Would you spend the night, following a traffic accident, in a bizarre futuristic home built atop the ruins of a fortress perched over a horrific World War One battlefield? What if the doctor who took you there was an increasingly odd Bela Lugosi and the host awaiting you was a most peculiar Boris Karloff? Pity poor David Manners & Julie Bishop, who find themselves in just such a predicament.<br /><br />THE BLACK CAT is the best of the Karloff/Lugosi teamings of the 1930's. They play hated antagonists who finally get the opportunity to revenge themselves upon each other, once and for all. Add a virulent fear of black cats, a well-equipped torture chamber & a wicked band of Satanists and you have all the elements for a dandy little thriller. (Except for the title, there is no connection whatsoever with the Poe story).<br /><br />Karloff & Lugosi are both spooky and their scenes together are full of menace. Mr. Manners & Miss Bishop are good; they look stalwart or scared convincingly. That's John Carradine playing the organ, by the way.<br /><br />Some attention should be paid to the set design. Instead of taking place in a creepy old house, the plot unwinds in a modernistic mansion, all rounded corners & curving walls. One could almost call this a science-fiction story - Ming the Merciless would be quite at home here.<br /><br />