The first time Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff worked together on a picture for Universal was in 1934. As you can guess by the clues above, the picture was The Black Cat. It's adapted from the title of the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name. Peter Ruric is the screenwriter and Edgar G Ulmer is the director. The movie was the biggest hit of the year for Universal.
Bella and Boris are old friends. The movie starts with Bella joining a young newly wed couple, David Manning and Julie Bishop, in a train compartment. He's traveling to see Boris, after leaving the train he joins the couple on the bus to the nearby town. The bus crashes and Bella takes the injured wife to Boris's nearby house.
Turns out that Boris and Bella have a lot of bad blood between them. Boris turns out to be a crazy guy who heads a Satanic Cult.
It gets worse and worse for poor Bella, his past love is dead, his daughter is dead, and he's got to play chess for Julie's life. That Boris is as nutty as his haircut.
It's a pretty good movie and they pack a lot in the 65 minute running time. There's some sick twisted love, torture, cat killing, Satanic cults, bad haircuts, drugs, flaying a man, a little something for everyone. The sets are great, lot of shadows and moody settings, mixing modern design with brutalist architecture.
I'd seen this movie several times in the past, I went to watch it again and finally had enough of the copy I taped off of TV in the 90s. The DVD is one of those print on demand type. I'd prefer a real pressed DVD but I'm still happy with the nicer picture.
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