The Bat (Blu-Ray Review)
**The Film Detective’s Special Edition for “The Bat” comes out on Tuesday, October 25, 2022. This is a review of not just the film, but the Blu-Ray Special Edition.**
I’m a bit ashamed to admit that, while his star turn as Prince Prospero in Roger Corman’s “The Masque of the Red Death” is one of my favorites in all of horror cinema, I haven’t gone much further in Vincent Price’s classic filmography. Maybe finally watching “The Bat,” a 1959 thriller, for the first time, I’ll start to do so.
With a title like “The Bat,” you’d expect something supernatural in nature, especially with Price involved. But like the silent serial, “Les Vampires,” the title is a red herring. Crane Wilbur’s adaptation of the play by
Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood is more of a thriller about crime. People being attacked by actual bats is a part of the film, and Wilbur- who performed the play when he was an actor- gives us plenty of atmosphere with light and shadows, but it’s ultimately about a potential robbery. It’s a compelling film, with performances by Price and Agnes Morehead that hold our attention throughout.
Morehead plays Cornelia van Gorder, a mystery writer who is renting an old house, hoping to work on new projects. Little does she know that the house may contain stolen money. The house is owned by John Fleming (Harvey Stephens), a bank president who confesses his crime to Dr. Malcolm Wells (Price), his physician. You really shouldn’t admit such things unless you know you can trust the individual you’re telling implicitly. It’s not long after that until we start to see a man, dressed in black- with sharp claws- trying to find the money for themselves. Death and suspense will play a significant part of this, even if it doesn’t tilt into full-on horror.
There’s a dense amount of narrative in this film’s 80 minutes, so if you lose track of the narrative, I get it. But Wilbur’s direction is very nimble and taut, as he layers the film with a sense of style visually to keep us as off-kilter as the characters are. Casting Price here is a terrific touch, as he works with the actor’s iconography to make us think one thing, but gives us just enough reason to question our thinking. “The Bat” is not a great movie in line with other films from the era, but it certainly has plenty of value.
Blu-Ray Presentation
This is The Film Detective we’re talking about- you can probably guess what I’m going to say. Visually, the film looks beautiful, with crisp black-and-white to keep us enamored with the film’s striking use of shadows. The sound is strong, with a great restoration of the film’s soundtrack. As always, though, the extras are where these discs get their worth. First, there’s the color booklet, with an essay by Jason A. Ney about playright Mary Roberts Rinehart, The Case of the Forgotten Author: The Literary Conundrum of Mary Roberts Rinehart. For the Blu-Ray, we get an audio commentary by Ney that is a great listen when it comes to studying the film’s craft, as well as how it adapts the play. We get a short video essay, “The Case for Crane Wilbur,” which gives us a look at the career of the film’s writer-director. Finally, we get a gallery of nine archival episodes of radio show episodes featuring Price. For fans of the act, that alone might make this collection indispensable.
One of the things that is so great about a label like The Film Detective is the way how, even when you’re dealing with one of the silliest of film relics, they manage to breath new life into it with how they package the film within historical context, and shine a light on the filmmakers who bring the film to life. “The Bat” is not that silly, but having a better understanding of the people who made it help me appreciate why it’s worthy of preservation, and should be part of the discussion when you’re talking about the people who made it.
Film Grade: A-
Audio & Video: A
Bonus Features: A+
