037 - The Black Cat

Talkin' Movies episode 037 - The Black Cat (1934) & The Black Cat (1941)

 

 

NOTES, SOURCES, & FURTHER READING

For an overview of Universal Horror in general, the bible remains Tom Weaver, Michael Brunas, and John Brunas’ Universal Horrors: The Studio’s Classic Films, 1931-1946 (second edition, McFarland & Company, Inc., 2007)

 For more on the workings of Universal during the Classical Hollywood era, we recommend chapters 1, 6, 13, 18, and 23 of Thomas Schatz’s The Genius of the System: Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio Era (1988)

There is a very long and detailed chapter on The Black Cat (1934) in Gregory William Mank’s Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff: The Expanded Story of a Haunting Collaboration (McFarland & Company, Inc., 2009)

For further reading on the 1934 film The Black Cat, we recommend the chapter “Bauhaus of Horror: Film Architecture and The Black Cat” in Alison Peirse’s After Dracula: The 1930s Horror Film (I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 2013) and the film’s brief entry in Danny Peary’s Cult Movies 3: Fifty More of the Classics, the Sleepers, the Weird and the Wonderful (Fireside, 1988)

Lucille Lund’s account of Edgar Ulmer’s sadism can be found in Gregory William Mank’s “When the Black Cat Crossed Her Path” in The Bloody Best of Fangoria volume 12 (1993)

A very brief overview of the Breen Office’s response to The Black Cat (1934) is included in Anthony Slide’s article “Censored Screams!  Horror Films and the Production Code in the 1930s,” which appeared in Filmfax issue 72 (April/May 1999)

Tim’s dislike of David Fucking Manners was partially fuelled by the Gregory Mank article “David Manners Revisited: He Outlived Them All!” which appeared in issue 60 of Midnight Marquee Monsters (Summer/Fall 1999)

For the history of horror cinema in general we recommend Carlos Clarens’ An Illustrated History of  Horror and Science-Fiction Films: The Classic Era, 1895-1967 (1967), William K. Everson’s Classics of the Horror Film (1974) and More Classics of the Horror Film (1986), and David J. Skal’s The Monster Show: A Cultural History of Horror (1993).  Like many of the films they discuss, these books have their flaws but have become too influential to ignore.  They remain insightful, informative, and entertaining.

 

Intro music: "The Black Cat" (1934) Main Titles by Heinz Eric Roemheld

Outro music: "The Black Cat" (1941) Main Titles by Hans J. Salter