bkoganbing Any time you can get as many familiar movie faces in one film viewing should never be passed up. But The Black Cat and there is a dark feline that is always around when something bad happens is a wonderful film that is right on the edge of mystery and comedy and succeeds at both.Partly that's because so many of these people have played sinister roles in other movies you will have a hard time guessing who the real perpetrator is. Even Alan Ladd whose stardom was yet to come had as his debut contract killer Raven in This Gun For Hire.Even Broderick Crawford who appears as the nominal hero of the piece played a lot of villainous thug types. He also played many a dim bulb before his Oscar in All The King's Men and it's in dim bulb mode that Crawford stays in the movie.Crawford is a real estate salesman and he's accompanied by Hugh Herbert who is an antique dealer and the only one you're reasonably sure is the murderer. They've come to make Cecilia Loftus an offer for her creepy old mansion and Herbert wants the furnishings. They arrive just in time to hear what her intentions are via a will to her grasping relatives. But she doesn't get to reveal all before she's murdered and now the hunt for the killer is on. Some more folks also get eliminated before all is revealed.Any film that has folks like those already mentioned plus Gale Sondergaard, Claire Dodd, Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi, Gladys Cooper, Anne Gwynne and John Eldredge should not be missed.Wouldn't have been something if Hugh Herbert was the murderer?

Scarecrow-88 Murder-mystery-in-a-mansion whodunit with Broderick Crawford as Gil Smith, attempting to negotiate the sale of a mansion and its belongings from a girl he's personally smitten with, Elaine(Anne Gwynne), whose grandmother, with an innumerable amount of feline pets, is dying. The Winslow family are awaiting their very wealthy ancestor's demise, anxious to know what's in her will. So anxious that one among them stabs her with a knitting needle(the first attempt on her life via poisonous milk winds up in a cat's death, with Gil almost drinking it himself)while the old woman is in her "cat crematorium".Despite leaving members of her family monetary inheritance, there was a clause in the will that stated that they wouldn't receive a dime until woman servant Abigail's death. Abigail(Gale Sondergaard) was loyal to her employer, helped feed and manage the cats, while tending to the day-to-day maid routines. When Abigail is hit across the back of the head by a coffin in her room(!)and left unconscious inside the box, it's quite clear that someone wants her out of the way so that he or she can collect on their inheritance. Gil becomes a bumbling sleuth, the very definition of amateur, who stumbles and falls in pure slapstick form while trying to not only protect Elaine, but find the murderer responsible for Madame Winslow's death.As expected in a chiller set within a massive mansion, there are secret passageways which the killer uses to move about(such as when he or she kills Madame Winslow, a passage from the mansion into the crematorium designed by her brilliant architecture husband, his genius which built the fortune the relatives want to get their hands on)soon discovered by Gil's "antique specialist", Penny(Hugh Herbert; seemingly oblivious to all the shenanigans going on around him)by accident. Elaine, no surprise, becomes a damsel in distress Gil, God bless him, must rescue as the killer(the least suspect you expect, the motive being jealousy, and a last ditch effort to keep a husband from leaving her)prepares to turn her to ash as the grandmother did with her dead cats. Basil Rathbone and Bela Lugosi turn up in smaller parts despite their recognized names, the former as the philandering husband of an older Windslow due to inherit, Myrna(Gladys Cooper, many will know from her three appearances on Serling's THE TWILIGHT ZONE), the latter as merely a suspicious, grubby servant on the grounds with little dialogue. Lugosi's role is so minor, if wasn't introduced in such epic fashion, holding a lantern towards the mansion's entrance gate, his ghoulish eyes in close-up, you'd barely remember him(he is seen listening on from the outside, looking in from the windows). Rathbone is the handsome scoundrel actually having an affair with Myrna's sister, Henrietta(Cecilia Loftus), using his aging wife's vulnerability to his own advantage. Sondergaard has a sizable part as the center of controversy, a maidservant the others despise for being the barrier between them and their precious money. Gwynne will be familiar due to her role as Dracula's desired bride in HOUSE OF FRANKENSTEIN. Crawford has the largest role, a foil for most of the picture, especially towards the end when he believes Lugosi's Eduardo is the killer(even jumping off Elaine's balcony into a mud puddle to chase him down)and moves about in hysterics worried that Elaine has been kidnapped. Alan Ladd has an early part as Myrtle's son, who knows about Monty's(Rathbone) unfaithfulness and confronts him about it. Even in the smaller Universal Studios pictures, style, atmosphere, and sets add quality which make even this B-movie look and feel like an A-picture. Superb cast adds class to the proceedings. Probably the prize of the Universal Archives set released recently.

