The Black Cat

This debut pairing of Universal horror stars Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi packs surprising edge, but subsequent viewings reveal the film’s tonal and script flaws, making it almost as frustrating as entertaining.

Set in post-war Hungary, the story opens with American newlyweds Peter and Joan Alison traveling by train for their honeymoon. A ticketing mixup leads to them sharing their compartment with Lugosi, a Hungarian psychiatrist and veteran who spent the past fifteen years in a Russian prison camp. Lugosi is traveling to meet an “old friend”, and an accident sees the trio take shelter at Lugosi’s destination, the remote home of Karloff, an Austrian architect.

But Lugosi and Karloff prove to be anything but friends, as Lugosi knows it was Karloff who sold out to the Russians during the war, resulting in thousands of deaths and Lugosi’s imprisonment. Lugosi has come for revenge, but bides his time, waiting for the Alisons to depart. But Karloff, a Satanist, has designs on Joan and blocks the couple’s escape.

It’s a terrific setup for the first pairing of Universal’s biggest horror stars. The pre-Code production offers surprising edge. Karloff proves an amoral monster. The commander of a Hungarian fort, his traitorous turn sent thousands of men to their deaths, with the few survivors—like Lugosi—having to endure Siberian prison camps. Richly rewarded, Karloff then married Lugosi’s wife, only to likely kill her a few years after and preserve her corpse in a kind of suspended animation in his basement. In an incestuous turn, Karloff then married Lugosi’s teenage daughter—his then step-daughter—and built himself a mansion atop his old ruined fort.

That’s more evil than any villain either Karloff or Lugosi had played to that point, and it tees up the grisly finale where Lugosi skins Karloff alive. Of course, we don’t see it on-screen, but director Edward G. Ulmer does show the action in silhouette—another surprise.

But once the shock and surprise wear off, the film’s flaws become more apparent. Chief among them is tone. Despite the exceedingly dark story, the film shoehorns in awkward bits of comedy, like Peter saying, “Next time we go to Niagara Falls,” with a smirk before going to bed, or the local constable and his deputy arguing about which of their hometowns is the better destination. Aside from falling flat, these tonal anachronisms feel jarring—the equivalent of a record skip.

This tonal inconsistency extends to the titular cat. The credits say the film was “suggested by” the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name, but this only manifests as a lazy plot device that sees Lugosi terrified of black cats. The first occurrence happens early, as Lugosi, Karloff, and the Alisons are having drinks and a black cat wanders into the room. Lugosi—who struggles to play scared—drops his drink and staggers back before hurling a knife at the cat, killing it. Nobody seems fazed by the incident after Karloff explains Lugosi’s phobia, but from then on, whenever Lugosi gets the drop on Karloff, a black cat conveniently wanders into the room, sending Lugosi into a fit of fear. It’s a borderline laughable plot device that needn’t have been included.

Compounding matters are the Peter and Joan characters. Joan does nothing but scream and faint, and Peter just stands around. They exist to give Lugosi someone to talk to, and to serve as plot devices. They’re meant to be audience surrogates, but their characters are so flat and the performances so charmless, we care more about Lugosi, which ruins the finale.

While these inconsistencies become more glaring with each viewing, they stand in stark contrast to the film’s considerable achievements. For all its script problems, The Black Cat showcases remarkable talent both in front of and behind the camera.

Karloff and Lugosi are both excellent, with Lugosi showing his range as a heroic lead, and Karloff underplaying his part to terrific effect. But, I wonder, would the taller, suaver, Lugosi make for a more chilling villain and the meeker Karloff a more sympathetic hero? While Karloff’s understated performance proves a smart choice, I imagine a suaver, more charming version of his character could prove even more devilish. Consider Lugosi’s performance in Dracula mixed with the leading-man charm he demonstrates here. Meanwhile Karloff had already demonstrated a knack for portraying a vengeful prisoner in Howard Hawks’s The Criminal Code, and he can play scared better than Lugosi. The pair work regardless, but it’s a “what if” that’s struck me every viewing.

The real star here, however, is Ulmer, who studied architecture in Austria before coming to Hollywood as an apprentice of F. W. Murnau in 1926. His choice to have Karloff’s residence a modern, Bauhaus-inspired house proves an inspired change from the expected Gothic mansion or castle. It brings evil into the modern world and forces the film to rely on character tension and performances to generate atmosphere, rather than cobwebbed corridors. That said, the mansion’s basement—the ruined fort—provides ample Gothic gloom with its shadow-filled stone walls, so Ulmer really has the best of both worlds.

Ulmer also includes one of the earliest full musical scores, running through nearly eighty percent of the film. Despite the novelty, the excerpts from classical pieces by Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and Chopin highlight, rather than overpower the visuals.

And Ulmer delivers some memorable visuals. Besides the aforementioned finale, whenever the cat appears, Ulmer casts its shadow large and stark over the performers—usually Lugosi. Ulmer also shows restraint when a scene calls for it, such as the chess match between Karloff and Lugosi where Ulmer eschews any fancy camerawork and simply films the legends opposite one another and lets their considerable charisma do the rest.

I always wondered why Ulmer didn’t do more Universal pictures, horror or otherwise. Apparently, he made the mistake of having an affair with the wife of studio head Carl Laemmle’s favorite nephew. When she divorced the nephew to marry Ulmer in 1936, it saw Ulmer exiled from the major studios. A shame, as his visual style seemed a perfect match for the burgeoning Universal horror franchises. The Black Cat was only his second Hollywood production and its success might have granted him more leverage on his next project, which might have meant less awkward comedy and audience surrogates. But we’ll never know.

Thus, I find myself torn when it comes to The Black Cat. Fans of Universal horror who’ve never stepped outside the classic monster movies will be in for a treat, as will classic horror fans in general. But to those that have already seen it and hold it in warm regard, I caution against repeat viewings. It’s not as good as you remember.