THE VAMPIRE BAT (Majestic, 1933), directed by Frank Strayer, reunites Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray, the leading players of DOCTOR X (First National, 1932), in another odd mix of mystery and horror, minus the two-strip Technicolor that has made both their DOCTOR X and THE MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (1933) a class by itself. With a title capitalizing on the success of "Dracula" (Universal, 1931) starring Bela Lugosi, THE VAMPIRE BAT which doesn't actually deal with vampires, has acquired the source of its "Dracula" co-star, Dwight Frye, in a similar portrayal of insane spider eating character, Mr. Renfield, with that as Herman Glieb, a village half-wit who not only plays with bats but makes pets out of them, thus making others to believe he to be the living image of the vampire theory.
Set in small German village of Kleinschloss, the story, opening in true horror form, starts off with the howling of wolves at a distance and the visual view of bats hanging upside down on trees as Kringen (George E. Stone) walks alone in the dead of night holding a lantern to suddenly hear a woman's scream from one of the nearby buildings. With this being the sixth murder to take place with all the female victims found as bloodless corpses in their beds, the latest being Martha Muller (Rita Carlisle), Karl Breetschneider (Melvyn Douglas), police inspector, sets out to solve these murders. Although a sensible man, he finds the villagers overreacting, connecting the demented Herman Glieb (Dwight Frye) as the blood-sucking killer due to his association with vampire bats. Karl's in love with Ruth Bertin (Fay Wray), who, along with Emil Borst (Robert Frazer) work as laboratory assistants for diabolical scientist, Doctor Otto Von Niemann (Lionel Atwill), who insists all the women have been victims of a vampire. Convinced Herman to be the culprit, the villagers decide to take matters into their own hands by hunting and trapping him into an isolated cave many miles from town where he plunges to his death. To make certain he'll no longer be a threat to them, the villagers locate his body and plunge a stake through his heart. They are soon proved wrong of their theory when these ghastly murders continue to occur.
While THE VAMPIRE BAT doesn't have the macabre style of Universal's own "Dracula" or "Frankenstein", it can be credited for its fine reproduction of its creepy atmosphere, chilling scenes, along with a pursuit of the killer by an angry mob with lighted torches quite commonly found in many "Frankenstein" sequels, yet, with all that, THE VAMPIRE BAT is at times disappointing due to its slow pacing, lack of background music, low budget production and intrusive comedy relief provided by character actress Maude Eburne as Aunt Gussie Schnappmann. One scene for amusement purposes has her fainting at the sight of Herman's bat he takes out from his pocket, only to awaken after-wards with a great dane licking her face, leading her to believe the dog to be Herman, and running for her life.
As much as the movie was distributed by a lesser known poverty row studio of Majestic, THE VAMPIRE BAT has turned out to be its best known product solely due to its frequent resurrections on television dating back to the 1950s, and strong marquee names of Atwill, Wray and Douglas. Douglas, still early in his film career, turns out to be surprise casting as both resourceful hero and love interest, an assignment usually given to lesser capable actors, commonly David Manners, for example. Lionel Atwill is ideally cast as the professor while Fay Wray, immortalized by her legendary performance in KING KONG (RKO, 1933), makes a satisfactory female lead. As much as Wray is noted for her screams in fright films such as this, she does fall victim to the killer, but doesn't belt out any shrieks. What's even more ironic is finding THE VAMPIRE BAT set in a German village right down to Burgomaster (Lionel Bellmore) and townspeople assuming German sounding names, yet none of them attempt speaking with German accents giving this more of an American flavor than authentically European.
Having been available on VHS since the dawn of home video and part of a 45 minute featurette in public television's weekly series of "Matinee at the Bijou" in the early 1980s, and later onto DVD decades later, most VAMPIRE BAT copies that circulated on numerous cable channels over the years (namely the no longer existing Tempo or Channel) with poor picture or audio transfers. A much more crisp black and white/sepia tone print has become available on Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: October 14, 2005). Considering THE VAMPIRE BAT's short 62 minutes, is a perfect example of how a poor quality film can rise above its expectations. (**)
Set in small German village of Kleinschloss, the story, opening in true horror form, starts off with the howling of wolves at a distance and the visual view of bats hanging upside down on trees as Kringen (George E. Stone) walks alone in the dead of night holding a lantern to suddenly hear a woman's scream from one of the nearby buildings. With this being the sixth murder to take place with all the female victims found as bloodless corpses in their beds, the latest being Martha Muller (Rita Carlisle), Karl Breetschneider (Melvyn Douglas), police inspector, sets out to solve these murders. Although a sensible man, he finds the villagers overreacting, connecting the demented Herman Glieb (Dwight Frye) as the blood-sucking killer due to his association with vampire bats. Karl's in love with Ruth Bertin (Fay Wray), who, along with Emil Borst (Robert Frazer) work as laboratory assistants for diabolical scientist, Doctor Otto Von Niemann (Lionel Atwill), who insists all the women have been victims of a vampire. Convinced Herman to be the culprit, the villagers decide to take matters into their own hands by hunting and trapping him into an isolated cave many miles from town where he plunges to his death. To make certain he'll no longer be a threat to them, the villagers locate his body and plunge a stake through his heart. They are soon proved wrong of their theory when these ghastly murders continue to occur.
While THE VAMPIRE BAT doesn't have the macabre style of Universal's own "Dracula" or "Frankenstein", it can be credited for its fine reproduction of its creepy atmosphere, chilling scenes, along with a pursuit of the killer by an angry mob with lighted torches quite commonly found in many "Frankenstein" sequels, yet, with all that, THE VAMPIRE BAT is at times disappointing due to its slow pacing, lack of background music, low budget production and intrusive comedy relief provided by character actress Maude Eburne as Aunt Gussie Schnappmann. One scene for amusement purposes has her fainting at the sight of Herman's bat he takes out from his pocket, only to awaken after-wards with a great dane licking her face, leading her to believe the dog to be Herman, and running for her life.
As much as the movie was distributed by a lesser known poverty row studio of Majestic, THE VAMPIRE BAT has turned out to be its best known product solely due to its frequent resurrections on television dating back to the 1950s, and strong marquee names of Atwill, Wray and Douglas. Douglas, still early in his film career, turns out to be surprise casting as both resourceful hero and love interest, an assignment usually given to lesser capable actors, commonly David Manners, for example. Lionel Atwill is ideally cast as the professor while Fay Wray, immortalized by her legendary performance in KING KONG (RKO, 1933), makes a satisfactory female lead. As much as Wray is noted for her screams in fright films such as this, she does fall victim to the killer, but doesn't belt out any shrieks. What's even more ironic is finding THE VAMPIRE BAT set in a German village right down to Burgomaster (Lionel Bellmore) and townspeople assuming German sounding names, yet none of them attempt speaking with German accents giving this more of an American flavor than authentically European.
Having been available on VHS since the dawn of home video and part of a 45 minute featurette in public television's weekly series of "Matinee at the Bijou" in the early 1980s, and later onto DVD decades later, most VAMPIRE BAT copies that circulated on numerous cable channels over the years (namely the no longer existing Tempo or Channel) with poor picture or audio transfers. A much more crisp black and white/sepia tone print has become available on Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: October 14, 2005). Considering THE VAMPIRE BAT's short 62 minutes, is a perfect example of how a poor quality film can rise above its expectations. (**)