The Bat (Widescreen)

This version, adapted and directed by accomplished writer/director/actor Wilbur Crane, stars the venerable Vincent Price as Dr. Malcolm Wells and Agnes Moorehead as Cornelia Van Gorder (every time I heard some pronounce the that character's last name, I always heard it as Van Goiter, which made me think of a hideous growth caused by swelling of the thyroid gland and iodine deficiencies, but I digress). Also appearing in the film is actress Darla Hood, who began her career at a very young age appearing in the Hal Roach Our Gang shorts, sometimes known as The Little Rascals, as a character named Darla, the apple of Alfalfa's eye.

The gist of the story is there's a large sum of money stolen from a local bank and hidden within a rather large, isolated house, and a killer, named The Bat, is on the loose, stopping at nothing, not even murder, to recovering the dough. Yes, it's all about the money...Moorehead's character Ms. Van Gorder, is a famous mystery writer who rents a house for the summer, a house with a reputation of spookiness, but soon lives up to the reputation as the bodies literally begin to pile up. Normally about this point in my reviews I break into a synopsis of the film, but doing that here would effectively destroy elements of the mystery, which I want to avoid. Instead I'll just speak to the elements of the story I liked, disliked, and general impressions overall, of the film and this particular release.

What I liked about the film was the choice of Price and Moorehead to star in the movie. They are both wonderful, breathing a great deal of life into the proceedings, despite some rather wooden performances by some of the other actors. Crane took a number of liberties with the storyline, giving more emphasis to the characters of Ms. Van Gorder and Dr. Wells, presumably due to the big name stars playing the roles. I mean if you're going to feature stars of that caliber, you should make use of them, right? Another major change was drawing the story out over several nights, rather than having it all happen in one night. This element didn't work for me, as it only served to dilute the story and disrupt the flow. Some plot points seemed odd, like providing details for the bank robbery at the beginning, as we quickly learn who stole the money, and what that person's intentions for how they plan to get away with their crime. This was obviously done to set up the motive for one of the many suspects within the film. And that's another thing, the development of the suspects was so very clunky at times...instead of letting the clues develop and appear within the context of the story, allowing the viewer to feel as if they've stumble on something, here they are forced on us, abruptly, sticking out like sore thumbs. The presentation is as about as subtle as getting hit with a sledgehammer. And what would a mystery be without red herrings? Well, here, not much, as they became painfully obvious as the story progressed. They might as well have had the characters wearing sandwich boards proclaiming the fact. Another element played up for no other reason than to add a level of lurid fascination was that of the Bat being a vicious murderer, ripping the throats out of various victims. Overall, the whole production seemed to be presented to the audience in a patronizing way, like we wouldn't have the intelligence to discern the plot elements based on an inherit amount of intuition I feel most adults have, so everything was laid out in such a way as to require the least amount of thought from the audience. As far as the final scenes where the killer/thief is finally revealed, well, I had it figured out about halfway through, so it really wasn't a big surprise. In fact, the obviousness of the false suspects peppered throughout virtually guaranteed one with a basic amount of intelligence (even me) to be able to identify the culprit. One last note, after the less than explosive revelation of the identity of The Bat, you'll be left with a lot hanging plot threads, ones the director never had any intention of resolving, and were presented only to further the story in some ridiculous fashion.

Despite my negative comments, I did enjoy certain elements...the comic relief in the form of Ms. Van Gorder's maid, Lizzie (played by Lenita Lane) survives nicely, and despite a bit of toning down from the 1930's version, and Price and Moorehead are fun to watch. I did notice that in the 30's version, the house was much darker and atmospheric, actually becoming a character within the film. Not as much emphasis seemed to be applied to that aspect in this film, the house serving a more utilitarian purpose of providing a background with not a lot of charm, comparatively speaking.

The quality of the print on this Anchor Bay Entertainment release looks sharp, although I felt the audio was a bit soft. There are numerous releases of this film by different companies, all of varying degrees of quality, so it would be beneficial to potential buyers interested in this film to be wary of which release they decide to purchase. As far as special features are concerned, there is a theatrical trailer for the film, but that's it.

Cookieman108