Trivia
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Spoilers (1)
The satanic prayer Poelzig chants during the black mass scene consists of phrases in Latin, the most recognizable being "cum grano salis" (with a grain of salt).
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Edgar G. Ulmer admitted in an interview that Edgar Allan Poe's story was credited to draw public attention, despite the fact it had nothing to do with the story in the movie.
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Censors in Italy, Finland and Austria banned the movie outright, while others required cuts of the more gruesome sequences.
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Among the unconventional elements of this film was the soundtrack. At a time (early 1930s) when movie music was usually limited to the titles and credits, Edgar G. Ulmer had an almost continuous background score throughout the entire film.
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Boris Karloff's character is named after Austrian architect and art director Hans Poelzig. Poelzig worked on The Golem, on which director Edgar G. Ulmer was set designer.
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Edgar G. Ulmer dubbed Bela Lugosi's voice instructing his servant to "wait here" before accompanying Boris Karloff down to be shown his preserved dead wife.
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The ill-fated bus driver is a direct homage to the doorman in The Last Laugh, on which Edgar G. Ulmer worked as Production Designer.
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Director Edgar G. Ulmer, when writing this film, loosely based the villain Hjalmar Poelzig, played by Boris Karloff, on director Fritz Lang. Ulmer knew Lang from the German-Austrian film scene and, though he was a huge admirer of Lang's films, felt Lang to be a sadist as a director.
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The only Universal picture until The Wolf Man to introduce the major characters during the opening credits, and the actors playing them, with brief clips from the movie.
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Part of the original SHOCK THEATER package of 52 Universal titles released to television in 1957, followed a year later with SON OF SHOCK, which added 21 more features.
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The door bell in Poelzig's house plays the first four notes from a recurring theme from Richard Wagner's opera "Die Meistersinger".
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While working on the film, Edgar G. Ulmer began a love affair with 'Shirley Castle', who would eventually become his wife. At the time, Castle was married to Universal producer Max Alexander. The ensuing scandal led to Ulmer being blackballed from most major Hollywood studios throughout the rest of his career.
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The first film collaboration of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, who at the time were unquestionably the two biggest stars of horror film. Despite rumors that the two stars were personally very competitive, this marked the beginning of a pleasant working relationship between the two. While Lugosi and Karloff never became close personal friends, they were quite amicable to each other and enjoyed working together.
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The British release title was changed from "The Black Cat" to "The House of Doom" because in Britain, black cats are considered a sign of good luck - not bad.
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Spoilers
Reportedly Universal Studios executives were displeased when they viewed the first cut of the film and so ordered the director to do some extra shooting to tone the violence and horror down. Edgar G. Ulmer did the opposite, and added in the now-famous sequence where Poelzig (Boris Karloff) views his dead but preserved wives before he reveals the fate of Karen to Dr. Werdegast.
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