Spondonman This little gem has long been one of my favourites: since I taped it in the '80's my daughter and I have watched it dozens of times, and although the 1934 horror film may be better it's still lovely to watch. Universal Pictures in the 1940's could churn out inconsequential family entertainment films like this so seemingly effortlessly and all with a special atmosphere that marked them apart from their bigger and richer rivals. Russell Gausman as set director did his usual fantastic job of creating something gorgeous to look at from nothing and the nitrate-film photography by Stanley Cortez was beautifully brooding, when the comedy allowed.Relatives with secrets and problems assemble at a dying old lady's spooky old house to find out how much they'll inherit from her when the day comes. Or whether her army of beloved pampered cats will get it all. Dapper Basil Rathbone had the biggest problems of them all - but was he the one who murdered the old lady, or was she killed from kindness after all? There could have been some mysterious feline power at work, Alan Ladd looked like he'd shoot everyone for a nickel, Gladys Cooper was very demure even if very strong, Gail Sondergaard (her line "Two is equal to one" matched her "Sometimes they get into the machinery" from Cat And The Canary) and Bela Lugosi were as creepy as ever, Claire Dodd was plain nasty and John Eldredge just too dumb to be real. However I don't care what anybody says the lovely Anne Gwynne was never going to be Guilty in my eyes! Chunky Broderick Crawford and Hugh Herbert bumble through it all as the hero and light relief – this was a big vehicle for Herbert to woo-hoo his way through too. His over-zaniness can be a problem at times – was he and Crawford there in place of some songs or Abbott & Costello and overall did he help or detract? And what the Hell was Anne Gwynne supposed to see in Broderick Crawford anyway??Maybe it helps to have seen it when young to see it now through rose-tinted spectacles. It can be too melodramatic at times, especially during the otherwise gripping climax, but with plenty of lovely smoky visuals and a rich atmosphere to wallow in I've always enjoyed watching this and hope to many more times.

MARIO GAUCI Given one of the most abused titles in cinema history (innumerable films were supposedly inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's short story but few, if any, bothered to be faithful to it), the plot of this one could go in any direction. Universal had already used the title for one of its most stylish (and potent) horror offerings in 1934, so the 'remake' tried something entirely different: an old dark house comedy-chiller on the lines of THE CAT AND THE CANARY (itself brought to the screen several times, the most recent up to that time emanating from 1939). As always with this kind of film, we get a plethora of characters brought together for the hearing of a will and then starting to die violently one by one; the cast is notable and eclectic – including two horror stars (Basil Rathbone and Bela Lugosi: the latter was also in the earlier version, where his role was far more substantial), whereas the comedy is supplied by Broderick Crawford (proving surprisingly adept and likably accident-prone!) and the insufferable Hugh Herbert. Of course, there is a damsel-in-distress (pretty Anne Gwynne, also serving as Crawford's love interest) being invariably the one to receive the lion's share of the fortune possessed by the dotty (and cat-loving) owner of the estate; also on hand are Gale Sondergaard (as the sinister housekeeper, a virtual reprise of her role in the aforementioned version of THE CAT AND THE CANARY) and Gladys Cooper and Alan Ladd(!) as mother and son (the former is married to Rathbone, but he carries on an affair with another relative present). Being definitely a B-movie, the film is best compared to similarly modest ventures in this vein: even so, not involving recognizable comics (such as THE GORILLA [1939] did with The Ritz Brothers) or a horrific figure (a' la NIGHT MONSTER [1942]) – both films, incidentally, feature Bela Lugosi in an almost identical (and equally thankless) part – the film ends up not satisfying anyone…even if it is harmless enough as entertainment, the eerie atmosphere well up to par and the identity of the villain (who perishes flamboyantly in a blaze) a genuine surprise.