The Black Cat

I say "attempts" because most of the comedy just falls flat. This could have been a great little thriller if Broderick Crawford and Hugh Herbert's bumbling around in the dark could have been omitted. Instead, this film comes across more inane than sinister.

I give it 6/10 because the mystery is good enough and the atmosphere is pure Universal horror. The background of the story is that a wealthy elderly lady has provided her estate as a haven for homeless cats, complete with creepy crypt and crematorium for them when they die. She has just dodged another bout with death through illness when she decides to read her will to her greedy relatives ahead of time. Shortly afterwards the elderly woman dies mysteriously, followed by the discovery of an addendum to the will, followed by the mysterious deaths of other members of the household, all during the period of one dark and stormy night. For some reason Universal figured the presence of an investigating protagonist would not be enough for this one - that injecting some bumbling good guys in the spirit of Abbott and Costello would be a good idea, but they (Broderick Crawford and Hugh Herbert) just distract the viewer from the mystery aspect with their lame attempts at humor.

The sad part of this film is how little Bela Lugosi is given to do. At this point in his career he is pretty much relegated to walking around and looking creepy.

1941's "The Black Cat," not to be confused with Bela Lugosi's 1934 classic, is merely another 'Old Dark House' murder-mystery in a comic vein, in the wake of 1939's "The Cat and the Canary." The unfunny comedy relief is supplied by Hugh Herbert, while the remainder of the stalwart cast maintain interest throughout, despite a severely dragging middle in which virtually nothing of interest happens, one red herring topping another. The young Broderick Crawford is certainly likable, and pairs nicely with lovely Anne Gwynne, but top-billed Basil Rathbone is reduced to playing a weasely scoundrel, fooling around with beautiful Claire Dodd behind the back of desperate wife Gladys Cooper, to the annoyance of her devoted stepson (Alan Ladd). Henrietta Winslow (Cecilia Loftus) has been at death's door for some time, but makes certain that her many cats will be taken care of, along with longtime housekeeper Abigail Doone (Gale Sondergaard) and caretaker Eduardo Vidos (Bela Lugosi); when she gets stabbed to death with a long hatpin, hardly anyone bats an eye in the assumption that the old lady simply fell on it. One of the nicer aspects of the film is that the titular black cat actually becomes the hero during the admittedly thrilling climax, first alerting Crawford to his girl's danger, then causing a falling candle to set the killer ablaze. Claire Dodd was enjoying a resurgence at Universal ("In the Navy," "The Mad Doctor of Market Street"), where she had previously starred in 1934's "Secret of the Château," while the relatively unknown Alan Ladd remained a year away from stardom in "This Gun for Hire" (he's actually the only one sporting a gun for protection!). Lugosi is genuinely amusing but sadly wasted with less than 4 minutes screen time, happily hamming it up in numerous gag photos on set; Gale Sondergaard, the one cast member from "The Cat and the Canary," remains stuck in dour mode, the attractive actress allowing her uniform to call attention to an impressive bosom. No classic but entertaining (the screenwriters better known for the 1948 "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein"), "The Black Cat" appeared 4 times on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater, while its 1934 counterpart was served up on 8 occasions.

Rating: *** (of of five)

Greedy family heirs stay at their grandmother's mansion and wait for her to die, so they can collect her money and estate. They later discover that they cannot collect a dime until all of her pet cats are dead as well. Someone in the mansion then begins to murder them one by one. This film has all of the elements of horror. Although it bears a notch below many of the popular horror films released by Universal Pictures, director Albert Rogall's The Black Cat has the "haunted" house scene, a rain storm, secret passage ways and plenty of laughs and scares to make it a good horror film. Basil Rathbone and Broderick Crawford are also both good as the leads, as well as Hugh Herbert providing the laughs. Oscar winner Gale Sondergaard and Bela Lugosi, both playing the servants looked wickedly evil and sinister, and it was my surprise that they were not the murderers when both of their characters were murdered as well. The real killer was a surprise, especially with the premise of the black cat being around at the time of the murders often throws the viewers off. The Black Cat is a good horror film classic with intriguing mystery.

Old lady gathers her greedy relatives in her gloomy isolated mansion for a reading of her will. Not long after, she winds up dead. Welcome to an old dark house thriller, friends. Yes, it's fairly repetitive of many other such thrillers or comedies but it's pretty entertaining at times. It has an excellent cast, most of which unfortunately have little to do. Broderick Crawford stars in an early role. He's equal parts leading man and buffoon. The kind of part Wayne Morris would have been playing over at WB. Bela Lugosi has a small, thankless part. He spends most of the movie ominously lurking in the shadows and peering in windows. Hugh Herbert provides the movie's comic relief. For the uninitiated that means he fidgets and talks to himself, punctuating every other sentence with "woo hoo." It's not very funny but I found it harmless enough. Maybe I'm just used to Herbert by now. Others may find him irritating so be warned. The rest of the cast includes Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard, Anne Gwynne, Gladys Cooper, and Alan Ladd before he made it big. I agree with another reviewer that this probably would have worked better as an Abbott & Costello movie. Despite the relatively short runtime, it begins to feel overlong as it nears the hour mark. It's enjoyable enough but flawed. Still, anything Universal was putting out in the horror/thriller field in the 1940s was worth watching.

This is a fairly typical old dark house comedy of the sort that was popular in the wake of the Bob Hope Cat and the Canary of a couple of years earlier. Gale Sondergaard is even on hand, as in the earlier film; and this one, while hardly brilliant, has some wonderful photography and great (and exceedingly familiar) standing sets. It's a routine reading of the will plot, with the usual suspects, here more lively than usual, with Runyon refugee Broderick Crawford, Gold Diggers alumnus Hugh Herbert, deerstalker- and meerschaum-less Basil Rathbone, and a sadly defanged Bela Lugosi, in a minor role. If one goes for old-fashioned studio thrillers and isn't too demanding of dialog, which is far from clever, or plot, which isn't too ingenious, this one might be just what the doctor ordered on a dark and rainy night.