{ "id": "epp87wmsmy", "slug": "the-black-cat-1934-film", "title": "The Black Cat (1934 film)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror", "label": "Horror films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror.gothic-horror-films", "label": "Gothic horror films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror.gothic-horror-films" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror", "label": "United States · 1800 to 1945: Horror films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800", "label": "United States · 1800 to 1945", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror", "label": "Horror films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t1800.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror" } ] } ], "excerpt": "The Black Cat (1934) is Edgar G. Ulmer's Universal pre-Code horror film, the first pairing of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, loosely credited to Poe's story, Universal's top-grossing 1934 release, costing $95,745.31.", "snippet": "The Black Cat (1934) is Edgar G. Ulmer's Universal pre-Code horror film, the first pairing of Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi, loosely credited to Poe's story, Universal's top-grossing 1934 release, costing $95,745.31.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror.gothic-horror-films", "markdown": "# The Black Cat (1934 film)\n\n**The Black Cat** is a 1934 American pre-Code horror film directed by Edgar G. Ulmer and produced by [Universal Pictures](https://www.edgepedia.org/universal-pictures), starring [Boris Karloff](https://www.edgepedia.org/boris-karloff) as the Satanist architect Hjalmar Poelzig and [Bela Lugosi](https://www.edgepedia.org/bela-lugosi) as Dr. Vitus Werdegast, a psychiatrist seeking revenge for his stolen wife and daughter. It was the first film in which Karloff and Lugosi appeared together, and it became Universal's top-grossing release of 1934.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4590-THE-BLACKCAT) • [2](https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/ucla-universal-catalog.pdf) Although released with the title and an on-screen credit for Edgar Allan Poe's 1843 short story \"The Black Cat,\" the film retains only a trace of that text.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4590-THE-BLACKCAT) • [3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/17869/the-black-cat-1934-the-black-cat-1934)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Director / writers | Edgar G. Ulmer; screenplay by Peter Ruric and Ulmer, suggested by Poe's story[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4590-THE-BLACKCAT) |\n| Stars | Boris Karloff (Hjalmar Poelzig), Bela Lugosi (Dr. Vitus Werdegast), David Manners (Peter Alison), Jacqueline Wells (Joan Alison)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4590-THE-BLACKCAT) |\n| First pairing | The first film in which Karloff and Lugosi appeared together; the first of eight films (six at Universal) to feature both[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4590-THE-BLACKCAT) • [4](https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2022/venice-classics/black-cat) |\n| Cost | $95,745.31 final cost per USC production files; budgeted at about a third of what Universal spent on *Dracula* (1931) or *Frankenstein* (1931)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4590-THE-BLACKCAT) • [3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/17869/the-black-cat-1934-the-black-cat-1934) |\n| Release | US premiere 3 May 1934 per filmportal.de; AFI lists 7 May 1934[5](https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/the-black-cat_b2673a558701463cb457da0d06e1da0a) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4590-THE-BLACKCAT) |\n| Box office | Universal's top-grossing release of 1934[2](https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/ucla-universal-catalog.pdf) |\n| Running time | About 65 to 66 minutes (AFI lists 65 or 70 minutes; BFI lists 66)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4590-THE-BLACKCAT) • [6](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/4dcf2f40-89a2-5ebc-abee-1e2fcd362993/the-black-cat) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot\n\nAmerican honeymooners Peter and Joan Alison, traveling through [Eastern Europe](https://www.edgepedia.org/eastern-europe) on the [Orient Express](https://www.edgepedia.org/orient-express), share a train compartment with the gracious but brooding Dr. Vitus Werdegast. After Joan is injured when their bus crashes on a deserted road, the couple and the doctor take shelter in the sepulchral Hungarian home of Hjalmar Poelzig, an architect who shares a dark past with Werdegast.