Hollywood horror was a hot trend in 1932: with the arrival of Frankenstein and Dracula the horror field boomed. Big studios and independents alike flooded screens with fiendish entertainments — supernatural, scientific and everything in between. In the three years before the Production Code kicked in to discourage kinky horrors, films that combined sex and death, taboo ideas and extreme sadism, had a field day. The investment was deemed so good that a few independents generated pictures with production value equal to the majors.
Hitting screens in early 1933, The Vampire Bat is what one would call a canny commercial confection. It lacks a real monster, but offers plenty of spooky murders, that weird guy’ from Frankenstein and a torch-lit chase in an eerie landscape. Fans would know what they’re getting because the top players are the beautiful Fay Wray from The Most Dangerous Game and, with obvious villain Lionel Atwill, Doctor X. The screenplay by Edward T. Lowe Jr. isn’t exactly hardcore horror, as there’s plenty of innocuous comedy. The scene is a ‘spooky’ German hamlet, but the attractive leads would not be out of place on Park Avenue. The theme of vampirism and bats is given a workout in dialogue, only to wind up in something of a blind alley. Yet the direction by Frank Strayer is reasonably adept and the actors are excellent. When delivered by the likes of this cast, a ‘C+’ script becomes a ‘B+.’
More important to fantasy film fans is the news that the Vampire Bat on this disc is not the expected Public Domain copy, but a recent UCLA Film and TV Archive restoration.
Dark doings in the Bavarian burg of Kleines Schloss: police chief Karl Brettschneider has a bunch of bizarre murders on his hands. The victims are found drained of blood, with punctures in their throats that could have been made by an animal. The town doctor can’t figure it out, and neither can the eminent Dr. Niemann (Lionel Atwill), who with his assistants Emil and Ruth (Robert Frazer & Fay Wray) is conducting important experiments in the basement of his house. To Karl’s displeasure, Niemann suggests that something supernatural could indeed be the cause Cluttering up Karl’s efforts is Ruth’s Aunt Gussie (Maude Eburne), a silly hypochondriac who tests everyone’s patience. Prejudiced suspicion falls on the hapless Herman Gleib (Dwight Frye), a vagrant simpleton. Herman tends to creep people out with his chatter about the local bats he keeps as pets, and even carries in his coat: “Do you want to touch him? He’s as soft as a cat!” Karl and Burgomeister Shoen (Lionel Belmore) try to dial down the local panic, but ignorance wins out and the hapless Herman is hunted down by torchlight. More victims disappear, until Brettschneider uses his wits to unmask the fiend responsible.
The Vampire Bat has its soporific scenes in which herren-volk sit at a table and discuss the relative merits of vampires and werewolves, and poor Karl can’t get anybody to listen to reason. Then there are the scenes of Aunt Gussie barging into everyone’s business with her heart palpitations and other ailments. A giant image of a hairy bat sulks behind the main title card, yet is nothing but a red herring. I guess some 1933 audiences might not suspect kindly Dr. Niemann, but we certainly know better. As played by Lionel Atwill, Niemann is kind and considerate. He’s patient beyond reason with Aunt Gussie, and even has a sense of humor … but, no spoiler intended, we know he’s the bad guy from the get-go. Nieman always seems eager to get back to the Old Mad lab.
As it turns out, Niemann is a proto-Frankenstein and has discovered ‘the secret of life itself.’ He exsanguinates villagers left and right to feed a mass of pulsing flesh in an aquarium, an artificially created living thing. We also learn that Niemann has perfected the ability to direct his assistant Emil by telepathic remote control. This rather amazing talent is treated as a minor detail. Niemann must be a total fool — his special ‘astral projection’ ability could enable him to become the most influential person on the planet. The profits from evil dictators would enable him to pay victims to drain their blood for him. We really need special funding to help mad scientists sort out their research priorities.
Niemann makes Emil kidnap people, carry them to his lab and then carry them back to their beds, essentially doing all the work. As Emil is a helpless zombie under Niemann’s control, we understand why he’s so willing to cover all the labor-intensive research duties. But shapely lab assistant Ruth Bertin isn’t hypnotized and would seemingly be right in the middle of Niemann’s activities. Ruth keeps things tidy and pours all the liquids yet has no clue about Niemann nefarious activities — she’s as surprised as anyone to see that Neimann’s blood-draining apparatus uses a chrome-steel neck clamp to simulate the fangs of a giant bat. Niemann also arranges for clues to be left near every body to cast suspicion on yet another villager. And his lame excuse for all this anti-social carnage?: “What are a few lives, compared to such an important scientific breakthrough?” Yes, knee-jerk anti-science bias was always with us.
Why is The Vampire Bat more fun than other also-ran horrors of this vintage? Melvyn Douglas, Fay Wray, Lionel Atwill and Dwight Frye perform admirably, keeping the creaky script on its legs. Ms. Wray is lovely; her poise, bright attitude and sweet voice are uncomplicated, ever-pleasing. Even Maude Eburne is a class act as the bothersome Aunt. The cast plays the scenes as if they were performing Dinner at Eight. The dialogue delivery is far smoother than, say, White Zombie, which admittedly aims for a different brand of ‘stasis-horror.’ Director Strayer finds nice compositions in the interesting sets, especially Dr. Niemann’s lab. One scene of the ‘midnight bat’ creeping up on a sleeping victim is handled in a depth shot reminiscent of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Even though we know no monster is involved, it works quite well.
Another shot in Niemann’s lab pulls back on a depth arrangement, looking through a glass tank with the sponge-like ‘new life,’ to see a victim splayed out beyond, her blood ready to be stolen. We have to keep in mind that at this time any screen representation of blood was considered strong gore; just the sight of it draining through tubing was macabre, and perhaps in questionable taste (large top image ↑ ).
Director Frank Strayer has a few more genre credits to his name, but no big pictures. He helmed many of the early entries in Columbia’s Blondie series, the comic strip adaptation. If the IMDB is to be trusted, Strayer spent the late 1940s directing feature-length inspirationally themed movies.
We’re told that Vampire Bat was filmed on Universal’s ‘European town’ sets from the Lugosi and Karloff movies, which keeps the show from looking cheap. As with the independently produced Deluge from the same year, a chase scene is filmed in the odd quarry just off Hollywood Blvd, Bronson Caverns. We can see two of the excavation’s three exits at one end of the tunnel, which proves that they had been dug out at this time. In this dusk-for night scene of Dwight Frye being hunted down by the ‘mob of angry villagers’ the torches have been tinted in color, bright red and yellow. The startling, vivid effect is unmotivated by anything in the plot – the torches aren’t ‘magic’ or anything. It’s apparently an unrelated experiment, justified as an attempt to give the publicity and sales flacks another talking point.
