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The Black Cat

214 statements
41 feature instances
16 referencing feature instances

The Black Cat	type	TVTItem
The Black Cat	label	The Black Cat
The Black Cat	page	TheBlackCat
The Black Cat	comment	Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_1'); })The Black Cat is a 1934 Universal Horror film starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, the first of six movies to pair them together. It was written and directed by Edgar G. Ulmer.Peter Alison (David Manners) and his new bride Joan (Jacqueline Wells) are on their honeymoon in Hungary when they discover that a mixup in train reservations has left them sharing a compartment with Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Lugosi), a psychiatrist traveling to see an old friend, Hjalmar Poelzig (Karloff). After leaving the train, they continue their journey on the same bus, since they are going in the same direction. When the bus crashes near Poelzig’s house and Joan is injured, however, the couple find themselves subject to the dubious hospitality of Poelzig, and discover that Werdegast seeks not friendship, but vengeance. Poelzig, for his part, is revealed to be the leader of a satanic cult, and plans to sacrifice Joan in a ritual.Advertisement:propertag.cmd.push(function() { proper_display('tvtropes_mobile_ad_2'); })A rare turn for Lugosi as a heroic character, The Black Cat was part of a wave of horror talkies in the 1930s, following the shared success of Dracula and Frankenstein. While Edgar Allan Poe's name is listed in the credits, the movie had little to do with his short story of the same name.The film was well received by critics and the public. On the movie review aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes, The Black Cat received an average rating from critics of 85%. The film was also ranked #68 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for its "skinning" scene.As this movie is more than eight decades old, unmarked spoilers are most certainly below.
The Black Cat	fetched	2023-01-28T09:25:52Z
The Black Cat	parsed	2023-01-28T09:25:52Z
The Black Cat	processingComment	Dropped link to InNameOnly: Not a Feature - ITEM
The Black Cat	isPartOf	DBTropes
The Black Cat / int_16995d90	type	Right-Hand Cat
The Black Cat / int_16995d90	comment	Right-Hand Cat: The black cat of the title, Poelzig's pet.
The Black Cat / int_16995d90	featureApplicability	1.0
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The Black Cat	hasFeature	The Black Cat / int_16995d90
The Black Cat / int_1dfd19f9	type	Papa Wolf
The Black Cat / int_1dfd19f9	comment	Papa Wolf: In what is actually a very sad moment, Werdegast—only moments after being told by the resident damsel and potential sacrifice to Satan that his daughter was still alive (and married to Poelzig, but still alive)—finds the body of said daughter in the next room over and promptly loses it. How does he lose it, you ask? He skins Poelzig alive.
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The Black Cat / int_1e584efa	type	Cruel and Unusual Death
The Black Cat / int_1e584efa	comment	Cruel and Unusual Death: "That's what I'm going to do! Tear the skin from your body! Slowly! Bit - by - bit! ALIVE!"
The Black Cat / int_1e584efa	featureApplicability	1.0
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The Black Cat / int_25b0342b	type	Art Deco
The Black Cat / int_25b0342b	comment	Art Deco: Pretty much everything in Poelzig's house.
The Black Cat / int_25b0342b	featureApplicability	1.0
The Black Cat / int_25b0342b	featureConfidence	1.0
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The Black Cat / int_25e18c14	type	Haunted Castle
The Black Cat / int_25e18c14	comment	Haunted Castle: The establishing shot shows Máramaros illuminated by flashes of lightning, looming amid drifting fog above leaning crosses and twisted trees. However, it is an example of then-latest avant-garde architecture, “A masterpiece of construction built upon the ruins of the masterpiece of destruction.” Fittingly, in a variation of the mad scientist, Poelzig is a mad architect.
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The Black Cat / int_294ed981	type	Bilingual Bonus
The Black Cat / int_294ed981	comment	Bilingual Bonus: There's a surprisingly comical scene around the middle of the film that has Werdegast serving as an interpreter and translator for the police sergeant and police lieutenant that come to Poelzig's home to question him and the Alisons on the bus crash earlier. Most of the conversation is in English, but when the two policemen first enter the introductions are in Hungarian, with Werdegast having to tell them that the Alisons are Americans. It's actually a real treat to hear Béla in his native tongue, if only for a sentence.
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The Black Cat / int_2ddddebf	type	Hostile Weather
The Black Cat / int_2ddddebf	comment	Hostile Weather: The bus crash is caused by a severe rainstorm.
The Black Cat / int_2ddddebf	featureApplicability	1.0
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The Black Cat / int_30d71ee	type	Flaying Alive
The Black Cat / int_30d71ee	comment	Flaying Alive: How Werdegast avenges himself against Poelzig.
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The Black Cat / int_35884ee7	type	Villainous Incest
The Black Cat / int_35884ee7	comment	Villainous Incest: Poelzig doesn't just get Werdegast sent to a prison camp, steal his wife from him, and then kill her—he goes the extra mile and marries the man's daughter (after having been with her mother, technically making him her stepfather). While exceptionally vile, consider how much worse it is when you realize that Vitus had been locked away for eighteen years, and that means that Poelzig was more than likely with Mrs. Werdegast for some time before killing her, which itself means that he was basically the only thing close to a father figure in Karen's life (especially since she was too young to even remember her real father), bringing the creepy factor full circle. What's also horrifying is that Karen seems generally okay (for lack of a better word) with it all.
