The Black Cat

Universal City: Universal Pictures, 1934. Vintage oversize reference photograph of actors Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff playing chess between takes on the set of the 1934 film. INSCRIBED by Karloff on the top right corner: "To Violet / with every good wish / Boris Karloff." Printed mimeo snipe affixed to the verso, along with the stamp of photographer Roman Freulich. Basically, just about the most amazing photograph of Lugosi and Karloff imaginable, both on the set of the greatest film they made together.

One of several great films by director Edgar G. Ulmer, and along with his 1945 noir classic "Detour," probably his finest achievement—an efficient tale in which a young couple with a broken-down automobile land in a decidedly art deco haunted house, where Karloff resides and Lugosi is visiting.

Michael Weaver notes: "Boldly thumbing its nose at convention, the film is a veritable catalog of human corruption. Sadism, shades of incest, revenge, murder, torture, voyeurism, Satan worship, ailurophobia, necrophilia, rape, and insanity are weaved into the nearly plotless story with remarkable precision."

10 x 8 inches. Very Good plus, lightly toned overall, with faint creases to the bottom corners.

[Book #153636]