The Black Cat (1934) marked the first collaboration of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, and what a collaboration! The stars chew scenery and battle each other, redeeming a rather sloppy horror flick.American newlyweds Paul Allison (David Manners) and Joan (Jacqueline Wells) suffer an accident while honeymooning in Hungary. Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Bela Lugosi) saves them, and the trio arrive at the mansion of Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff). Werdegast seems set to murder Poelzig, avenging both a wartime betrayal and the murder of his wife. But things are exceedingly complicated, as Poelzig heads a Satanic cult, and casts his eyes on Joan.
The Black Cat takes its title from Edgar Allan Poe, but nothing else. Edgar G. Ulmer instead concocts an odd mishmash of ideas, many strikingly perverse, some incoherent. Ulmer laces the protagonists' shared WWI experience into the story, with Poelzig's mansion built atop an abandoned fort. There's plenty of psychosexual weirdness on display, with Poelzig not only presiding over cultists but keeping his victims under glass. Coupled by Ulmer's unsettling imagery, it's as perverse as anything in classic horror.
Other ideas don't mesh together. Werdegast's ailurophobia hasn't any bearing on the film or his personality. For that matter, we don't understand why the Doctor delays his revenge until Poelzig has the Allisons firmly in his grasp. Clunky comic relief punctures the atmosphere, and a weird scene where Joan inexplicably grows flirtatious is unconvincingly explained as feline possession. Apparently Universal demanded reshoots which compromised the original story.
But Black Cat gets by on its gloomy, perverse mood and especially on its dueling stars. Bela Lugosi in particular relishes his role, a complex antihero who switches from soulful reveries about his lost love to gleefully skinning Poelzig alive. Boris Karloff seems hammier than usual, chortling over his evil but compelling all the same, intimidating Werdegast through chess matches and mind games. Their rivalry is so compelling that the silly, soppy leads seem like afterthoughts.
If The Black Cat is a mess, it's still highly watchable. We can respect its oddball ideas and dueling stars easier than its sloppy storytelling; in horror, atmosphere often trumps coherence.
