this up because, later on in the film, we see Poelzig carrying and stroking a still very much black cat, which later frightens Werdegast and keeps him from killing Poelzig. It could be argued that Poelzig simply has more than one cat, but I can't help but wonder if this was meant to validate that conversation, that this is the same black cat that Werdegast threw the knife at, alive and well because, as those ancient texts say, it simply cannot die. But, again, it never becomes a major issue and is forgotten by the third act. 

And speaking of the third act, specifically the climax, there are some things that happen here which are just confusing. Just as Poelzig is about to sacrifice Joan, a female cultist suddenly shouts and faints, as if she saw something that horrified her. Until just recently, I wasn't sure what happened, although I had heard a couple of rumors. One was that it was originally intended for the ritual to cause her to orgasm, with the scream being one of ecstasy. Needless to say, that idea didn't go over

well, so they had to rework it so seemed like a scream of fear. I felt the orgasm theory made sense, as the woman in question does look excited in the close-ups and wide shots of her listening to Poelzig speak in Latin beforehand, and I doubted that a cultist would become upset at something she has to have taken part in before. But, apparently, that is what happens in the film as it is. Looking at the scene more closely, I now realize that the cultists had their backs turned while Poelzig moved in on Joan, and that woman turned around, looked, and

screamed and fainted at what he was about to do. I never realized that until just now, as the editing and camera angles don't make it all that clear, but I'm still incredulous that she didn't realize what Poelzig was up to. I've heard another theory, which states that there was a deleted scene or shot where Werdegast tipped the woman off to distract the cultists so he could rescue Joan, as it's only because of her that he's even able to do so. Again, that would make a lot more sense, but there's no evidence that any such moment ever existed. So, it seems like the reason behind why the climax even happens at all is a completely random and ridiculous one.

While the climax itself is fairly exciting, there's another instance where the editing and speed of the action makes it difficult to discern what just happened. Werdegast and Thalmus rescuing Joan and taking her down into the cellar is inter-cut with Peter attempting to escape his cell. He gets the door open, walks out and sees one of Poelzig's preserved wives in the room beyond, then we see that the Majordomo is down there. He approaches the door Peter is about to come through and Peter,

in turn, hides to its side, waiting to ambush him. When he creeps in, Peter grabs him from behind and the two of them fall to the floor, struggling with each other. We then cut to Werdegast and Thalmus carrying Joan down the stairs leading into the basement, and when we cut back to Peter, he's suddenly lying on the floor, unconscious, and the Majordomo leaves him there, leading to his fatal confrontation with Thalmus. It's so confusing and happens so fast that I didn't process what went

down initially, and it's only when Peter regains consciousness while Werdegast is skinning Poelzig alive that I remembered he was still a part of the action at all. There's also a continuity error: after he knocks Peter out, the Majordomo takes his gun and uses it to shoot Thalmus, but when Peter regains consciousness, he finds the gun lying at his side. But, as confusing as that is, it doesn't take away from the impact of the climax, as Werdegast learns that Poelzig has truly taken everything from him and he gets revenge by shackling him to the

embalming rack and skinning him. Then, when Peter comes to save Joan, she has to remove the key to the room from Thalmus' dead hand. Werdegast tries to help her but Peter, not knowing of his intention, shoots him. Once Joan unlocks the door and tells Peter that he was only trying to help, Werdegast tells them both to go while they can. As they run for it, Werdegast walks over to a control panel of switches and says to himself, "It's the red switch, isn't it, Hjalmar? The red switch ignites the dynamite." He throws said switch and adds, "Five

minutes. Marmaros, you and I, and your rotten cult will be no more." He pulls one final switch and says, "It has been a good game." With that, the demolition charges, left over from the fort, is ignited and the place is blown sky high.

After Dracula and Frankenstein had no music scores, save for the opening and ending credits, and The Mummy and The Invisible Man each had brief instances of score, The Black Cat is really the first Universal Horror to have music playing throughout much of it. Compiled by Heinz Eric Roemheld, said score is made up of numerous classical pieces. For instance, Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture is used as the leitmotif for Peter and Joan, and is heard many times throughout the film whenever they have a tender moment. Poelzig has a very strong, leitmotif that's heard just about every time he enters into a scene (said cue is a piece by Robert Schumann with the mouthful of a name of Quintet for two violins, viola, cello and piano in E flat major, opus 44). There are a couple of cues by Franz Liszt that stuck out to me when I first heard them, as they were later played in the film, Werewolf of London. One is a menacing excerpt from Les Preludes, which is heard during the aftermath of the bus accident and when Poelzig is standing outside, watching the sky as the night of the Dark of the Moon begins. The other is a somber piece that plays in the scene where Poelzig is looking at his preserved wives. In the scene in the sitting room, where Werdegast kills the black cat, Franz Schubert's Unfinished Symphony makes yet another appearance, playing on the radio. And before the cultists arrive, Poelzig plays Toccata and Fugue in D Minor on the organ. There are many other classical pieces heard here, with some works by Beethoven and Johannes Brahms, but those are the ones that stand out to me specifically.

While it's not a favorite of mine, The Black Cat is, nonetheless, a must-see for fans of classic horror and especially of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Not only do you have two powerhouse performances from them, but you also have an interesting, eerily-designed setting, wonderful Expressionistic cinematography, and a lot of ballsy material for a 1930's film, including Satanism, necrophilia, pedophilia, and flaying of skin. But, ignoring the fact that it has nothing to do with the Poe story, none of the other actors are able to match up to the two stars, the film is more concerned with its visual style and shocking content rather a tight story, given the random and inconsequential plotpoints, and there are moments during the climax that can confuse you, even if you are paying the strictest attention. Still, there's plenty here to recommend the flick, and at just 65 minutes, it's definitely not much of a commitment to watch.