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| runtime = 65 minutes | language = English | country = United States | budget = $95,745.31〔Michael Brunas, John Brunas & Tom Weaver, ''Universal Horrors: The Studios Classic Films, 1931-46'', McFarland, 1990 p83〕 | gross = $236,000〔Stephen Jacobs, ''Boris Karloff: More Than a Monster'', Tomohawk Press 2011 p 155〕 }} ''The Black Cat'' is a 1934 horror film that became Universal Pictures' biggest box office hit of the year. The picture was the first of eight movies (six of which were produced by Universal) to pair actors Béla Lugosi and Boris Karloff. Edgar G. Ulmer directed the film, which was also notable for being one of the first movies with an almost continuous music score. Lugosi also appears in a 1941 film with the same title. ==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 Hungarian 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. While Peter puts her to bed, Werdegast accuses Poelzig of betraying the fort during the war to the Russians, resulting in the death of thousands of Austro-Hungarian soldiers. He also accuses Poelzig of stealing his wife Karen 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 second black cat around the house with him while he oversees other preserved dead women. 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, also named Karen; 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. Unfortunately, Peter mangles everything up. When Poelzig is killed and Joan tries to tear a key from the dead man's hand, he mistakes Werdegast's attempt to help her as an attack. Fatally wounded, Werdegast blows up the house, letting the lovers escape. "It has been a good game," he says before he dies. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「The Black Cat (1934 film)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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