Black Cats and Broomsticks (1955)

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Short about superstitions and how they affect everyday life. They also go into various things people do or use to protect themselves or predict the future (like Ouija boards and fortune tellers). There are some amusing dated facts here too--according to this many people have died because they pay wizards to cure them of illness instead of going to doctors! Silly short with insipid narration full of groaners. It takes a VERY condescending view of all this and seems to point out that people who do any of these things are utter idiots. Still it's fascinating to see as a historical document and it is only 8 minutes long. I give it a 6.

Black Cats and Broomsticks (1955)*** (out of 4)RKO/Pathe Screenliner short is perhaps the best I've seen from them. The short deals with the topic of superstitions and how times really haven't changed much since the days of black magic, witchery and various other forms of dark mysteries. The short talks about walking under a ladder, crossing paths with a black cat, the "dead man's hand" in cards and of course everyone's favorite day, Friday 13th. We also hear about people who die yearly because they take the advice of a "wizard" instead of that of a doctor. This film has a lot in common with another short, WHO'S SUPERSTITIOUS?, which was a pretty good Pete Smith short made nearly a decade earlier. This film takes a serious and spoof like look at the subject and really manages to be fun throughout the running time. The best stuff deals with the way farmers might search for a place to put a hex on another farmer's cattle.

This short subject from the '50s takes a look at our superstitious nature and displays a number of them for our amusement.Among the many: Ouiji boards, crystal ball, hand palm reading, sediment teacup, wizards instead of doctors, spilling salt over left shoulder, walking under a ladder, Friday the 13th, the divining rod, and step on a crack.Interesting to see how Black Magic still has a grip on modern Americans.This is the sort of short that accompanied many a feature film throughout the '30s to the '50s and, while the subject matter is fascinating enough, it fails to really deliver the goods in illustrating all of these myths.Passes the time but hardly a worthwhile treat.

An RKO-Pathe Screenliner Short Subject.The nervous have more things to fret about than just the BLACK CATS AND BROOMSTICKS of Halloween.This humorous little film takes a lighthearted look at fortune predictors (Ouija boards, horoscopes, palmistry, etc.) as well as various superstitions: spilling salt, walking under ladders, Friday the 13th, luck charms, chain letters and so forth.Often overlooked or neglected today, the one and two-reel short subjects were useful to the Studios as important training grounds for new or burgeoning talents, both in front & behind the camera. The dynamics for creating a successful short subject was completely different from that of a feature length film, something akin to writing a topnotch short story rather than a novel. Economical to produce in terms of both budget & schedule and capable of portraying a wide range of material, short subjects were the perfect complement to the Studios' feature films.