The Black Cat
Short description
The Black Cat follows a newly married American couple, Joan and Peter Alison, whose honeymoon journey across Hungary is interrupted by a road accident. Stranded, they take shelter with a mysterious doctor they have met along the way and end up at the home of Hjalmar Poelzig, a celebrated architect. Poelzig and the doctor share a bitter history, and the visitors find themselves caught between the two men as old grievances resurface. The film is a horror thriller set in Europe.
Edgar G. Ulmer directed, working from a screenplay by Peter Ruric and Tom Kilpatrick, with Carl Laemmle Jr. producing for Universal Pictures. Boris Karloff plays Poelzig and Bela Lugosi plays Dr. Vitus Werdegast, with David Manners and Julie Bishop as the couple, alongside Egon Brecher and Harry Cording. It runs sixty-five minutes and was released in May 1934. It stands as the first entry in the chronological list of Ulmer's directed features, preceding Isle of Forgotten Sins, Bluebeard, Detour, Ruthless and Hannibal.
Audience response has been solid rather than enthusiastic, with a rating of 6.9/10 on IMDb from around 14,000 votes and 6.7/10 on TMDB from a much smaller sample. A film critics' rating of 8.2/10 from 36 reviews places it noticeably higher than those audience scores, suggesting the film is held in greater regard by critics than by general viewers.
What's left behind the scenes
- The protagonist was named after architect Hans Polzig, with whom Edgar G. Ulmer (according to his own account) worked on the set design for the film "The Golem: How He Came Into the World" in 1920. The famous Aleister Crowley served as the basis for the image of the occultist.
- The film's title alludes to Edgar Allan Poe's story "The Black Cat," although the plots of these works do not essentially intersect.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
