Today let’s travel back to the Golden era of Universal Pictures. This is one of the lesser seen classics starring Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi. Fake Poe didn’t start with Roger Corman!
Tagline: “Things you never saw before or ever dreamed of!”
WTF Factor: *** for the flaying scene
Notable Dialogue:
Peter: “I don’t know. It all sounds like a lot of supernatural baloney to me.”
Werdegast: “Supernatural…perhaps. Baloney…perhaps not. There are many things under the sun.”
Synopsis: Newlyweds Joan (Jacqueline Wells, known elsewhere as Julie Bishop) and Peter (David Manners, reunited with his Dracula co-star Lugosi) Alison are traveling on the Orient Express, sharing a compartment with Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Bela Lugosi). Werdegast is clearly quite taken with Joan. He tells them he is going to visit an old “friend” (you can hear the quotation marks), Hjalmar Poelzig, after spending 15 years in a notorious prison camp.
Werdegast: “Many men have gone there. Few have returned. [pause] I have returned.”
After leaving the train in a bad storm, there is a bus accident and Joan is slightly injured. Peter, Joan, Werdegast, and his servant Thamal go to Poelzig’s futuristic house, which is built over a graveyard (actually, an old fort).
Poelzig (Boris Karloff) is interested in Joan as well. Poelzig and Werdegast are not too happy with each other. Poelzig sold out their village to the Russian enemy during the war, and then married Werdegast’s wife Karen. Werdegast wants his wife back, and, in the only concession to Poe, exhibits an extreme fear of cats. Joan joins the men as if in a trance, behaving strangely after Werdegast throws a knife at the black cat and supposedly kills it.
Poelzig visits a series of rooms with several women encased in glass. He is holding a black cat. He then sneaks into Peter’s room, not knowing that Peter and Werdegast have switched rooms.
Poelzig: “Now, Vitus, we have something to settle, we two.”
Werdegast’s (and Poelzig’s) wife is actually dead, with her body preserved in the basement (although she still moves a lot). Poelzig says the Werdegast’s daughter is also dead. Werdegast pulls a gun on Poelzig but that darn cat comes back.
Poelzig promises Werdegast “a game of death” after the Alisons leave. Thamal offers to kill Poelzig, but Werdegast refuses…for now. Unbeknown to Werdegast, Poelzig is now shacked up with Werdegast’s daughter, Karen (Lucille Lund, who also plays her mother’s corpse).
It turns out that Poelzig wants Joan for the “ceremony” tonight.
Notable dialogue:
Werdegast: “There was nothing spiritual in your eyes when you looked at that girl. You plan to keep her here.”
Poelzig [fondling chess piece]: “Perhaps.”
Werdegast: “I intend to let her go.”
Poelzig: “Is that a challenge, Vitus?”
Werdegast is not pleased, and agrees to play chess for Joan’s freedom. Comic cops stop by in the meantime to ask about the accident.
Peter wants to leave, but Poelzig is not too helpful. Werdegast loses the chess game.
Poelzig [slowly, in best Karloff voice]: “Do you hear that, Vitus? The phone is dead. Even the phone is dead.”
Thamal clobbers Peter when they try to leave and Joan faints, of course (after all, it’s the 1930s). Poelzig locks Joan in her room and Peter ends up in the basement. While Poelzig plays, what else, the Toccata and Fugue in D minor on the organ, Werdegast sneaks into Joan’s room and warns her that Poelzig is a modern priest of Satanism. Karen wanders into Joan’s room following the cat and Joan tells her that her father is alive. Poelzig is not pleased and promptly kills Karen (off-camera).
Poelzig leads a Black Mass during the dark of the moon.
There are quite a few apparently willing young women in matching filmy white dresses lined up. Joan winds up on the altar (and faints, of course), but then one of the worshipers also screams and faints, allowing Werdegast and Thamal to save Joan from the ceremony.
Peter get clobbered again (he really is useless) and Thamal is shot by Poelzig’s servant. Joan tells Werdegast that Karen is alive. Werdegast finds her body in the basement; he’s not pleased, to put it mildly.
Werdegast and Thamal overpower Poelzig. Werdegast is over the edge and down the river by now and decides to skin Poelzig alive. Luckily the appropriate instruments are all conveniently laid out for him, so he proceeds, indicated in shadows.
Werdegast tries to help Joan escape, but gets shot by Peter, the ungrateful wretch. Werdegast tells Joan and Peter to run anyway and stays to blow up the house real good. Fine choice, all in all. The End.
Thoughts: Director Edgar G. Ulmer was honest in interviews that the Poe name had nothing to do with the movie. The black cat element really seems like an add-on in the finished movie. However, there is a Poe-like atmosphere of dread invoked by the moody cinematography and off-kilter, modernistic settings of stone and glass. This movie would not work nearly as well in color. I could do without the comic cop interlude, but it only spoils the mood briefly.
This was the first Universal pairing of Karloff and Lugosi, and one of only two where the two had relatively equal characters to play (the other was The Raven (1935)). Unlike Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, who remained equals throughout their collaborations, Lugosi, the more limited actor, was soon relegated to supporting roles when co-starring with Karloff. In The Black Cat, Lugosi holds his own with his sometimes hysterical, Hungarian doctor vs. Karloff’s rigid, lisping (his natural lisp deliberately accentuated) architect. They don’t make any attempt to sound like they came from the same village, though. The script throws both actors juicy lines that accentuate their strengths; when you read the quotes in this post, imagine them in the voice of the actor.
Karloff’s character was loosely based on British occultist Aleister Crowley, who was quite infamous at that time. Karloff has a genuinely eerie introduction as he is awakened by an announcement of his visitors. In silhouette he sits up rigidly, like a vampire rising from his coffin. You already know he’s going to be bad news.
Aside from the Black Mass ceremony, there are many indications of perversions such as necrophilia within the movie; I guess the censors of the time weren’t paying much attention (The Hays Code was in effect, but mostly not enforced before 1934). The movie was actually banned in a few European countries. It was, however, a big hit for Universal in the U.S.. Supposedly there was a scene in the original script where Werdegast sexually assaults Joan, but thankfully this did not make it to the final screen version. This allows Werdegast to remain the lesser of two evils when compared to Poelzig.
As you might expect from this time period, the young couple are bland and unlikely to pull focus from the stars. In particular, Joan does not seem the type to inspire rivaling passions in our leads. However, one thing that lifts up these roles is the easy chemistry between Joan and Peter. They are entirely believable as newlyweds. The actors seem to enjoying their roles.
This movie is well worth seeking out if you haven’t seen it. It holds up well for repeated viewing too.
Random thoughts:
- At one point, Karloff invokes the rumor about cats having nine lives. Did the black cat killed by Werdegast come back, or are there multiple black cats around? It could go either way in this movie.
- There’s a largely classical-based Romantic score for most of the runtime, in the days before full scoring was routine.
- Poelzig’s servant has the most severe case of bangs trauma I’ve seen in a while (even during the quarantine).
Suggested double feature: Karloff/Lugosi pairing The Raven (1935), where Lugosi is the star but Karloff is billed first.
Tagline for Coming Attraction: “Seduction. Romance. Murder. The things one does for love.”
