Noel Black, a director whose first feature film, the 1968 black comedy “Pretty Poison,” divided critics but became a cult hit, died on July 5 at a hospital near his home in Santa Barbara, Calif. He was 77.

His daughter, Nicole Black Gonthier, said the cause was bacterial pneumonia.

“Pretty Poison,” starring Anthony Perkins and Tuesday Weld, had a script by Lorenzo Semple Jr. (best known for television’s “Batman”), based on Stephen Geller’s novel “She Let Him Continue,” from 1966.

Mr. Perkins plays a paroled arsonist who pretends to be a secret agent to win over a stunning blond honors student, played by Ms. Weld. But underneath Ms. Weld’s wholesome facade lies a psychopath, and she and Mr. Perkins embark on a murderous crime spree.

Some reviewers panned the movie, and when it did poorly at the box office, 20th Century Fox, the studio that produced it, pulled it from theaters. But after other critics rose to the film’s defense, the studio soon rereleased it, and it found a cult following.