The Black Cat

The Black Cat is a 1934 American pre-Code horror film directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and starring Boris Karloff and Béla Lugosi. It was Universal Pictures' biggest box office hit of the year, and was the first of eight films (six of which were produced by Universal) to feature both Karloff and Lugosi. In 1941, Lugosi appeared in a comedy horror mystery film with the same title, which was also named after and ostensibly "suggested by" Edgar Allan Poe's short story. The film was among the earlier movies with an almost continuous music score, and it helped to create and popularize the psychological horror subgenre by emphasizing atmosphere, eerie sounds, the darker side of the human psyche, and emotions like fear and guilt to deliver its scares. Plot On their honeymoon in Hungary, American mystery novelist Peter Alison and his new wife Joan are told that, due to a mix-up, they must share a train compartment with Dr. Vitus Werdegast, a Hungarian psychiatrist, who says he is traveling to see an old friend. As the night wears on, the couple learn that Werdegast left home 18 years earlier to fight in World War I and has not seen his wife since, as he spent the last 15 years in an infamous prison camp in Siberia. In the dark and rain, Peter, Joan, Werdegast, and Thamal, Werdegast's servant, transfer to a small bus. When they are near Werdegast's destination, the remote home that Austrian architect Hjalmar Poelzig built upon the ruins of Fort Marmorus, the driver of the bus loses control and drives off the road. He is killed in the crash and Joan is injured, but Peter, Werdegast, and Thamal are well enough to take her to Poelzig's house.