Bela Lugosi was, of course, typecast as Dracula and carried that with him all his life, but he did break out of the mold and play other characters as well. One of these was 1940’s The Death Bat. Bela doesn’t play a vampire, but there are bats. Big ones.
The movie opens with Dr. Paul Carruthers working away in his lab in the desert community of Heathville and talking to his bats, which are the size of turkey vultures. They’ll soon be ready for what he has planned for them. They don’t like a certain scent? That’s good. He’ll soon be able to use that to his advantage.
Paul seems to be so dedicated that he even skips out on a supposed engagement party of his boss’s daughter, Mary (Suzanne Kaaren) because he’s gotten caught up in his work. Never mind that there is no engagement party and his boss, Martin Heath (Edmund Mortimer) just wants to give him a five thousand dollar bonus for his stellar scientific efforts.
Since Paul is seemingly otherwise engaged, Martin’s son, Roy (John Ellis) brings the check to him personally, and as a token of his thanks, he lets Roy try some of the new shave lotion he’s been working on. Paul is bitter that the Heaths have prestige and money, while he’s stuck in his lab toiling away at his experiments, so revenge figures into his dedication. Mysteriously enough, Roy dies mysteriously that night, and it looks as if his throat has been slashed.
Enter two journalists, Johnny Layton (Dave O’Brien) and photographer “One-Shot” MacGuire (Donald Kerr) to solve the case. They figure out pretty quickly that a giant bat is the cause of the mysterious deaths, and that Paul is behind it somehow. No one can believe it at first, because Paul is such a stand-up member of the community, but seeing as he’s the town’s resident mad scientist, it’s pretty hard not to zero in on him. Not to mention, people have been dying ever since Paul’s shave lotion hit the market.
There’s another thing, too: Every time the guy says goodbye to someone, nine times out of ten that person winds up dead.
The stakes get bigger, with Roy’s brother Tommy (Alan Baldwin) and cosmetics giant Henry Morton (Guy Usher) eventually among the casualties, and even Mary is in danger when she finds Paul’s shaving lotion in her perfume bottle. Fortunately, she keeps her window closed, and the bat doesn’t seem interested in flying through glass.
It all winds up pretty cleverly, and it’s not a bad showing for the Producers Releasing Corporation. The idea of giant bats going after people who are wearing a certain scent is surprisingly original. It’s also nice seeing Bela Lugosi playing a villain who isn’t a vampire. It was a relatively successful film for PRC, although not enough to get them off Poverty Row. The movie shared billing with other functions (like a 1941 stage show in Dallas), was reissued in 1945 and garnered a sorta-sequel, Devil Bat’s Daughter, in 1948. The latter didn’t seem to go anywhere and didn’t feature any of the original stars.
There are only a couple of slightly glaring issues: If these bats hate the scent of Carruthers’ supposed aftershave, why are they attracted to it instead of repelled by it? Sharks don’t go on the hunt because they hate the smell of blood in the water. It’s funny that Carruthers didn’t train them to like his aftershave.
The other problem is that the romance seems tacked-on. I won’t say who goes where, and while there aren’t a lot of possibilities, it’s still very flat and nonsensical. Nothing has happened prior to the ending that would lead us to ship the people who are left in each other’s arms at the finish. Ugh. Why do movies do this? I don’t know. It doesn’t hit the romance spot, people.
What’s also funny are the reviews for The Devil Bat, what few there were, anyway. Boxoffice called Devil Bat “a super-chiller.”
Variety said in its January 22, 1941 issue that, “With Bela Lugosi as its star, and the crazed scientist bent on avenging what he believes has been an unjust deprivation of the wealth by the cosmetic manufacturers for whom he works, “The Devil Bat” can hardly pass muster even on the most dual situations. Acting, directing, photography–all poor.”
Motion Picture Herald’s review, on the other hand, was slightly more favorable, deeming The Devil Bat “pseudo-scientific melodrama,” noting that, “Herein is again presented for the thrills and chills of audiences in search of horror fantasy another in the familiar cycle of pictures. But unlike many of its predecessors, the picture contains all the suspense, action and romance to make it lively horror entertainment.”
Mostly, though, The Devil Bat got mere mentions of showings around the United States and inclusions in “Year In Review” lists, while Bela Lugosi continued to play mostly villains and vampires in cheap films. The overall impression seemed ambivilant; it seemed to be a film to be watched and not exactly hated, but not exactly remembered once the ending credits rolled.
Things don’t seem to have changed very much in the eighty-plus years since its release, as The Devil Bat, which slipped into public domain long ago, isn’t exactly sought out, but still easily accessible. Poor Bela Lugosi.
Coming up in November (click on the images for more info)…
My entry for Hoofers and Honey’s 3rd Annual Spooky Classic Movies Blogathon will be up tomorrow. Thanks for reading, all, and I hope to see you then…
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