Welcome to Horror Secret Handshakes, a monthly column spotlighting horror stories off the beaten path which serve as an instant vibe check with new friends, acquaintances, and fellow fans. If you both know the story, you feel the bond.
When we think of "Universal Horror," as in Universal Pictures, we're usually talking about monsters: Frankenstein's creature, Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. These are the building blocks that made Universal into a horror releasing powerhouse in the 1930s and 1940s, right?
Well, yes, but that's also a rather narrow view of Universal's genre output from the period. Once the dual success of Frankenstein and Dracula kicked its horror success into high gear in 1931, the studio was trying just about everything to keep that engine rolling. It's easy to forget that it took years for sequels to these monster movies to materialize, at least at first, so that meant two things were happening: Universal was dreaming up more monsters, and they were fitting their established horror stars into other, somewhat more obscure vehicles.
They're not the first films that come to mind, but if you're willing to go looking for these other genre vehicles from the period, you'll find some solid gold, and whenever I talk to fellow fans of old horror films, one name inescapably comes up: The Black Cat.
Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and released in 1934, the film marks the first-ever team-up between Universal's two biggest horror stars of the day, Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. "Suggested by" the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name (it really bears little relation to that text), it's a chance for Lugosi and Karloff to face each other in what ends up being a fascinatingly macabre, often psychosexual duel of mad scientists, and it remains one of the most stylish, compelling, and wonderfully dark entries in Universal's horror catalogue.
The story emerges first as a tale of waylaid newlyweds, as a couple named Peter (David Manners) and Joan (Jacqueline Wells) take a train into Eastern Europe for their honeymoon. On the way, they encounter Werdegast (Lugosi), a psychiatrist and World War I veteran who's on a quest for revenge after spending 15 years in a Siberian prison camp he was never meant to leave. One rainy bus crash later and the trio are all at the doorstep of Werdegast's target, his former friend Poelzig (Karloff), who's built a grand house on the ruins of the World War I-era fort where everything went wrong.
Werdegast wants to destroy Poelzig because the latter betrayed all of the Austro-Hungarian soldiers stationed at the now-destroyed fort, including Werdegast, costing thousands of lives for the sake of Poelzig's own comfort. But that's not all. Poelzig also stole Werdegast's wife and child for himself, believing that his old friend would never return from Siberia.
This is, on its face, a fun plot, but an intriguing setup is pushed into much more interesting territory when we finally meet Karloff. As Poelzig, he dresses in smoking jackets, flowing robes, beautiful glossy black fabrics draped over his gaunt frame. His hair is slicked back, his manner sophisticated, tinged with a sassiness that previews his later work voicing The Grinch. In the years since he'd first played Frankenstein's Monster, Karloff's best-known roles were often under makeup, including turns in The Mummy, The Old Dark House, and The Ghoul. Here he's free of all of that, able to not only show his face, but relish playing such an arch villain in his natural habitat. It's my absolute favorite Karloff performance because you can see just how much fun he's having playing pure wickedness, doing things like cradling black cats while admiring his corpse collection (yes, he has one) and reading books with titles like The Rites of Lucifer.
Lugosi's Werdegast is, by contrast, a much more buttoned-down figure, a man who's pent up all of his rage and his resentment over more than a decade, waiting for the night when he can finally unleash it. Unlike Poelzig, who scarcely breaks from his supervillain persona, he's a man still capable of kindness, of reason, but exposure to his old friend quickly strips these elements away. The longer he's in Poelzig's house, the madder he gets, until the two are quite literally playing chess with the lives of Peter and Joan.
These two men, and the other humans who serve as their playthings, their pawns, are surrounded by some of the best set design to come off the Universal lot in the 1930s. Poelzig's house is a monument of concrete and glass, a modern wonder for a man who believes he's evolved beyond everyone else around him. From its spiral staircases to its rooms reserved for darker purposes, it's a feast for the eyes, and it becomes a character unto itself as Ulmer works every potential shadowplay into the background, using his noir skills to polish up the pulpy horror. It feels like you're trapped inside a puzzle box with these terrible, violent people, and the walls are closing in.
Everyone I've ever spoken to who's seen The Black Cat has fallen in love with it, swept up in its dark spell, its unexpected humor, and its towering central performances. So, this Halloween, if you've seen all of the Universal Monsters movies and you're looking for something different, give this one a try, and you'll understand why we love it.