[7](https://www.acmi.net.au/works/90967--the-black-cat/)\n\nWerdegast has waited fifteen years to find his wife Karen and their daughter and to kill Poelzig, whom he suspects knows their fate. Poelzig, a high priest of a devil-worshipping cult, holds the group captive, torments Werdegast with revelations about his family, and chooses Joan to be the bride of the Devil in a [Black Mass](https://www.edgepedia.org/black-mass) ceremony. Werdegast must save her while pursuing his revenge.[7](https://www.acmi.net.au/works/90967--the-black-cat/) • [8](https://www.universalpicturesathome.com/movies/the-black-cat-1934)\n\n## Production\n\nProducer [Carl Laemmle](https://www.edgepedia.org/carl-laemmle), Jr. approved the project on the strength of the Karloff-Lugosi pairing and the Poe name, and gave Ulmer nearly free rein. Ulmer and screenwriter Peter Ruric built a new story from scratch, discarding three existing treatments in the studio's script department as well as Poe's tale; Ulmer said plainly that \"The Edgar Allan Poe story is not a story you can dramatize.\"[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/17869/the-black-cat-1934-the-black-cat-1934) In a later interview with [Peter Bogdanovich](https://www.edgepedia.org/peter-bogdanovich), Ulmer confirmed that the Poe credit was retained despite the film's slight connection to the story.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4590-THE-BLACKCAT)\n\nThe film was cheap and fast. Universal budgeted it at about a third of the cost of *Dracula* or *Frankenstein*; TCM's account describes a fifteen-day shooting schedule, while the Venice Classics restoration notes put the shoot at nineteen days including retakes, at a total cost of $95,745.31.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/17869/the-black-cat-1934-the-black-cat-1934) • [4](https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2022/venice-classics/black-cat) AFI's production records give 28 February to 17 March 1934 for principal photography, with three days of retakes beginning 25 March.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4590-THE-BLACKCAT)\n\nUlmer's background was in set design, first in the German theater under [Max Reinhardt](https://www.edgepedia.org/max-reinhardt) and then in collaborations with [Fritz Lang](https://www.edgepedia.org/fritz-lang) and [F. W. Murnau](https://www.edgepedia.org/f-w-murnau) on *Metropolis* (1927) and *Sunrise* (1927). He drew on German expressionism for the design of Poelzig's Art Deco mansion, which visually charges the minimal plot.[3](https://www.tcm.com/articles/17869/the-black-cat-1934-the-black-cat-1934) • [9](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/the-black-cat-2007-04/1) The UCLA Universal catalog describes the film as a catalog of 1930s public fascinations: Poe, the two horror stars, modernist architecture, postwar trauma, and psychiatry, pathology, and the occult.[2](https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/ucla-universal-catalog.pdf)\n\n## Censorship\n\nThe MPAA/PCA files at the AMPAS Library record that many scenes were considered objectionable for sexual suggestiveness and \"gruesomeness,\" particularly the flaying of Poelzig and the killing of the cat. Hays Office suggestions included deleting a scene of a cat licking blood from Joan's shoulder, the original wedding opening, the appearances of corpses, the suggestion that the ceremony parodied an actual religious service, any sexual intimacy or hint of homosexuality, and references to Czechoslovakians as \"people who devour the young.\"[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4590-THE-BLACKCAT)\n\nCensorship outcomes varied by jurisdiction. New York, Kansas, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania approved the film without deletions, while Ohio, Ontario, Chicago, Quebec, and Sweden required removal of the flaying scene. Great Britain, where the film was titled *The House of Doom*, and Japan released it with further deletions. Italy rejected it because \"it could create horror,\" and Finland and Austria rejected it, the latter objecting that it portrayed an Austrian as a \"military traitor and main criminal.\" When the picture was re-issued in 1938, the Hays Office granted it certification.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4590-THE-BLACKCAT)\n\n## Music and style\n\nThe score, arranged by Heinz Roemheld, incorporates [Johann Sebastian Bach](https://www.edgepedia.org/johann-sebastian-bach)'s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, and the film is counted among the earlier movies with an almost continuous music score.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4590-THE-BLACKCAT) • [4](https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2022/venice-classics/black-cat) Critics have read the film as a marriage of German expressionism and psychological terror: the Venice Classics note calls it a work that helped create and popularize the psychological horror subgenre, relying on atmosphere, eerie sound, and emotions such as fear and guilt rather than a monster, and Paul Mandell's program note calls it \"the first American psychological horror.