*WARNING: Spoilers ahead. But you’ve gato be kidding me if you haven’t seen this one yet.
It’s about time I finally tell you the truth.
Well, here it goes: I’m a cat person. Not your average, run-of-the-mill cat owner, though. I’m the kind of cat person who treats their feline companion like their child. It’s insane, like a sickness.
But I’m not alone in my affliction. Today’s film features a crazy cat lady whose zealous love for her cats puts mine to shame. I’m talking, of course, about The Black Cat (1941) – not to be confused with The Black Cat (1934) and just barely associated with the short story of the same name by Edgar Allan Poe.
So there were a few black cats slinking around Hollywood in the thirties and forties, and it’s no wonder there has always been a bit of confusion regarding these films. The 1934 Black Cat is a dark, gruesome psychological horror starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. It has nothing in common with the Poe short story except its name. The 1941 Black Cat is a vaudevillian comedy thriller with (very) brief instances of horror. Lugosi also plays a minor supporting role in this version, and while it’s certainly not a film adaptation of the Poe story, it does contain one particular plot point that’s ripped straight from Poe.
I’ve always been a simple woman. If there are enough cats, I’ll enjoy the movie. And while this one doesn’t provide much by way of scares, monsters, ghouls, or horror, it does have quite a few cats.
A TIRED SUBGENRE REVIVED
Why even bother with this film then, if it barely qualifies as horror? In order to understand its rightful place in the history of horror, we’ll need to go back about a decade.
The Old Dark House, directed by James Whale, was released in 1932. It spawned a horror subgenre that became known for its creaky old mansions and familial dramas. By the late 1930s, however, the old dark house thriller subgenre had become tired and outdated. Paramount revived it with 1939’s The Cat and the Canary and 1940’s The Ghost Breakers, both of which were horror comedies starring Bob Hope. Both movies were popular hits and Universal wanted to cash in on the renewed trend, which now merged eccentric wealthy families with comedy. Universal responded with two movies in 1941: The Black Cat and Hold That Ghost, which featured hot new contractees Abbott and Costello.
The Black Cat, as I mentioned before, is very loosely based on the short story by Edgar Allan Poe. First published in the August 19, 1843 edition of The Saturday Evening Post, it is a story about alcoholism and guilt. The narrator, whose name we never learn, turns from a lover of all pets to an animal abuser due to his excessive drinking. He particularly targets his black cat, eventually cutting its eye out and then hanging it from a tree. Soon after this incident, he stumbles upon another black cat which eerily resembles the one he killed, except for one white spot on its chest. The narrator takes this cat home and quickly develops an intense hatred for it. He attempts to kill the cat with an ax but murders his wife instead. Unbothered by the crime he has just committed, he unceremoniously hides her body in the walls of their basement. The cat disappears.
The twist at the end of this story is the only really relevant bit in a discussion about The Black Cat (1941); in the end, when the police visit the narrator’s house in search of his missing wife, his crime is revealed by the howling of the missing cat. It had been bricked up into the wall with the wife’s body and was responsible for the justice served to the narrator.
Remember this twist when we get to the end of the film review.
Screenwriters Eric Taylor and Robert Neville were tasked with writing the script for this story which was “suggested by the story of Edgar Allan Poe.” Unfortunately, neither of them had a knack for comedy writing, so Robert Lees and Frederick I. Rinaldo were brought on to add some punchy humor to the project. The new script was quickly green-lit and given a budget of $176,000. Director Albert S. Rogell signed on to direct on January 22, 1941, which was just five days before production was meant to start.
However, shooting was delayed by several weeks and didn’t begin until February 17. This was largely due to last-minute casting substitutions. Richard Carlson had been originally set to play the leading male role but was replaced by Broderick Crawford. Carlson instead got a role in Hold That Ghost, which started filming at the same time as The Black Cat. Paul Cavanaugh was initially tapped for a supporting role but was replaced by Basil Rathbone, who received top billing. The last interesting bit of casting information is that Claire Dodd, who had been known as Hollywood’s “mystery girl” in the 1930s due to her uncanny ability to keep her personal life separate from her professional persona, came out of a short-lived retirement to play a minor supporting character in this film as her first assignment under her new contract with Universal.
Other notable cast members include: Anne Gwynne, Gladys Cooper, Gale Sondergaard, Alan Ladd (on the brink of stardom), and of course, Bela Lugosi. It’s clearly an incredible cast – in fact, the cast is most definitely the best part of the whole movie (however underutilized their talents were). And unfortunately, the cast members themselves agreed with this sentiment. In an interview with Michael Fitzgerald in Fangoria (#115), Anne Gwynne said of Gladys Cooper: “It seemed as though she was slumming, working in this picture.” And Gale Sondergaard had the following to say about the film: “I hated doing that thing. It was beneath me.”
One final casting note: Marlene Dietrich makes an appearance in at least one scene in this film, though she was not a member of the cast. She was on the Universal lot filming The Flame of New Orleans and frequently dropped by the set of The Black Cat to visit her then-boyfriend, Broderick Crawford. Apparently, on an afternoon that they were set to film a non-dialogue scene with Claire Dodd, they realized that Dodd had already left for the day. Dietrich took her place, keeping her back to the camera. I’ve never been able to figure out which scene(s) she was in, but if anyone has any idea, please let me know.
THE PICTURE
The Black Cat begins with the first video title card we’ve seen on the blog, featuring a black cat licking its chops behind the title – almost as though it had to be bribed with something tasty in order to sit still long enough to film it.
