The Black Cat (1941)

The Black Cat: Directed by Albert S. Rogell. With Basil Rathbone, Hugh Herbert, Broderick Crawford, Bela Lugosi. Elderly Henrietta Winslow lives in an isolated mansion with her housekeeper and beloved cats. As her health fails, her greedy relatives gather in anticipation of her death.

“Old lady gathers her greedy relatives in her gloomy isolated mansion for a reading of her will. Not long after, she winds up dead. Welcome to an old dark house thriller, friends. Yes, itu0026#39;s fairly repetitive of many other such thrillers or comedies but itu0026#39;s pretty entertaining at times. It has an excellent cast, most of which unfortunately have little to do. Broderick Crawford stars in an early role. Heu0026#39;s equal parts leading man and buffoon. The kind of part Wayne Morris would have been playing over at WB. Bela Lugosi has a small, thankless part. He spends most of the movie ominously lurking in the shadows and peering in windows. Hugh Herbert provides the movieu0026#39;s comic relief. For the uninitiated that means he fidgets and talks to himself, punctuating every other sentence with u0026quot;woo hoo.u0026quot; Itu0026#39;s not very funny but I found it harmless enough. Maybe Iu0026#39;m just used to Herbert by now. Others may find him irritating so be warned. The rest of the cast includes Basil Rathbone, Gale Sondergaard, Anne Gwynne, Gladys Cooper, and Alan Ladd before he made it big. I agree with another reviewer that this probably would have worked better as an Abbott u0026amp; Costello movie. Despite the relatively short runtime, it begins to feel overlong as it nears the hour mark. Itu0026#39;s enjoyable enough but flawed. Still, anything Universal was putting out in the horror/thriller field in the 1940s was worth watching.”