\"[4](https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2022/venice-classics/black-cat)\n\n## Reception and legacy\n\nThe film was a box office success, Universal's biggest hit of 1934.[2](https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/ucla-universal-catalog.pdf) • [10](https://beladraculalugosi.wordpress.com/1934-the-black-cat/) Later critical standing is high: Rotten Tomatoes records an 89% Tomatometer from 36 reviews, with a critics' consensus crediting the Karloff-Lugosi pairing and the film's creepy atmosphere as making it an early classic of the Universal horror library.[11](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1038510-black_cat?mobile-app=true&theme=dark) BFI's list of a great horror film for every year selects it for 1934, and the film was screened in the Venice Classics restoration program in 2022.[12](https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/great-horror-film-from-every-year-from-1922-now) • [4](https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2022/venice-classics/black-cat)\n\nThe film also marked a career turning point for Ulmer. Despite its success, it remained his only work for a major studio; his subsequent career ran through independent and low-budget productions, including the noir *Detour* (1945).[13](https://thesis.unipd.it/retrieve/d3b99a32-5cc9-47e8-9a10-64554c0e0d5f/Modonesi_Sonia.pdf) • [14](https://memory.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/detour.pdf) Universal reused the Poe title for a different 1941 film, *The Black Cat*, a comedy-mystery unrelated to the 1934 picture.[15](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26620-THE-BLACK-CAT)\n\n## References\n\n1. [The Black Cat (1934), AFI Catalog](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/4590-THE-BLACKCAT)\n2. [The Black Cat 1934, UCLA Film & Television Archive Universal Catalog](https://www.cinema.ucla.edu/sites/default/files/ucla-universal-catalog.pdf)\n3. [The Black Cat (1934), TCM article by Bret Wood](https://www.tcm.com/articles/17869/the-black-cat-1934-the-black-cat-1934)\n4. [The Black Cat, Venice Classics 2022, La Biennale di Venezia](https://www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2022/venice-classics/black-cat)\n5. [The Black Cat, filmportal.de](https://www.filmportal.de/en/movie/the-black-cat_b2673a558701463cb457da0d06e1da0a)\n6. [The Black Cat (1934), British Film Institute](https://www.bfi.org.uk/film/4dcf2f40-89a2-5ebc-abee-1e2fcd362993/the-black-cat)\n7. [The Black Cat, ACMI collection](https://www.acmi.net.au/works/90967--the-black-cat/)\n8. [The Black Cat (1934), Universal Pictures At Home](https://www.universalpicturesathome.com/movies/the-black-cat-1934)\n9. [The Black Cat, Harvard Film Archive](https://harvardfilmarchive.org/calendar/the-black-cat-2007-04/1)\n10. [1934: The Black Cat, The Bela Lugosi Blog](https://beladraculalugosi.wordpress.com/1934-the-black-cat/)\n11. [The Black Cat, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/1038510-black_cat?mobile-app=true&theme=dark)\n12. [A great horror film for every year, from 1922 to now, BFI](https://www.bfi.org.uk/lists/great-horror-film-from-every-year-from-1922-now)\n13. [Sonia Modonesi, thesis on The Black Cat, University of Padua](https://thesis.unipd.it/retrieve/d3b99a32-5cc9-47e8-9a10-64554c0e0d5f/Modonesi_Sonia.pdf)\n14. [Detour, National Film Preservation Board treatment](https://memory.loc.gov/static/programs/national-film-preservation-board/documents/detour.pdf)\n15. [The Black Cat (1941), AFI Catalog](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/26620-THE-BLACK-CAT)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Horror films (individual works) › Gothic horror films*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-black-cat-1934-film", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/the-black-cat-1934-film.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"The Black Cat (1934 film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-black-cat-1934-film. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[The Black Cat (1934 film)](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-black-cat-1934-film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/the-black-cat-1934-film](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-black-cat-1934-film). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"The Black Cat (1934 film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/the-black-cat-1934-film. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "The Black Cat is Edgar G." }