A subsequent card includes the note that the film was “suggested by the story by Edgar Allan Poe.”
The camera pans out and we watch as the cat sits in a tree, blinking and meowing its way through the credits (though we can’t hear its meows over the musical score by Hans J. Salter). Once the credits are finished, the cat slinks across the branch. There is a mansion behind him in the dark. It’s important to note here that we finally hear the cat meow as it walks across the branch – the only problem is that it’s not an actual cat’s meow. Rather, it’s a human imitation of a meow that sounds awful. I don’t understand why Rogell decided to go with a human meowing when we’ve just watched what is clearly a well-trained cat meowing during the opening credits. You can’t convince me it was easier to get a human to meow like that than it would have been to get a microphone close to this professional little guy and record a few real meows. My theory is that they just forgot to record the cat meowing until post-production, so they had one of the editors try his hand at meowing.
Inside the mansion’s grand sitting room, family members sit, stand, play piano, and pace impatiently. They are dressed to the nines, in perfect keeping with their surroundings. I do want to note here the gowns each of the ladies wear, which were designed by Universal’s chief costume designer, Vera West. West’s work has already made an appearance on this blog, as she also designed the gowns for Dracula (1931), although her work on that film was uncredited. I only point her out now because I’ve always loved her work but especially love some of the designs featured in this film. And to me she’s always been the most fascinating figure of golden age monster movies – but more on her in her own blog post to come.
Montague “Monty” Hartley (Basil Rathbone) snaps at Richard Hartley (Alan Ladd) to stop playing the piano, as it sounds like a funeral dirge. Richard says the waiting is getting on his nerves, which compels the ladies in the room to start arguing that he’s not the only one who feels that way. I want to note here that we’re watching an Alan Ladd who is just on the cusp of stardom.
An older gentleman, the doctor, played by Erville Alderson – who I recognized as Stevens from The Bishop’s Wife (1947) – enters the room and clears his throat. Monty asks how “she” is, to which the doctor responds: “You’ll be pleased, I’m sure, to know that Mrs. Winslow is still violating all the laws of science. She should be dead but she’s very much alive.”
Which is exactly what I want my doctors to say about me someday.
The gathered family members express their relief in the most unconvincing manner possible. Elaine Winslow (Anne Gwynne) makes to call for the housekeeper, Abigail (Gale Sondergaard), to fetch the doctor’s coat. Abigail appears to have been eavesdropping, as she is already halfway to the door. Eavesdropping will continue to be the main form of communication between characters in this film.
When the doctor leaves, we watch as a man approaches the front gate of the house from inside the walls. He holds a lantern aloft and peers out through the gate into the darkness. It’s none other than Bela Lugosi, made up to be nearly unrecognizable with a scruffy beard, spiky caterpillar eyebrows, and a mustache that sticks out at odd angles. Things have certainly changed for poor Bela since Dracula’s release a whole decade earlier.
Lugosi plays a fairly insignificant part in The Black Cat. The eloquent, well-kempt vampire has been replaced by a scraggly caretaker who speaks pidgin English – when he gets to speak at all. And some might say that that’s just the business, baby. There are no small parts, only small actors. Except by this point in his career, Lugosi – who had proven time and time again that he was capable of leading a picture and leading it well – was increasingly getting relegated to small bit parts that criminally underutilized his talents. And yet his name continued to be put at the top of the bill in order to capitalize on his fame. In The Black Cat he was billed fourth, even though the majority of his pitiful screen time is spent in leering silently through windows.
He deserved a lot better than what he got from Hollywood.
Two men in a car drive down a bumpy road. The driver is realtor A. Gilmore “Gil” Smith (Broderick Crawford). Crawford was an experienced vaudeville performer known for playing fast-talking tough guys on screen. His comedic partner in this film, Hugh Herbert, plays an antique dealer named Mr. Penny. Herbert also had his start on vaudeville, which is evident in every single thing he does in this film. He plays this role with a little giggle and a fast-talking manner that is utterly charming at first, though becomes tiresome as the bit drags on.
We learn from Gil that Monty had called him that morning to say it was only a matter of minutes before Henrietta Winslow died, and that if Gil wanted to make a deal for the state he better bring an offer to his client tonight. Mr. Penny doesn’t feel too good about the fast turn-around time, but Gil assures him that that’s just how the family is: cutthroat.
They pull up to the front gates of the Winslow mansion. As he exits the vehicle, Mr. Penny says that he hopes everything in the house is in bad condition, since people always pay double for antiques that are falling apart. Get ready to hear this same joke many more times from Mr. Penny.
Gil explains that he used to play around the mansion when he was a little kid. He rings the bell on the front gate for Eduardo. Mr. Penny notices a plaque on the front gate that reads: “That house is doubly blest which to the feline friend gives rest.” This is apparently Mrs. Winslow’s life motto, but Gil shares what they used to say about her as kids: “In her hats are many bats for spending all her dough on cats.”
Eduardo appears at the gate and without any sort of introduction or inquiry says, “Go away.” He won’t let the men in because: “These gates stay locked since car killed cat.” Gil tells him to open the pedestrian gate. Mr. Penny is now worried that this deal is not as sure a thing as Gil had let on, but Gil assures him that he has a check for $25,000 in his pocket. Eduardo meets them at the pedestrian gate and tells them that the house will never be sold. Gil says, “Well you can’t kill a guy for trying. Eduardo places his hand on the handle of a very sharp-looking knife hanging from his belt.
