The Devil Bat (1940) is a black-and-white horror movie which was produced by Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) and directed by Jean Yarbrough. The film stars the well known horror actor Béla Lugosi, along with Suzanne Kaaren, Dave O'Brien, Guy Usher, Yolande Mallott, and Donald Kerr.
Plot
The story involves a small town cosmetic company chemist (Lugosi) who is upset at his wealthy employers, because he feels they have denied him his due share of company success. To get revenge, he breeds giant bats. He then conditions them to kill those wearing a special after-shave lotion he has concocted. He cleverly distributes the lotion to his enemies as a "test" product.
Once they have applied the lotion, the chemist then releases his Devil Bats in the night, which kill his two former partners and three members of their families. A hot shot big city reporter gets assigned by his editor to cover and help solve the murders. He (O'Brien) and his bumbling photographer (Kerr) begin to unwind the mystery with some comic sidelights. The mad chemist is, predictably, done in by his own shaving lotion, and by his own creation—the dreaded Devil Bat.
- Béla Lugosi as Dr. Paul Carruthers
- Suzanne Kaaren as Mary Heath
- Dave O'Brien as Henry Layden
- Guy Usher as Henry Morton
- Yolande Mallott as Maxine
- Donald Kerr as "One-Shot" McGuire
- Edward Mortimer as Martin Heath
- Gene O'Donnell as Don Morton
- Alan Baldwin as Tommy Heath
- John Ellis as Roy Heath
- Arthur Q. Bryan as Joe McGinty
- Hal Price as Police Chief Wilkins
- John Davidson as Prof. Percival Garland Raines
- Wally Rairdon as Walter King
Production
PRC was a young studio when it planned to enter the horror film genre, which had been neglected by the major studios during 1937 and 1938. Lugosi was beginning a come-back when he signed a contract on October 19, 1940 with PRC's Sigmund Neufeld to star in the poverty row studio's first horror film.[2] The shooting of the film began a little more than one week later.[3] PRC was known for shooting its films quickly and cheaply, but for endowing them with a plentiful amount of horror,[4] and The Devil Bat established this modus operandi.[2]
In the 1993 book Poverty Row Horrors!, Tom Weaver judges The Devil Bat as one of Lugosi's best films for the poverty row studios.[5]
See also
References
- ^ a b Weaver, Tom (1993). "The Devil Bat (PRC, 1940)" in Poverty Row Horrors! Monogram, PRC and Republic Horror Films of the Forties. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-89950-756-5. p. 14.
- ^ a b Weaver (1993). p. 15.
- ^ Weaver (1993). p. 17.
- ^ Weaver, Tom (1993). "Introduction" in Poverty Row Horrors! Monogram, PRC and Republic Horror Films of the Forties. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-89950-756-5. p. xiii-xiv.
- ^ Weaver (1993). p. 19.
External links
Further reading
- Weaver, Tom (1993). "The Devil Bat (PRC, 1940)" in Poverty Row Horrors! Monogram, PRC and Republic Horror Films of the Forties. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co. ISBN 0-89950-756-5. pp. 14–25.
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