The Black Cat

Karloff vs. Lugosi. Need i say more?

Can i at least add that Edgar G. Ulmer is refereeing ? The dismaying duo made eight films together, six of them under the legendary auspices of Universal Pictures in its glory days. The Black Cat is probably the best among them -- the plot gets a little dicey, but its got atmosphere, aesthetics and two of the most charismatic stars in horror film history.

I somehow feel like this film is very dear to Peter Murphy's heart. I have visions of him and Daniel Ash in their art school days, cuddled up in someone's bedsit after band practice, watching The Black Cat on the telly, eating popcorn and drinking absinthe and painting each others' nails black. (I don't know if i can go far enough to conjure up them quarreling over who gets to be Bela like we used to argue over who got to be Kelly Garrett when i was a little girl in the suburbs... Actually, i never got to have that argument: As the blonde, i was automatically Farrah.)

So, we begin with a young couple on their honeymoon in the forests of Eastern Europe. Because that is not asking for trouble. (Oh, Brad! Oh, Janet! Oh, those dumbasses in Howling II: Your Sister Is a Werewolf!) But maybe they're Twitards and are hoping for a vampire honeymoon. There's a knock on their train compartment door and their wishes are granted, as a famous bloodsucker steps across the threshold...

Dammit! We expected that dead-eyed pouty girl whose only personal recommendation is that Joan Jett wanted to fuck her. Or at least that guy who puts lube in his hair. But never you mind, for Bela Lugosi is not a vampire at all! (Please stop and reread this part in your Count von Count voice.) He is actually Dr. Vitus Werdegast, a psychiatrist who is returning home after fifteen years in a Russian prison camp! (Shit, that might be even scarier than coming back from the grave! Go back and read that in the Count von Count voice too.)

So, they get off the train to get on the bus. because you want to be taking a bus through the Carpathian Mountains in the middle of the night. In a torrential downpour. On your honeymoon...

Nope, didn't see any of that coming. We also expected the craggy rock and the gravestones and the need to take shelter in the spooky palace, but not that said spooky palace would be more Chrysler Building than Medieval castle. And it is this palace that will dominate the style of the The Black Cat: Everything is sleek and gorgeous, down to the bedside clocks. The aesthetic is a hybrid of German Expressionism and Streamline Moderne -- asymmetrical angles and skewed perspectives combined with chrome fixtures and glass bricks.

It's more than just the meticulously sleek aesthetic that unifies The Black Cat -- it also has an all-pervasive soundtrack that backs almost all of the actions. It's the best use of Beethoven's Fifth since Demy's Lola, although the "Moonlight" Sonata may be familiar from your favorite TV soap opera....

Things you may not have known about Boris Karloff. One, his real name was Billy Pratt and he was British. Two, so British indeed that he stopped every shoot he was on for four o'clock tea. Three, he was known as an animal lover and much loved by animals, including his pet pig, Violet. Four, not only loved by animals, but loved by the ladies, with Karloff having five (Or was it six? Or seven? No one is quite sure...) wives and widely rumored to be, erm, gifted in the same way as Frank Sinatra and Milton Berle. Five, he helped found the Screen Actors' Guild.

As far as Lugosi... did you know he played Vegas once? In a variety show at the Silver Slipper?

So, anyway, it seems that Lugosi holds a bit of a grudge against Karloff. It seems they were soldiers together in some random Eastern European war. And it seems that Karloff was the commander of their fort and sold Lugosi and 9,999 of his comrades in arms out to the Russians. And it seems Lugosi wound up in that prison camp. And somewhere in there Karloff stole Lugosi's wife. And then Karloff built a luxe moderne mansion on the site of his murderous treachery. Just minor shit that can cause awkwardness between old pals....

Did we mention that he's a devil-worshiper, as revealed by his bedtime reading...

Also, down in Boris' basement, there are a number of women hanging in glass boxes...

One of these ladies in the bias-cut nightgowns and the display case is -- well, was -- Lugosi's wife.You'd think this sight would be Lugosi's cue to off Karloff -- as if that whole traitor/war criminal/Satanist thing wasn't enough. But Lugosi is still hanging around. He makes some noise about waiting for his revenge, to which i can only say: Karloff's gotta sleep sometime. Sure, maybe you've got some kind of operation planned that combines the best effects of a Rube Goldeberg machine and a Jacobean revenger's tragedy. Nice and all but, really: Just kill the motherfucker in his sleep, burn the house down and get on with your life.

They do make some vaguely allusive excuses about Lugosi's obsessive phobia of black cats (the sole nod to the Poe tale that this film is ostensibly based on). He also pronounces that "this place is so undermined with dynamite that the slightest move by any of us could be the destruction of us all." Um, okay. So don't burn the house down. Quick dead-of-night smothering and you're off...

Despite the passivity of the Prince of Darkness, things do accelerate pretty quickly from there. Karloff decides to kidnap Miss Newlywed for his NRFB collection. And maybe she'd also be useful at that demon-summoning shindig he's having Friday night...

Back when people used to really dress for a Satanic ritual.

Oh, and it seems that Karloff has married Lugosi's daughter, who has a great set of hair extensions and seems to be tranq-ed out of her gourd. Bela discovers this, finally snaps and...

Oh, this can't end well....

Suffice to say, vengeance is finally had. Today's torture-porn merchants would make a protracted blood orgy of it, but The Black Cat would do nothing so unimaginative and tacky. Seeing the poised, icy Lugosi go gibbering psycho and the stoic, domineering Karloff weak with fear is enough. Sometimes, when it comes to horror, the old ways are the best. But, of course, we don't have Karloffs or Lugosis to work with anymore either.

As Lugosi himself intones, "Supernatural... perhaps. Bologna... perhaps not."