Inside the wall, Gil immediately starts coughing. The place is my dreamland: completely overrun by cats. Gil is unfortunately allergic though; any time he gets close to a cat he starts coughing. Mr. Penny expresses the hope that the cats have scratched up the furniture, as he’ll make a fortune out of it. Gil reaches into the paper bag he’s been carrying up until this point and begins to throw what I believe are whole fish to the cats. He quickly gives up and tosses the whole bag at them, hurrying to the house.
Gil uses the door knocker and knocks the cage covering the peep window off the door – probably because of the vitamin B1 he’s been taking, according to him. Which sound like a one-off joke (and it is) but you all know me by now. I love a good historical rabbit hole. And it turns out that right around this time, during the late thirties and early forties, Americans became increasingly concerned with the vitamins and minerals necessary to maintain a healthy body. This was largely due to the effects of hunger and malnutrition during the Great Depression, but also due to fears of the impending world war. So it makes a lot of sense for Gil to be concerned with his B1 intake – and you should be, too. Go take your vitamins!
Anyway, Gil opens the peep window from the outside and sees Abigail, who is on her way to the door. Unimpressed, her face appears in the window. Gil attempts to refer to her colloquially as Abby, but she firmly insists on being called Ms. Abigail. She opens the door and tells him in no uncertain terms: “Go away. We don’t like you.” She says that Gil used to throw rocks at the cats. Despite his protests that it was 15 years ago, Abigail is unmoved. She doesn’t care if it was yesterday – and she closes the door on them. And I have to agree with her here – anyone who throws rocks at cats is eternally irredeemable.
Mr. Penny calls her a “puss, like a lemon rinse.” Abigail opens the peep window back up and asks, “What did you say?” He pretends to start calling for a cat. Abigail slams the peep window shut, causing the heavy door knocker to fall off and onto Gil’s foot. This begins an ongoing straight-man/funny-man dynamic between Mr. Penny and Abigail.
Mr. Penny asks Gil if anybody likes him around here. Gil insists that they love him, but the servants don’t want to see the house sold – of course they’d act a bit standoffish. Mr. Penny again points out that he thought the deal was all set. Gil tells him they’ll walk around the house and go in the back way.
A building down a heavily wooded path catches Mr. Penny’s eye. It’s the crematory for the cats. The two men enter the building; it’s stocked with shelves of urns, with a large furnace at the center of it all. A statue of a black cat sits watchfully against the far wall. Gil explains that Henrietta thinks black cats are a symbol of death. The furnace is human-sized so that when she dies she can be cremated and her ashes can be laid to rest alongside her cats.
In the house, Richard bemoans “another false alarm.” Monty scolds him for his attitude, claiming that the important thing is that his grandmother is out of danger – which are bold words coming from a man who’s already called a realtor to sell the house. An old woman with spectacles that make her eyes look huge wheels herself into the room on her wheelchair. It’s Henrietta Winslow, the woman who just won’t die, and she doesn’t believe Monty’s relief for one moment. When Elaine asks her what she’s doing out of bed she replies sarcastically, “I wanted to be in the bosom of my loving family.”
Monty and Elaine get snippy with each other and Henrietta tells them to be quiet. With Mr. Penny and Gil eavesdropping at the back door, Henrietta addresses her relatives. She says that it must be a sad occasion, as they came to bury her but now they have to stay and praise her. Since she became paralyzed, they’ve always come running every time she’s had so much as a stomach ache. She’s decided to read her will to them to finally put their minds at rest.
Henrietta begins: “I, Henrietta Winslow, being of sound mind and-”
Margaret (Claire Dodd) snickers to Stanley (John Eldredge). Henrietta whips her wheelchair around and insists that she is of sound mind, which Margaret will see when she gets to her part in the will. It’s at this point that I noticed the two Siamese kittens in her lap, which have begun to crawl around and meow – real meows this time.
Henrietta leaves to her devoted niece, Myrna Hartley (Gladys Cooper): $100,000. Myrna thanks her. Henrietta says she’s been less trouble than the rest. Gladys Cooper is another actor who I recognized from The Bishop’s Wife – she played Mrs. Hamilton. She also made three separate appearances on The Twilight Zone.
To Montague Hartley, Myrna’s (considerably younger) husband: in appreciation of his loyal devotion to his wife, $10,000. He also thanks her but Henrietta chuckles, saying he should have been an actor.
To Richard Hartley, Myrna’s stepson: $10,000 to enable to him to continue with his chemical research. It’s never specified what kind of chemical research he does. Richard doesn’t seem incredibly pleased with what he has been left, but one look from Monty inspires him to hang his head and thank her dutifully.
To Margaret Gordon, her granddaughter: $100,000. Henrietta specifies that the amount is not because Margaret merits any consideration on her part or needs the money, but because she would call her grandmother insane and try to break the will if she neglected her. Margaret says that all that is a little far-fetched, but Henrietta ominously states that “walls have ears.”
To her grandson, Stanley Grable: $100,000 as consolation, since he didn’t inherit any of the brilliant architectural sense of his father, who did such excellent work in building her mansion. Here’s a bit of a goof that I can’t explain: Henrietta says Stanley’s last name is Grable, but the ending credits list him as Stanley Borden. IMDb and Wikipedia also list the character’s last name as Borden.
While Stanley is getting roasted by his grandmother, we see Elaine start to shift in her seat, looking worried.
