How does one rate a movie based off of a short story that doesn’t use any of the short story in the film? I am faced with exactly that conundrum with The Black Cat as it veers so far off the beaten path of the story penned by Edgar Allan Poe that I am honestly astounded they are citing it as their inspiration. This film stars Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi and while it is absolutely humbling to watch these two (2) titans of the industry working together, the story lacks a lot of luster. The men themselves lend a lot of credence to the characters, but the story itself just isn't very strong to begin with. David Manners is back from The Mummy and he seems to have grown quite a bit in the two (2) years that gap the movies.
⭐⭐.5
Trigger Warning Suggested Animal Cruelty
After a grand introduction of our cast of characters we are chugging along on a train and meeting the Alison's, Joan and Peter, who are being made to share a train car with Werdegast (played by Bela Lugosi (Dracula)). They have friendly small talk and later both the Alison's are gently dozing in their seats. Werdegast takes this opportunity to gently pet the air around Joan, Peter quickly wakes and locks eyes with the man. Then Werdegast bids Peter forgive him because he had to go off to the war and leave his wife, also during that time he was put away in a horrible prison that no one ever gets out of, but he got out! That is all well and good but keep your hands off my wife’s air, buddy. The bus driver tells a wicked story about a bunch of people dying while building something but in the rain he is run off the road and into a fatal wreck. Only the driver was killed but Joan was hurt so they carried her the rest of the way to their destination. Once they arrived they set Joan in bed and their host, Poelzig (Boris Karloff (Frankenstein's Monster), is addressed very poorly by Werdegast who basically accuses him of war crimes but then is about to have drinks with the man. Wild. But drinks are interrupted by Peter and a very spooky (and adorable) Black Cat. Upon sight of the cat, Werdegast, who has extreme ailurophobia (fear of cats), rears back, drops his glass, locates a knife, and hucks it at the tiny thing . We hear a yowling off screen but literally not one person in the room reacts to the fact that a human being merely saw a cat and immediately yeeted a knife at it. Even when Joan wanders in a second later she couldn’t give a hoot, she just wants to smooch her man which makes Werdegast even more upset than when he saw the cat! Peter puts Joan back in bed, she is still too weak from the accident. Werdegast says the medication he gave her might make her a little more in-tune with the other side. “Sounds like a lot of supernatural-baloney to me.” Said Peter. “Supernatural, perhaps. Baloney, perhaps not.” Replied Werdegast.
During their conversation Peter just casually drops that Werdegast didn’t wound the cat, oh, no, he straight up murdered it outright. That was what happened off screen when it yowled. We jumped from animal abuse to extreme animal cruelty and the early signs of a serial killer! And everyone was so casual! I quite literally cried when I read The Black Cat by Poe. The sufferings of an imagined animal were so great that they wounded me, but these people? Skin a cat in front of them and they won’t bat an eyelash! Poelzig brings up that cats, black cats in particular, have nine (9) lives, with a fiendish little smile. It would be a funny prank for Poelzig to get an identical black cat to scare Werdegast with (except for the whole part where Werdegast has a tendency to kill cats on sight, so, maybe don’t do that). But in the next scene with Poelzig he is holding a black cat that looks identical to the one that was killed… So, did he go out and get a new cat? Is he pranking Werdegast? Also, there are a bunch of women in glass coffins just kind of around for some reason. Peter, just going off of vibes, states before bed, “Next time, I go to Niagara Falls.” Werdegast is now asking Poelzig about his long, lost wife, lost before the war, and Poelzig walks him through the expansive house that many people died to build. “There is still death in the air. It is just as much on the mind today as ever.” Poelzig tells his guest as they arrive where he had been leading them. As they look upon Werdegast’s dead wife suspended in her glass coffin, Poelzig informs him she died of pneumonia and claims he had loved her too. But, “Why is she like this?” Werdegast asks with a tear rolling down his cheek. “I wanted to have her beauty always.” Poelzig answered and also informed the man that his daughter had too passed away. Refusing to believe Poelzig, Werdegast produced a gun from his robe with the intent to kill when suddenly a Black Cat appeared and frightened the daylights out of the man. Poelzig suggests that they can play a “death game” but that it will have to wait for the other guests to leave. When Poelzig returns to his room, who is waiting for him there but Werdegast’s daughter, alive, lying in bed with her hair strewn about on the pillow, looking as beautiful as ever.
In the morning, Joan wakes and Werdegast is the first one to come to her, he is there to check on her injury. Poelzig comes in next and then one of the servants. Now three men are standing over a woman who is wearing only a nightgown and light robe and she is feeling very exposed. She has only just woken up and still isn’t sure where her husband is or what happened the day prior, her memory after the accident is very poor. It seems like a little bit of Dracula comes out while Bela Lugosi is challenging Poelzig which is really quite fascinating to watch and they set off to a game of chess that will determine if Joan will be able to leave or not (Werdegast wins, she leaves, Poelzig wins, she stays). Peter and Joan, independent of the two formidable men, decide they are ready to leave, but there are obstacles at every turn until, and finally, the servant at the door forcibly and instantaneously chokes Peter out and, in a moment, Joan swoons and falls unconscious. It was honestly very pathetic. Now, all because Werdegast lost a game of chess, Poelzig is just allowed to do whatever he wants with her? And Werdegast is just going to let him? An absolutely wild gentlemen's agreement. Poelzig plays “Toccata and Fugue in D Minor” by Bach on the organ (a classic horror song and I most recently heard it as the opening to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde 1931). Wedegast casually tells Joan that he was letting Poelzig control him and his servant because of gentleman-ly reasons and also that Poelzig is a satanist who is going to do some Rites tonight and is going to use Joan in those Rites… Yikes! Also, what? Y’all, what is going on? I really, truly, in my heart of hearts, thought that at this point the film was going to turn into the classic short story by Poe, I really did. I was not at all prepared for what happened, which I’m still not entirely sure about, but here we go.
The daughter of Werdegast and the wife of Poelzig comes out and talks to Joan so now Joan knows she is alive but Poelzig finds out she disobeyed him and takes her into the other room, what he does is unclear, all we hear is screaming. This is also the very last instance that we see The Black Cat (the third (3rd) and final time). Next, Poelzig is descending the stairs in a dark robe, there is a whole crowd of people there now, and Werdegast is among the crowd. They bring Joan down and she just sort of collapses on their altar while Poelzig chants but then one of the women in the crowd feints so Poelzig leaves his spot by the altar and goes to attend her. That is when Werdegast and his servant scoop up Joan and make a run for it. When Joan wakes up, though, she tells him he has to stop, they have to go back for his daughter. He is amazed his daughter is alive! But mere moments later he finds her dead on a slab, Poelzig had killed her for speaking to Joan! Poelzig enters at this point and Werdegast and his servant are able to wrestle him into restraints where Werdegast starts cutting away at his flesh, making him suffer, but then Peter shows up to the door with a gun and is desperate to get to Joan. In the madness Peter misunderstood Werdegast’s help as harm and shot him, fatally wounding him. Werdegast tells them to run and he sets the whole house to self destruct with himself, Poelzig, and all his little satanist buddies in it. There is a big explosion! A while after Peter and Joan are on a train reading a review for Peter’s new book it is panned for not being believable, even though it’s implied that he used inspiration from the real-life events that just took place.
- Well, Mr. B., the bonds are due today, so here I am. Johnny-on-the-spots! - That's fine. But you don't have to bother me. Go downstairs to the window marked "Loans". The big window.
