film and architecture section: The Black Cat by Edgar G. Ulmer, architecture and film appreciation

category: Architecture and Film (The waterloo University syllabus) (click HERE for syllabus)
film index: 29

film: The Black Cat
director: Edgar G. Ulmer
writers: Edgar G. Ulmer
production: US Universal Pictures
release: 1934
playtime: 65 mins
visual: BnW
Language: English
Subtitles:
Genre: horror
Cast: Boris Karloff, Béla Lugosi, David Manners
size: 900 mb

reference: www.taringa.net, www.tipete.com,

Description and download:

Two young honeymooners, Peter and Joan Alison, are vacationing in Hungary when they learn that due to a mix up in the reservations, they must share a train compartment with Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Béla Lugosi), a psychiatrist. The doctor explains that he is traveling to see an old friend, Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff), an Austrian architect. Werdegast had left his wife to go to war 18 years ago, and has spent the last 15 years in an infamous prison camp. Later, when the car the three share crashes and Joan is injured, they take her to Poelzig's home, built upon the ruins of Fort Marmorus, which Poelzig commanded during the war. After Werdegast treats Joan's injury, he accuses Poelzig of betraying the fort to the Russians, resulting in the death of thousands of Hungarians. He also accuses Poelzig of stealing his wife while he was in prison. Poelzig plans to sacrifice Joan Alison in a satanic ritual.

At a time when films often promoted modern architecture as a major attribute of fast-paced, modern life, here it became a distincitive feature of European decadance, a direct result of the horrors of World War I. Hjalmar Poelzig's ultramodern villa with Corbusier style ribbon windows is located above a World War I cemetary on the walls of the ruined fortress of Marmaro. "A masterpiece of construction built upon the ruins of a masterpiece of destruction." What was considered by many to be a wicked, shameless film, mercilessly satirizing celebrated European achievements in modern architecture, classical music, and film, became the most successful Universal Studios film of 1934.

The film has little to do with Edgar Allan Poe's famous story of the same name, though Poe's name is listed in the credits.

The film – and by extension, the character of Hjalmar Poelzig – draws inspiration from the life of occultist Aleister Crowley. The name Poelzig was borrowed from architect Hans Poelzig, whom Ulmer claimed to have worked with on the sets for Paul Wegener's silent film The Golem.

IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0024894/
Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Cat_%281934_film%29

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