To her faithful gardener, Eduardo Vitos: $5,000. Eduardo is standing outside a back door (presumably a different one from the one that Mr. Penny and Gil are standing at) and listening in. It’s hard to tell if the expression on his face is one of positive or negative surprise upon learning his share of the inheritance.
To her granddaughter, Elaine: her home and the 50 acres of land on which it is situated, as well as the residue of her estate. Henrietta admits she is favoring Elaine because her granddaughter inherited her selfishness. Margaret adds that favoring is a rather mild word – the furnishings alone are worth as much as the house and grounds.
This is good news to our eavesdroppers, who are trying to convince themselves that they might be able to talk Henrietta into selling while she’s still alive. The black cat is standing between Gil’s legs and lets out a pitiful (fake) meow. Gil starts coughing.
Apparently he has a very recognizable cough, because Elaine immediately exclaims, “A. Gilmore Smith!” and gets a big smile on her face. She says she’d know that cough anywhere. Henrietta calls for Gil to come into the house while Mr. Penny stays behind. Gil says his hellos to everyone, but especially to Elaine, who claims she has been meaning to look him up. It’s looking like there’s something between these two.
Monty approaches Gil and says hello, making eyes at Gil so he knows to play it cool and not disclose why he’s actually there. Henrietta observes this interaction and dismisses everyone except the two schemers. She warns the rest of the family to stay close, as there are still some details about her will that they might be interested to know.
Abigail enters and hands Henrietta a glass of milk. She tells the old woman not to throw it away again because Eduardo says she’s ruining his plants. Henrietta assures her she won’t, but she’d like Abigail to taste it first. Abigail takes a drink and sets the milk aside.
Gil sits down in front of Henrietta, with Monty standing awkwardly off to the side. Henrietta says that the only reason Gil would visit her and her cats would be to make an offer on the house. She accuses Monty of trying to sell her out on her deathbed. Monty tells her he did it because she was ill, and to spare her the trouble. Henrietta isn’t happy about the goings-on behind her back, but she allows Gil to present his offer. He shows her his client’s check for $25,000 to be paid to the estate of Henrietta Winslow.
Henrietta is offended by this particular wording, which even Monty admits is premature. She yells at Monty to get out of her sight. Gil attempts to leave as well, but she apologizes for spoiling his deal – she simply will never sell her house.
Meanwhile, Mr. Penny has abandoned his post on the back porch and has entered the house, keeping himself busy by tapping on furniture and stealing Henrietta’s trinkets. Elaine finds him and asks what he’s doing. Mr. Penny shows her the sideboard he’d been inspecting, proclaiming it to be a very good copy, but he could make it look like a real antique with some worm holes. He proceeds to pull an auger out of nowhere and starts drilling holes in the sideboard.
Back in the sitting room, Henrietta says she likes Gil because he’s ambitious. But he shouldn’t hope for Elaine, since she takes after Henrietta. She would never marry a man without money. Henrietta becomes uncomfortable in her wheelchair and Gil stands to help her adjust her pillow. While they are distracted, a hand reaches through the darkness to slip a test tube of liquid into the milk. Once Henrietta is comfortable, Gil grabs the milk and offers it to her. She says she can’t stand the stuff, and that as punishment for his lie he would need to drink every drop to keep Abigail from nagging at her. Gil puts the glass to his lips, but before he drinks a white cat strolls up and instigates a coughing fit. Gil pours some milk into a saucer on the ground and the cat starts to lap it up.
He continues his efforts to convince her to leave the house, but Henrietta isn’t budging. Gil offers the milk back to her. Just as she raises the glass to her lips, he looks down and sees the cat lying dead on the ground. He bats the glass out of her hand. And let me just say that the cat looks real. I could be wrong, and it might be just a really convincing prop, but if not – a round of applause for the acting talent of this cat.
Gil lays the cat in Henrietta’s lap. He’s slightly freaked out that either of them could have died, but Henrietta claims, “No difference. The life of the smallest animal is as sacred as our own.” Gil points out that nothing is sacred to one of her relatives, implying that one of them tried to poison her. Henrietta doesn’t disagree, but she says that whoever it was would have been in for a nasty shock if she had died. They hadn’t heard the end of the will. There’s a clause that states nobody inherits a penny until Abigail and the cats are dead. Gil runs off to gather the family to tell them all about this clause, yelling back at her, “Don’t drink anything!” Henrietta wheels away with the dead cat, telling it that it will join its ancestors.
In the crematory, the old sickly woman manages to lift the cat into the furnace and ignite it, which is fairly impressive. While paying her respects, she hears the cat statue moving away from the wall. She turns around and sees someone off-screen, to whom she says: “How did you know about that?” We hear her blood-curdling screech.
Elaine, Gilbert, and Abigail also hear the scream (although it’s unclear why any of them were in the woods to begin with), and they run into the crematory. Eduardo stands in the bushes watching. They find Henrietta dead, stabbed with one of her knitting needles. Elaine suggests that she must’ve fallen on it. The black cat meows (the human in post-production pretending to be a cat meows) from atop the black cat statue. Eduardo, now standing in the doorway, gives a satisfied smirk upon seeing the cat.
Elaine says that Henrietta never let a black cat on the premises. Abigail explains that Henrietta knew “whom a black cat follows dies.” The black cat jumps from the statue and runs out of the crematorium. Abigail lets loose a maniacal laugh when they see it’s going up to the house.
