The Black Cat (1934 Film) - Plot

Plot

Newlyweds Peter and Joan Alison, on their honeymoon in Hungary, learn that due to a mixup, they must share a train compartment with Dr. Vitus Werdegast (Béla Lugosi), a psychiatrist. Eighteen years before, Werdegast went to war, never seeing his wife again. He has spent the last 15 years in an infamous prison camp. On the train, the doctor explains that he is traveling to see an old friend, Hjalmar Poelzig (Boris Karloff), an Austrian architect. Later, the doctor, Peter, and Joan, share a bus, which crashes on a desolate, rain-swept road. Joan is injured, and the doctor and Peter take her to Poelzig's home, built upon the ruins of Fort Marmorus, which Poelzig commanded during the war. Werdegast treats Joan's injury, administering the hallucinogen hyoscine, causing the woman to behave erratically. Later, Werdegast accuses Poelzig of betraying the fort during the war to the Russians, resulting in the death of thousands of Hungarians. He also accuses Poelzig of stealing his wife while he was in prison. Early on in the movie, Werdegast kills Poelzig's black cat, but Poelzig, who keeps dead women on display in glass cases, carries a black cat around the house with him while he oversees the women's apparently sleeping forms (this use of the black cat an allusion to the story the movie is suggested by, Edgar Allan Poe's "The Black Cat"). Poelzig plans to sacrifice Joan Alison in a satanic ritual during the dark of the moon. He is seen reading a book called The Rites of Lucifer, while a beautiful blonde woman sleeps next to him. The blonde is Werdegast's daughter; one of the women in the glass cases is Werdegast's wife. Werdegast bides his time, waiting for the right moment to strike down the mad architect who used to be his friend.