4/14/2007

There’s good news- for most of you- Abbott and Costello are NOWHERE IN SIGHT tonight on Svengoolie! Yes, our latest rerun round of A &C is now AWOL, if not DOA. Our feature tonight is an eerie Bela Lugosi/Boris Karloff collaboration, supposedly suggested by Edgar Allan Poe, but having precious little to do with any of his stories- “the Black Cat!” This is a film that shows some of the tension of wartime in Europe and the devastation it meant to many people. Boris is VERY strange in this film- sporting a sort of “New Wave” haircut and look. He also seems to enjoy having dead women in glass display cases in his dungeon basement- for reasons that we don’t really ever find out! He’s also into Satanism, among other things. Bela has an axe to grind with Boris, having just gotten out of wartime prison, and in search of his wife and daughter- but- are they dead- or has Boris had a hand in their fates? Add to all this confusion the fact that Bela has an unnatural fear of – cats! Is there one wandering the premises of Boris’ strange modernistic sanctuary, which just happened to be a military fort? (Well, what do YOU think- the movie’s title is “the Black Cat!” Come on!) One more complication- we have a young honeymooning couple, who meet Bela on the train, and, on the way to their respective destinations, end up in a car crash that requires the couple to come with Bela to Boris’ place for medical attention. Unfortunately, Boris gives the battered blushing bride more attention than he should- and has a specific fate in mind for her involving the Black Arts! This film was banned by censors in some European countries, while others felt it had to be edited due to some of the allegedly gruesome content. Another interesting feature of this film was that it had a musical soundtrack throughout most of the film, which wasn’t common back then. There was a feeling in some early sound movies that there shouldn’t be music on the soundtrack, unless it “made sense”- that is, for example, if there was a band or orchestra on screen. Obviously, film-makers got away from that kind of thinking pretty quickly! This is a pretty unusual film, and if you’ve never seen it, you’ll find it to be very atmospheric and eerie. Atmospheric and Eerie? That’s my law firm! Anyway, join me for “the Black Cat” tonight…and bring your own kitty litter. (And if you think the last two sentences had bad jokes…)