And okay let me just say this on the record: black cats are beautiful creatures who have been murdered for centuries due to stupid superstition about their coat color. Henrietta was wrong for her no black cat rule and it makes me feel a lot less bad about her murder. Please treat black cats with the kindness they deserve.
The next morning, the doctor is back at this house, this time in the crematorium while the family waits outside. He declares that, under the circumstances, it will not be necessary to hold a formal inquest. He’ll write up a death certificate when he gets back to the office. Monty slips him some money and thanks him, since the inquest would be too distressing for the ladies. The doctor confirms that it was just an unfortunate accident. Abigail leads everyone into the crematory for a brief and simple service, as Henrietta would have wanted.
Later that day, Abigail eavesdrops on the family in the sitting room from behind a curtain. One of the ladies mentions “poor Henrietta” and Margaret quips that she’s also wondering how long it’ll take to probate the will. Abigail moves to the adjoining door to the study, where Monty is on the phone saying that he will have every cent before the week is done but now it’s been settled. He finds her standing at the door when he exits the room. Just when he begins to share something with the family in the sitting room, there’s a knock at the door. He tells Abigail that with her keen ears she ought to be able to hear there’s someone at the door. She gives him a sly, knowing smile but goes to answer the door – though not before she hears Monty tell his relatives, “I don’t see why we tolerate that woman any longer.”
It’s Gil at the front door, and he’s been worried about Abigail. He can’t stop thinking about how someone tried to poison Henrietta. Gil suggests that the housekeeper move into the apartment in town he had told Henrietta about and he’ll sell the mansion for her. Abigail asks if he’s implying that Henrietta was murdered. If she hadn’t cremated the cat, Gil says, he could prove it.
Suddenly, Mr. Penny emerges from a room in the house and greets them both cheerfully. Abigail asks Gil if he’s been there all night… and I echo the sentiment. What did he do all night? Gil was his ride – did he just forget about Mr. Penny on his way home?
Mr. Penny says he was all over. He had a lovely night’s sleep, took a nice shower, and ate the last two eggs in the house for breakfast. While he’s recounting his lovely stay at Hotel Winslow he accidentally pulls the leg off of a footstool. He produces a hammer from his robe and strikes his finger. He pulls iodine from his pocket to pour onto his bruised finger. A comedy routine follows in which Mr. Penny pulls more and more items out of his robe to fix whatever problem the previous item has caused. Abigail is not amused by this routine.
Monty calls Abigail into the sitting room. She and Gil find the rest of the family there. Monty tells her that Elaine has decided to sell the house, so her services are no longer required. It is her wish that Abigail packs and leaves immediately. Elaine tells her she will be well provided for. Abigail thanks her but says she won’t need Elaine’s charity – she’s the one giving orders now. Gil attempts to butt in to explain what Henrietta told him about the will before the “accident,” but Richard tells him to mind his own business and get out of there.
Abigail tells them all that Elaine can’t sell the house – none of them can. She produces Henrietta’s will and continues reading it where she had left off the night before: “However, considering the comfort and companionship given me by my cats, none of the preceding bequests shall apply so long as my faithful housekeeper, Abigail Doone, lives. Provided that she accepts guardianship of the estate and administers it for the benefit of the aforementioned cats.”
I’m taking notes for my own will at this point.
The family agrees that Henrietta was out of her mind. Elaine says they won’t do anything about the new clause in the will, while Margaret wants to get a lawyer. Elaine thinks that Abigail and the cats deserve the inheritance more than they do. The housekeeper acknowledges that this is a pretty speech but will not create a bond between them. She tells them all to pack and leave.
Monty angrily declares that they will do nothing of the kind and will relinquish none of their rights. Henrietta was insane – the will will be set aside. The family agrees that Monty should leave at once to consult with his attorneys. He tells them all to stay in the house and remember that possession is nine points of the law.
There’s a crash in the other room and Abigail storms in to find Mr. Penny has broken most of the contents of an antique cabinet. Another straight-man/funny-man routine plays out between them. In the scuffle, Abigail drops the will on the floor. When she leaves, Mr. Penny finds a book and picks up the will to use as a bookmark. He sits down on a bench in an alcove to read the book, but his foot hits a corner of the bench, causing it to spin around and deposit him in a secret passage on the other side of the wall.
In the front hall, Gil again tries to convince Abigail to sell the house. He goes looking for Mr. Penny but obviously can’t find him. While he searches for the lost antique dealer he glances out the window and sees Margaret speaking with Monty… and they’re standing a bit too close. Monty tells her they’re taking a chance being seen together.
Elaine sneaks up behind Gil and calls him out for eavesdropping. She asks him why he’s been taking such an interest in her family’s business and if, during his previous conversation with Abigail, he had been insinuating that her grandmother’s death hadn’t been an accident.
Abigail is eavesdropping on this conversation, by the way.
Gil says that Henrietta wasn’t killed by kindness, which is not an answer that Elaine particularly likes. She tells him to get out and take Mr. Penny with him. Which reminds him – he was still looking for the man. He leaves to continue his search. Elaine opens the window to eavesdrop on her relatives. Monty is saying that he didn’t say he wouldn’t divorce Myrna, but now’s not the right time. Margaret wryly clarifies: “You mean after you get her money you’ll go after mine?”
Richard catches the two of them together and confronts Monty. He warns Monty to break things off with Margaret or else he might tell the coroner about the remark he made to Myrna that they’d all be better off if Henrietta were dead.
