The Black Cat ***½ (1941, Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard, Bela Lugosi Hugh Herbert, Broderick Crawford, Anne Gwynne, Gladys Cooper) – Classic Movie Review 2,505

Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard and Bela Lugosi raise the hairs on the back of the neck, in the spooky and amusing 1941 comedy-mystery horror movie The Black Cat.

Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard, Bela Lugosi and Gladys Cooper easily raise the hairs on the back of the neck in director Albert S Rogell’s spooky and amusing 1941 old dark house comedy-mystery horror movie The Black Cat. However, it is not as good on the comedy front as it is as a chiller. Hugh Herbert and (unusually) Broderick Crawford show the effort involved and have more difficulty in raising the comic temperature.

It is that old Edgar Allan Poe plot about an elderly back-cat-owning reclusive auntie calling her family to her creepy isolated mansion home where, of course, murder leads to murder like night follows day. Also all the other usual things you can think of follow: peals of thunder, cats howling, gun shots, screams in the night and folks using hidden passage-ways. Cecilia Loftus plays the aunt Henrietta Winslow, who lives with her housekeeper and beloved cats, and is supposed to be dying.

So her greedy relatives are waiting for their bequests and gather in anticipation of her death. But it seems one of them is a tad too impatient. Though it is supposed to be a Poe plot, it is highly reminiscent of an Agatha Christie, with a touch of The Cat and the Canary.

The screenplay is merely suggested by the famous 1843 story by Edgar Allan Poe. Eric Taylor and Robert Nevill originally wrote the screenplay but Universal Pictures fancied an overtly comedic tone and brought in comedy writers Robert Lees and Frederic I Rinaldo. Nevertheless, the studio still marketed it as an all-out horror film.

The indispensable Basil Rathbone enjoys the main role as Montague Hartley, the head of the greedy family. As the janitor Eduardo Vigos, Bela Lugosi lurks to breathtaking effect, turning it into an art form, and Gale Sondergaard is superbly sinister as the housekeeper, Abigail Doone. However, Sondergaard was sniffy about the film though: ‘I hated doing the thing. It was beneath me.’

Also in the cast are Anne Gwynne, Claire Dodd, John Eldredge, Erville Alderson, Harry Bradley and Jack Cheatham.

Alan Ladd has a small role as Richard Hartley but he suddenly became a star and then found himself star billed on the posters and advertising – ‘Even Ladd Is Scared!’ This was when when Universal re-released The Black Cat in cinemas in 1942 after Ladd’s success in This Gun for Hire.

Though it is supposedly based on the same 1843 Edgar Allan Poe story, it has no relation to the 1934 Boris Karloff-Bela Lugosi film of the same title, The Black Cat, though Lugosi is in both films.

Albert S Rogell signed to direct on January 22, 1941, five days before production to start, but the film was delayed twice, with the script re-written by comedy writers Robert Lees and Frederic I Rinaldo and having several last-minute cast changes, including main star Basil Rathbone replacing Paul Cavanagh as Montague Hartley.

It was shot from February 17 1941 to March 10 1941.

Release date: 2 May 1941.

The cast

The cast are Basil Rathbone as Montague Hartley, Hugh Herbert as Mr Penny, Broderick Crawford as Hubert “A Gilmore” Smith, Bela Lugosi as Eduardo Vigos, Anne Gwynne as Elaine, Gale Sondergaard as Abigail Doone, Cecilia Loftus as Henrietta Winslow, Claire Dodd as Margaret Gordon, John Eldredge as Stanley Borden, Gladys Cooper as Myrna Hartley, Alan Ladd as Richard Hartley, Erville Alderson as Doctor Williams, Harry Bradley and Jack Cheatham.

The Black Cat runs 70 minutes, is made by Universal Pictures, is distributed by Universal Pictures, is written by Robert Lees, Frederic I Rinaldo [Fred Rinaldo], Eric Taylor and Robert Nevill, suggested by the story by Edgar Allan Poe, and is shot in back and white by Stanley Cortez (director of photography), is produced by Burt Kelly, is scored by Hans J Salter (musical director) and Frank Skinner (composer stock music), and is designed by Jack Otterson, with special photographic effects by John P Fulton and gowns by Vera West.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2,505

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