THE BAT
US, 1959, 80 minutes, Black and white.
Vincent Price, Agnes Morehead, Gavin Gordon, John Sutton, Lenita Lane.
Directed by Crane Wilbur.
This film is based on a story which was very popular in the 1920s and 30s. It has here been adapted by writer-director, Crane Wilbur. 1959 was the period where films by directors like William Castle were experimenting with various conventions of horror, Castle himself, quite a showman, was putting effects into cinemas so that audiences would sometimes feel the films, like The Tingler. And promotion emphasised how heart-stopping films might be, guaranteeing nursing attendance at the cinema!
Vincent Price had established himself as a distinguished actor, especially in the 1940s with such films as The House of the Seven Gables, The Keys of the Kingdom. It was in 1953 that he made the pioneering 3D horror film, House of Wax. He then appeared in The Mad Magician. In the late 1950s, he starred in William Castle’s Horror on Haunted Hill. It was at this time that he made The Bat, which served as a prelude to his making the famous series of films with Roger Corman, based on the stories by Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Tomb of Ligeia… He was called on to perform in all kinds of horror films for the next 30 years.
The Bat is not particularly good, is conventionally written, some stodgy performances, and a complex plot that needs continued attention with a surprisingly disappointing villain.
The film is a variation on the haunted house genre with a serial killer in the town. Agnes Morehead appears as a somewhat imperious writer of murder mysteries who has taken up residence in a house that has some eerie background. The servants leave and she is left only with her personal assistant. Vincent Price is the local doctor who, because he is Vincent Price, seems the obvious villain so it is rather a disappointment when he is murdered offscreen. He acts in mysterious ways, turning up unexpectedly, and even performing experiments with bats.
Part of the subplot is an embezzlement at the local bank, a young man becoming a suspect, his wife doing all she can to prove him innocent. Also involved is a local policeman who acts as a guard and reports back to his chief. There is a mysterious chauffeur turned butler. However, early in the film, it is revealed that the owner of the mysterious house has embezzled $1 million and hidden it in his family tomb. He wants to disappear and enlists the help of his friend, the doctor, Vincent Price, who shoots him dead and wants to find the money.
The Bat appears at the mansion window, masked and with artificial claws. He wanders around the house at times, providing scares for the novelist and her assistant. But then, secret rooms are found in the house and a safe – but the audience knows that the money is not there.
There is a final confrontation, and the revelation that the local Police Chief is the Bat – more than an anticlimax for the film.
The Bat takes its place, semi-cult, in the preposterous horror films of the late 1950s.