Back in the secret passage, Mr. Penny realizes he’s not in Kansas anymore. He starts up a nearby staircase, noticing termites in the joists. Above his head is a muffled yell and a crash. Mr. Penny goes up the stairs and emerges in a bedroom. He opens a chest at the foot of the bed to inspect it just as Myrna knocks on the door, calling for Abigail. The bumbling antique dealer shushes her. Myrna yells for the family to come quickly, as she heard a scream from inside the room. Gil, Elaine, and Myrna burst into the room to find Abigail lying in the chest, the black cat resting on her shoulder. It jumps out of the box and runs away. Myrna leaves to find Monty before he runs into town.
Abigail slowly opens her eyes. Gil and Mr. Penny lift her from the chest and settle her into the bed. She dazedly recounts that she had been getting something out of the chest and the lid must have fallen on her head. Mr. Penny tells her that the crack in the wood makes the chest twice as valuable – and alright, by this point I was a little bit tired of Mr. Penny’s running joke. But the comedic timing and delivery of this one earned a hearty chortle from me.
Gil asks her if she’s sure nobody tried to purposefully hit her with the lid, since the lid could have knocked her out but couldn’t have laid her down in the chest. He suggests that next time she should lock the door before she turns her back on it. Abigail tells him that the door was locked, which causes Gil to question how Mr. Penny had gotten into the room. The antique dealer simply points to the wall.
Gil rushes Mr. Penny out of earshot of the others and asks him confidentially how he really got into Abigail’s room. Confidentially, Mr. Penny doesn’t know. Just down the hallway, Elaine can’t get an answer on the telephone. They realize that it’s because the wire was cut. Stanley appears and refuses to go out in the storm to get the police. Elaine says she hopes Gil won’t let her down just as badly – after all, she thought she could always count on him. This breathes new life into Gil, who asks her if he has a chance. Elaine gives him a cute little nod. Gil accuses her of kicking him around lately, but she tells him it’s because he was maligning her family – which only she’s allowed to do. And anyway, Gil is accusing one of her relatives of murder. But she does admit she’s been a bit mean and apologizes.
As soon as Gil agrees to go to the police, a door bursts open on a gust of wind. Lightning strikes and thunder crashes outside. On second thought, he thinks he’d rather stay in the mansion. Elaine tells him to go out to the stables and send Eduardo instead.
Out in the stable, Eduardo asks, “Why can’t you go?” Gil explains that the relatives said there’s only one man they can trust: Eduardo. The gardener sets out into the storm.
In the sitting room, Richard approaches Myrna and says he has something to tell her. However, he’s interrupted by Mr. Penny, who pops up out of nowhere to comment on the maker of a particular cabinet. On the other side of the room, Stanley approaches Elaine and says there’s something he needs to explain to her. He is also interrupted by Mr. Penny, who pops up behind them to comment on the piano legs. Gil enters the room exclaiming that he’s got it all figured out. He thinks that whoever tried to knock off Abigail did it with a secret passage. The family laughs at that notion, but Gil insists that the attempted murderer must have been scared by Mr. Penny, running out the bedroom door and leaving it unlocked.
This immediately leads to accusations amongst the family. Richard reminds everyone that Stanley’s father built the house, so he would know about any secret passages. And Stanley points out that someone tried to poison Henrietta, and with Richard’s knowledge of chemistry… Myrna breaks them apart and scolds them.
Monty comes back, demanding to know about this Abigail nonsense. On the drive back he picked up Eduardo, who told him about the whole attempted murder business. Monty didn’t bring the cops back because the storm washed out the bridge – no one would be coming or going that night.
Myrna suddenly screams when she sees a suit of armor moving in the front hall. Gil – with not a single second of hesitation – runs up to it and throws his body through the suit. Of course, it was just Mr. Penny pushing it into the light so he could read the inscription plate.
Monty walks Myrna up to her bedroom – which is notably separate from his. He tells her the excitement was too much. After all, she’s not as young as she used to be. Myrna asks him what the lawyers said. According to Monty, there’s a chance to break the will. Myrna says he could have used some of Henrietta’s money, couldn’t he? He scoffs and says, “What do you think?” Myrna doesn’t know what he thinks, since he doesn’t tell her anything anymore. They’re like strangers to each other. Monty tells her he didn’t want to trouble her with business. But Myrna asks, “Is it only business, Monty?” This immediately angers him. He can’t stand unreasonable jealousy. Myrna attempts to placate him, but he leaves her bedroom.
In the hallway, we witness a brief interaction between him and Margaret. He just shrugs at her and goes to his own room.
Down in the study, Elaine patches up Gil with a bit of Mr. Penny’s iodine. Gil tries to use the antique dealer in a reenactment of Abigail’s attempted murder in order to convince Elaine of his theory. Unfortunately for him, Mr. Penny ruins the reenactment with his comedic shenanigans.
Later that night, we see the black cat making its way down the spiral staircase in the study. It approaches Mr. Penny, who is seated at the desk reading his book. He shoos the cat away. A hand reaches out from the curtain behind his chair to grab the copy of the will that the antique dealer is still using as a bookmark. Mr. Penny hits the hand with the book, saying, “Go away cat.” He puts the will in his jacket pocket and takes his jacket off to cover himself like a blanket to go to sleep. The hand almost succeeds in grabbing it from the pocket, but he wakes up. The will falls to the floor and the black cat sits on it. Which is the most realistic part of this film – anyone with a cat knows that if there’s a piece of paper, they’ll sit on it.
