Flickering Opinions: The Black Cat

Film Details:

Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer (Detour)

Written by Edgar Allan Poe (short story) and Edgar G. Ulmer

Starring
Bela Lugosi (Dracula)
Boris Karloff (Frankenstein)
David Manners (The Mummy)
Julie Bishop (Rhapsody in Blue)

Review: by Melissa (e-mail your faithful reviewer)

Okay, what could possibly be cooler than seeing Dracula and Frankenstein's Monster on the same screen?!? In the same movie! Yeah, I suppose winning the lottery would be better than that. And possibly seeing George Lucas strung up by his toes... but hey! This movie has both Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff! Together! Like peanut butter and chocolate!

Okay, it's more like The Battle of the Widow's Peaks, but who cares?!? Lugosi! Karloff! Yeah!

And get this... Lugosi is a good guy! And he does a pretty good job at it! Dude!

And Karloff? Bad guy! None of this sympathetic misunderstood monster sort of stuff. Bad guy! I mean Bad Guy! Pedophile Satanist Bad Guy! And would you believe it? He's even creepier without the Frankenstein make-up. What's with that hair? And what a profile!

And -- get this -- Karloff doesn't live in a creepy castle like most Pedophile Satanist Bad Guys. He gets to live in this incredible Bauhaus mansion that gives off more evil-looking shadows than a German Expressionist film! Seriously, architectural nuts probably rent this movie as architecture porn. The house is that cool.

So, the movie is good right?

Well, um... no. It's actually laughably bad.

Basically, the movie is about this young couple who goes to Hungary on their honeymoon (I guess Niagara Falls just didn't do anything for them). They meet Bela Lugosi on a train and find out that he just got out of prison after a 15 year internment (yet he has a snappy suit and is still a famous and respected doctor). The three of them catch a cab together, and it drives off the road and rolls (it kills the driver, but nobody else gets a scratch, except for the chick, who gets scratched and faints).

Lugosi invites the young couple to his "friend's" creepy Bauhaus mansion so they can recouperate (even though Lugosi is a good guy and knows that Karloff is a Satanist, that the new moon is near, and that Karloff stole and killed Lugosi's wife and daughter). They get there, and we learn that Karloff not only invited Lugosi to stay with him (even though Lugosi keeps swearing to kill Karloff for stealing his wife) but also is fine with letting him stay there, even though Lugosi keeps throwing knives at his cat (and what the f*ck does that have to do with anything anyway?).

The chick screams and faints a lot. The Good Looking Husband is essentially useless. There are many really bad haircuts. The score composer seems to have some sort of Wagner fetish. I theorize that a team of a thousand monkeys edited the movie. They probably wrote the script, too.

And does this adaptation have anything to do with Poe's original story?

Nope. Nothing at all. Not a shred. There's more Edgar Allen Poe in my left shoe than there is in this movie.

So, The Black Cat is pretty awful, though it is perversely entertaining. Yes, I admit, it's a hoot to giggle at the horrible contrivances of the movie. Plus, it is still a treat to watch Karloff and Lugosi work together. If you are a film history nut or an architecture geek, you will also likely get a big kick out of the Bauhaus sets and the cinematography. The movie is hardly a waste of time.

But wow, it's bad.