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The Black Cat / int_403b6f3	type	Fainting
The Black Cat / int_403b6f3	comment	Fainting: Like a good 1930s female lead, Joan naturally does this when the mooks attack her husband. And again when she's being rigged up as the human sacrifice.
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The Black Cat / int_4881cda1	type	Ãœberwald
The Black Cat / int_4881cda1	comment	Überwald: The Alisons leave the real world at Viségrad station and enter Überwald on the bus ride to their fictitious destination Gömbös, when the bus crash strands them at equally fictitious Máramaros. While not as famous as Dracula or Frankenstein, The Black Cat is among the Universal horror films that codified the Überwald trope in the 1930s and 40s.
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The Black Cat / int_4e3d253b	type	Downer Ending
The Black Cat / int_4e3d253b	comment	Downer Ending: For some at least, and for Werdegast's sake. Werdegast learns that his daughter was still alive... right before he finds her corpse. With nothing left in his life, he straps Poelzig to his embalming rack, and the film ends as he begins to skin the man alive.
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The Black Cat / int_5901c295	type	24-Hour Party People
The Black Cat / int_5901c295	comment	24-Hour Party People: A number of elegant people, none of whom are characterized or previously established, show up to attend Poelzig's Satanic rite.
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The Black Cat / int_5beef860	type	Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?
The Black Cat / int_5beef860	comment	Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Werdegast is an ailurophobe, and at one point reflexively flings a knife at and kills a cat that startled him.
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The Black Cat / int_5dd191ec	type	Wife Husbandry
The Black Cat / int_5dd191ec	comment	Wife Husbandry: Since Karen said her mother died when she was very young, this may have been what Poelzig did to his eventual wife.
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The Black Cat / int_5f70322e	type	Public Domain Soundtrack
The Black Cat / int_5f70322e	comment	Public Domain Soundtrack: The entire soundtrack consists of a variety of classical music pieces, including works by Schubert, Bach, Beethoven and Chopin.
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The Black Cat / int_5f930b19	type	Named After Somebody Famous
The Black Cat / int_5f930b19	comment	Named After Somebody Famous: The Alisons intend to spend their honeymoon in Gömbös, “the pearl of the Carpathian Mountains”. There is no such place, however Gyula Gömbös de Jáfka was the Hungarian prime minister from 1932-36. This gives a whole new meaning to the line “Pistyan used to be all right 10, 15 years ago, but now...Gömbös is the place.”
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The Black Cat / int_6116ca8d	type	Hellhole Prison
The Black Cat / int_6116ca8d	comment	Hellhole Prison: The gulag where Vitus was locked away after the battle of Fort Máramaros.
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The Black Cat / int_72b0dfd2	type	Being Good Sucks
The Black Cat / int_72b0dfd2	comment	Being Good Sucks: Poor Vitus. In the end, he has nothing left but the sadistic pleasure of subjecting the man who ruined his life to a prolonged, grisly death.
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The Black Cat / int_7a143509	type	Shell-Shocked Veteran
The Black Cat / int_7a143509	comment	Shell-Shocked Veteran: Both Werdegast and Poelzig suffered horrible mental damage because of their experiences during World War I. Poelzig has a speech about it:
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The Black Cat / int_7fe13577	type	Villainous Widow's Peak
The Black Cat / int_7fe13577	comment	Villainous Widow's Peak: On Poelzig.
The Black Cat / int_7fe13577	featureApplicability	1.0
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The Black Cat / int_8494bcb3	type	Disposable Pilot
The Black Cat / int_8494bcb3	comment	Disposable Pilot: Having delivered his Info Dump about Máramaros, the bus driver is immediately killed in the bus crash that strands the protagonists at Poelzig's house.
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The Black Cat / int_89cab870	type	Tuckerisation
The Black Cat / int_89cab870	comment	Tuckerisation: According to himself, in 1920 Edgar Ulmer worked with architect Hans Poelzig on the set of Paul Wegener’s film The Golem.
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The Black Cat / int_90d44f44	type	Karmic Death
The Black Cat / int_90d44f44	comment	Karmic Death: Taxidermy enthusiast Poelzig is hung from his own skinning rack and flayed alive.
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The Black Cat / int_9245d989	type	Sinister Minister
The Black Cat / int_9245d989	comment	Sinister Minister: Poelzig is a Satanic high priest.
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The Black Cat / int_92a61707	type	The Speechless
The Black Cat / int_92a61707	comment	The Speechless: Werdegast’s mute Mongolian servant Thamal.
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The Black Cat / int_9578bb87	type	Canis Latinicus
The Black Cat / int_9578bb87	comment	Canis Latinicus: A variant. Poelzig's incantation is real Latin, but has nothing to do with the context in which it is spoken, so it is still effectively nonsense.