Mr. Penny walks away. The hand shoos away the cat and takes the will. We watch as the cat jumps onto Gil, who has been sleeping on the bench in the alcove. Gil wakes up coughing and sees the figure behind the curtain. He runs to grab them but the figure punches him and knocks him out. Mr. Penny misses the entire interaction, including when the figure runs past him out of the room. Gil runs out of the room in pursuit.
Upstairs, he knocks on Elaine’s door. She doesn’t answer, so he enters her room. Still no Elaine. So he does what any reasonable man would do and crawls out her window onto her balcony. He sees someone in front of the house stumbling under the weight of something heavy in the mud and pouring rain. They load the person-sized sack onto the back of a horse-drawn cart. Gil – again without a millisecond of thought – throws himself off the second-story balcony and runs to the cart. He grabs Eduardo, who insists he hasn’t seen Elaine. He begs Gil not to open the door of the cart. Both lovestruck and terrified, Gil of course opens the door anyway, and a herd of cats springs free and scatters in the darkness. Eduardo complains that he was going to take them to the barn and now they’re out in the rain again.
And here we have the best moment in the entire film: real-life cat-hater Bela Lugosi stumbles around with his arms outstretched, calling, “Here kitty kitty kitty” in a thick Hungarian accent.
It’s true art.
Gil notices someone in the crematory window and runs inside. The black cat is again sitting atop the cat statue. Gil lights some candles and notices an urn has been tipped over on one of the shelves. While he inspects the urn, one of the burial drawers above him falls and almost hits him on the head. He books it out of the crematory, shouting for various members of the Winslow clan. Inside the house, he runs upstairs and knocks on everyone’s doors. They rush into the hall. Gil tells them that Elaine has disappeared, and he proceeds to give them a bumbling account of his exploits.
As if on cue, Elaine appears in her gorgeous nightgown. She tells them she had just gone downstairs to get a book because she couldn’t sleep. Everyone is rightfully pissed at Gil, and they all return to their beds. Elaine brings him to her room to dry him off. She tells him she likes that he went full Lancelot when he thought she was in danger.
There’s a high-pitched whistling sound from one of the other bedrooms. Gil jumps into action again, quite literally throwing himself through Elaine’s door while shouting at the others to wake up. They all burst into Abigail’s room to find…. A tea kettle. She was just making tea. Everyone grumbles their way back to bed.
Mr. Penny pops out of nowhere and says he takes lemon in his tea. Abigail gets a fairly sinister look on her face and tells him to sit down. She pours him some tea and adds a pinch of something from a secret compartment in her ring. The tea smokes like a witch’s cauldron. She insists it will make him sleep. Mr. Penny runs out the door and Abigail takes a sip of the brew. I guess it must have just been chamomile.
Cut to the middle of the night. Elaine is asleep and Gil is sitting awake in a chair outside her door. A secret passage opens in Elaine’s room and a cloaked figure enters. They set the black cat down on the bed next to Elaine and pour ashes on her pillow. The figure grabs the cat, touches its feet to the ashes, and then leaves through the secret passage again. I have no idea what the plan here is, or why the cat prints and ashes are in any way frightening. Elaine seems to get it though, as she wakes up, turns on the light, and screams when she notices the prints. She opens her bedroom door, sending Gil, who had been leaning his chair against it, falling flat on his back.
They hear Myrna scream from her bedroom and run out into the hallway to see what’s the matter. Myrna says someone’s been in her room – there are ashes and marks of a cat on her bed. Margaret emerges and says someone’s been in her room too. Gil claims it must be the work of Abigail. They all go to her room and try to open her door, but the chain is engaged. When Gil busts it open (busting through things is his special skill), they find Abigail hung on her closet door.
They lower her body. Gil finds a bag of ashes, which Monty says proves it was unquestionably Abigail who was messing with them all. Gil mutters to Elaine, “He thinks he’s Sherlock Holmes.” Which is funny because Basil Rathbone had already played the famous detective twice in two movies and would go on to play him twelve more times after the release of The Black Cat.
Elaine posits that it could be suicide. Monty disagrees. Gil goes to inspect the rope and says it has to be murder, due to the angle of the splinters in the rope.
Downstairs, Mr. Penny is asleep on the revolving bench, the black cat seated next to him. Eduardo sneaks up and grabs the cat. Right at that moment, Gil walks into the room and Eduardo initiates the spinning door. Gil runs after him. Eduardo jumps out of the door, bolting out of the study. Gil is thrown off of the spinning platform and into a chair. Mr. Penny wakes up in the secret passage and walks up the stairs.
Gil trudges back to Elaine’s room in defeat, but he notices Myrna’s door is open. He enters and finds Henrietta’s will sitting on the bed. Monty finds him there and grabs the will. Then Richard appears in the doorway and says he gave it to his mother, who said she was going to give it back to Abigail in the morning. So it turns out it was Richard who slugged Gil through the curtain.
Monty shouts when he notices the rope tied to the closet door handle. He runs to open it and finds Myrna hung just like Abigail had been. Except when they set her down on the bed they realize she’s still alive. Elaine inspects the rope carefully but then leaves to fetch the smelling salts. Meanwhile, Myrna starts to come around. She says she doesn’t know who tried to kill her – hands came from behind and seized her throat.
Eduardo is standing on the balcony outside the bedroom window, watching and smiling. Richard asks his mother if it was Eduardo who hurt her. Myrna says that yes, it was. She notices the gardener in the window and screams. Ever the Lancelot, Gil runs out of the room to head him off. The other men crawl out the window after him, but not before Richard gives his mother his gun for protection.
Elaine runs into Gil on the stairwell. He tells her he’s going after Eduardo, who tried to kill Myrna. She says, “Oh but he didn’t!” But Gil doesn’t listen – he tells her to stay with Myrna and the gun.
Outside, Eduardo gives the men the slip by hiding around the corner of the balcony. Once he’s safe he sneaks back into Myrna’s room through the window, holding his hand over her mouth to prevent her from screaming. He asks why she told them he tried to hurt her – it’s a lie, he could never hurt anybody. He never did anything wrong – he just kept the black kitten when Henrietta told him to drown it (which to me makes Henrietta a monster).
Henrietta shoots Eduardo in the stomach.
Elaine runs into the room and asks Myrna why she did it. Myrna says he tried to kill her, but Elaine insists that she tried to kill herself. The splinters on the rope show that just as plainly as they show Abigail was murdered. Elaine had deduced that everything was because of Monty and Margaret’s affair. After all, Myrna knew about them and knew her only chance to keep Monty was to get some ready money. That’s why she killed Henrietta. She knew about the secret passages because she was there when the house was rebuilt. When she found out about the clause in Henrietta’s will, she killed Abigail, faked her own suicide, and shot Eduardo so as to blame everything on him.
I’m impressed that Elaine put this all together, but why is she saying all this to the woman holding the gun?
Gil shouts for Elaine from downstairs. She gives a triumphant smirk to Myrna and starts to strut to the door to expose her crimes, but Myrna hits her with the gun and drags her into the bedroom closet. The black cat follows them.
The men rush into the bedroom, where Myrna puts on a damsel in distress act for them. They remove Eduardo’s body. Myrna tells Monty that she wants to be alone. Of course, now that Abigail is out of the way, Monty wants to make clear to Myrna that whatever she has heard about him and Margaret was a misunderstanding and nothing more than a conversation about finances. Myrna assures him that everything will be alright and the money she gets from Henrietta’s estate will take care of all his business worries.
Once he finally leaves, Myrna grabs the gun and goes back into the closet. She opens a secret passage and drags Elaine through, the cat trailing behind them.
Gil goes to Elaine’s room to check on her, but she doesn’t answer. When he enters, there are no signs of her. He follows a trail of ashes from her pillowcase to the wall with the secret door and starts banging on it. Mr. Penny opens the door from the other side. He hasn’t seen Elaine, and though Gil frantically tries to get him to say where the secret passage leads to, Mr. Penny is not cooperative. After an exasperating game of twenty questions, Mr. Penny finally reveals that the passages lead to the crematory.
Meanwhile, Myrna has carried Elaine all the way to the crematory and put her unconscious body in the furnace. Just for good measure, she throws the cat into the furnace too. Before she can ignite it, Gil enters the crematory from behind the cat statue. Myrna stands in front of the furnace door, blocking it from his view. She says she couldn’t sleep and decided to visit Henrietta. Gil asks if she has seen Elaine. She says no, and Gil starts to leave through the front door.
And here’s where the movie actually takes a page from Poe’s short story: the cat meows from inside the furnace.
Gil does leave, but when Myrna turns to ignite the furnace, he bursts back into the crematory, catching her in the act. He pushes her away and opens the furnace door. The cat runs out and jumps onto the cat statue. It knocks over a candle, which falls onto Myrna’s long, flammable night gown. We get a fantastic shot of her full body aflame as she runs out screeching and shooting the gun off.
Gil looks at the cat in disbelief. To me, it looks a little bit smug – as it should.
A day or so later, Mr. Penny is in the house overseeing the moving men who are removing furniture. One of them drops a chair and apologizes. Mr. Penny says he ought to be sorry – and he picks up the chair and smashes it to pieces on the ground. Now, he says, “put that together and you got a beautiful antique.”
Gil and Elaine enter, holding hands. Gil tells Mr. Penny that the new owner is coming to check out the place, but don’t tell him about the murders. Mr. Penny asks, “What murders?”
Our movie ends with the two lovers sitting on the revolving bench, making eyes at each other like they want to make out. They spin it around so Mr. Penny can’t watch. On the other side of the revolving door is the black cat, along with six adorable mewling kittens.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Overall, I think this film is a fairly entertaining entry in the old dark house subgenre of horror. It contains all the hallmarks of the genre: greedy, jealous relatives, a luxurious mansion, and a washed-out bridge preventing our main characters from contacting the outside world. The Black Cat injects some humor into the usually dark familial drama, which I can appreciate for what it is. Mr. Penny’s brand of vaudevillian antics aren’t exactly my taste, but he did earn a few chuckles from me.
I imagine that the reveal of Myrna (an older woman) as the murderer at the end might have surprised audiences in 1941. Perhaps Lugosi’s ominous presence might have been an effective red herring to a few viewers.
As I mentioned earlier, the best part of The Black Cat is its cast. There’s not a single bad performance out of any of the cast members – in fact, they make the film better than it should have been. Although I do think that they did Lugosi a real disservice with the part of Eduardo.
The Black Cat certainly has a place in the history of whodunit-style mysteries. If you’re a fan of Knives Out or any of the modern Agatha Christie remakes, I think it’s worth your time.
Thanks for sticking around! As a thank-you for your grit and tenacity, I’ve included a bonus picture of Arthur below. I hope you’ll stop by next time for something a little different from our usual programming. We’ll be diving into the life and tragedy of an actress who we’ve already met on this blog. Stay tuned for more!