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The Black Cat / int_a448674	type	Gratuitous Latin
The Black Cat / int_a448674	comment	Gratuitous Latin: The incantations during the ritual consist of Latin maxims and idioms, including "Beware of dog" and "With a grain of salt," probably to avoid accusations of blasphemy if actual liturgical phrases (altered or otherwise) were used.
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The Black Cat / int_a7b324e	type	Handicapped Badass
The Black Cat / int_a7b324e	comment	Handicapped Badass: Thamal is mute but incredibly strong and agile. Even fatally wounded in the chest he manages to overpower Poelzig (who was about to strangle Werdegast) and his armed majordomo.
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The Black Cat / int_aba8065b	type	Fatal Flaw
The Black Cat / int_aba8065b	comment	Fatal Flaw: "He has an intense, and all-consuming horror—of cats".
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The Black Cat / int_b0fde754	type	Living Doll Collector
The Black Cat / int_b0fde754	comment	Living Doll Collector: Poelzig to a T, with his collection including Werdegast's beloved wife.
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The Black Cat / int_b833dbea	type	TheBlueBeard
The Black Cat / int_b833dbea	comment	The Blue Beard: Poelzig, though some of those women were probably his sacrifices.
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The Black Cat / int_ceec4df5	type	Roaring Rampage of Revenge
The Black Cat / int_ceec4df5	comment	Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Vitus, and justified to all hell.
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The Black Cat / int_d9d8fd35	type	Battle Butler
The Black Cat / int_d9d8fd35	comment	Battle Butler: Poelzig’s majordomo actively helps his master’s nefarious deeds, including knocking out Peter and shooting Thamal.
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The Black Cat / int_db38d6ca	type	Torture Technician
The Black Cat / int_db38d6ca	comment	Torture Technician: Again, Poelzig. What more can one say about a dude that likes keeping the bodies of women on display in glass cases?
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The Black Cat / int_dba1f5b5	type	Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny
The Black Cat / int_dba1f5b5	comment	The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: Basically, the film is Bela Lugosi vs. Boris Karloff. Lugosi wins in brutal fashion, though his character is left with little else but that satisfaction.
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The Black Cat / int_e390612a	type	Hollywood Satanism
The Black Cat / int_e390612a	comment	Hollywood Satanism: Poelzig's cult is a very early example.
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The Black Cat / int_e602b55b	type	Shadow Discretion Shot
The Black Cat / int_e602b55b	comment	Shadow Discretion Shot: The flaying. Even pre-Code, you couldn't get away with having a man stripped of his skin on-camera in 1934; however, what little we do see (Werdegast placing his knife to a terrified Poelzig's neck just before he gets started) was enough to freak a number of critics out.
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The Black Cat / int_e9f517e1	type	Artistic License â€“ Geography
The Black Cat / int_e9f517e1	comment	Artistic License – Geography: Poelzig's house at Máramaros can not be that far from Viségrad in Hungary, since the police called to protocol the bus crash arrives from there, yet the real Máramaros note Máramaros is the Hungarian name of the Maramureș region, and unlike in the vicinity of Viségrad, Russian troops did fight there in World War I is 350 km to the east in Romania and Ukraine note in 2020, in 1934 the Ukrainian part was in Czechoslovakia. Also, one of the officers tells he is from Pistyan, a town in Slovakia note in 2020, in Czechoslovakia in 1934 120 km to the northwest. This is probably not due to ignorance, since Edgar Ulmer was born in Austria-Hungary note in what is Czechia in 2020. All of the above places were in Austria-Hungary in 1904 when he was born.
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The Black Cat / int_ed503b22	type	Match Cut
The Black Cat / int_ed503b22	comment	Match Cut: Peter is undressing for bed, and winds up throwing his jacket in front of the camera. The next shot is Peter pulling a bed sheet away from the camera.
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The following is a list of statements referring to the current page from other pages.

The Black Cat	hasFeature	Art Deco / int_78893b2e
The Black Cat	hasFeature	Bilingual Bonus / int_78893b2e
The Black Cat	hasFeature	Disposable Pilot / int_78893b2e
The Black Cat	hasFeature	Dueling-Stars Movie / int_78893b2e
The Black Cat	hasFeature	Flaying Alive / int_78893b2e
The Black Cat	hasFeature	Haunted Castle / int_78893b2e
The Black Cat	hasFeature	Hollywood Satanism / int_78893b2e
The Black Cat	hasFeature	Mad Artist / int_78893b2e
The Black Cat	hasFeature	Named After Somebody Famous / int_78893b2e
100 Scariest Movie Moments	seeAlso	The Black Cat
The Black Cat	hasFeature	Religion of Evil / int_78893b2e
The Black Cat	hasFeature	Suggested by... / int_78893b2e
The Black Cat	hasFeature	The Bluebeard / int_78893b2e
The Black Cat	hasFeature	Tuckerization / int_78893b2e
The Black Cat	hasFeature	Ãœberwald / int_78893b2e
The Black Cat	hasFeature	Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny / int_78893b2e

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