"Sharp-Fanged Blood Sucking DEATH Dives From MIDNIGHT SKIES!"

Bats in his belfry. Kino Classics has released The Devil Bat, the 1940 horror quickie from "Poverty Row's" Producers Releasing Corporation, directed by Jean Yarbrough (PRC's scrupulous attention to production details results in his name being misspelled in the opening credits), and starring Bela Lugosi, Suzanne Kaaren, Dave O'Brien ("Tonight's Pete Smith Specialty: How to Have a Giant Bat Rip Out Your Throat"), Donald Kerr, Yolande Donlan, Guy Usher, Edward Mortimer, Hal Price, and Arthur Q. Bryan. Sporting a consistently inept but at the same time weirdly satisfying mix of comedy and horror, The Devil Bat has a devoted following among Lugosi and early horror fans (like myself), who affectionately view the production glitches found in el cheapos like The Devil Bat not as drawbacks, but as the very elements that make such Grade Z moviemaking from this period so charming. As far as I can tell, this HD transfer is from the same materials that Legend Films used for their 2008 b&w/colorized The Devil Bat release (which was restored from collector Bob Furmanek's 35mm elements used for 1990's Lumivsion laserdisc release), so only a (new?) commentary track seems to be a double-dip selling point. A brief image gallery and Kino's White Zombie trailer are included.

In the quaint village of Heathville, "beloved" chemist Dr. Paul Carruthers (Bela Lugosi) is engaging in "weird, terrifying" experiments with bats...killer bats, that is. It seems the strangely European scientist, who has earned the maquillages magnate Martin Heath (Edward Mortimer) millions with his cosmetics formulas, holds a deadly grudge against the Heath family for what he now considers a bad deal: a flat fee for his work, rather than a share of the profits. To settle the score, homicidal psychotic Carruthers has proven his "theory of glandular stimulation through electrical...thingamagiggy or something" (Lugosi is a little garbled on that last word) by taking ordinary fruit bats, hooking them up to the electric fry pan (set on "extra crispy" rather than "original recipe"), and turning them into bald eagle-sized killers who home-in on a unique scent he has perfected. Inviting his victims to try out his new shaving lotion (hint, hint), Carruthers unleashes his furry fanged friends and Heaths soon start dropping like flies. Enter wise-assed newspaper reporter Johnny Layton (Dave O'Brien), of The Chicago Register. Assigned to the Heath killings by grousing story editor Joe McGinty (Arthur Q. Bryan), Layton heads to Heathville with his photographer, even more wise-assed "One Shot" McGuire (Donald Kerr), who isn't above faking a picture of the now-legendary "Devil Bat," if need be to make a deadline. Will Johnny solve the riddle of the killer bat, before cosmetics heir Mary Heath (Suzanne Kaaren) is victim number whatever?

You had to have grown up watching television prior to cable's wide reach, I think, to really appreciate something like The Devil Bat (or even better...see it when it first came out, as some matinee). When television was still king of the time wasters, and it came completely free into your home via an aerial plunked down on your roof, the three network channels you received and maybe an independent station or two were it as far as the outside world was concerned. Back then, you had to catch everything on the fly. If you loved movies, you checked out TV Guide and you stayed home. The pampered, spoiled ease with which we dial up our vintage movie fantasies via DVD, 24-hour movie channels, or high-speed internet, at our convenience, is, if you will, the pussy's way of becoming a movie fan (the notion of watching something on your phone while you wait in line at the supermarket is the ultimate combination of self-indulgence and disrespect for the content). What came on the box, came on, and you raptly watched it no matter what it was, and then it was gone, like magic. To a little kid back then, movies like The Devil Bat seemed to come out of nowhere, with no context for the viewer other than remembering Lugosi from other movies; who made these movies, or what their box office gross was, or where they fit in some "film history" timeline, was largely unknowable to the average kid (in today's world, my 9-year-old son, after a fast Google search, was able to give me an admittedly simplistic but basically accurate rundown of why Dreamworks' Turbo ultimately wasn't going to be profitable, even with ancillaries factored in). So for a kid back then, it was still possible to experience something like The Devil Bat on a pre-ironic, pre-sarcasm, truly one-on-one, direct connection basis: just movie and viewer, with no preconceived notions. If you watched The Devil Bat on some late, late movie show, all grainy and shadowy and mysterious and silly, the only thing that broke the illusion was the occasional Popeill Pocket Fisherman and Ronco Bedazzler commercials--you didn't know what the hell was going on with Lugosi's career (or even that he was long dead) or PRC's place on "Poverty Row," or even that there were thousands of other kids out there watching the same thing. That naive environment is all gone now in our media-saturated culture: everything is connected. Everyone knows everything about everything now.

Watching this again after not having seen it for a few years, aside from Lugosi, of course, what I appreciated most about The Devil Bat was how everyone just got on with it all. These "Poverty Row" specials, to put it mildly, may not have had the best scripting or production values--although neither in The Devil Bat are too shabby--but they didn't bore you, either. We jump right in, and the story moves for a quick 68 minutes, and it's out. No big message. No fancy-schmancy visual statements. Just some thrills and some laughs hanging on a no-frills framework. Scripter John T. Neville (Trader Horn, The Flying Serpent, Never Give a Sucker an Even Break), working from a story by George Bricker (King of the Underworld, She-Wolf of London, Roadblock) keeps coming up with amusing, cynical, noirish one-liners (Lugosi, passing out his lotion and stating, "I don't think you'll ever use anything else," to one of his victims is good, but snide businessman Guy Usher's, "You're a dreamer...too much money is bad for a dreamer," to loser Lugosi, is worthy of Cain or Chandler). And director Jean Yarbrough (A&C's Here Come the Co-Eds and Lost in Alaska, or the fun Hillbillys in a Haunted House), while never a visual craftsman by any means, at least keeps the ball rolling here, never dallying too long at the expense of some snap.

O'Brien, his hat firmly in place in almost every scene (the toupee was probably a one-day rental), isn't as funny as when he was deadpanning in all those Pete Smith Specialties, but he looks hilarious next to resolutely unfunny Kerr. As for Lugosi...what else, at this point, can someone add when discussing Lugosi? He's an icon of the genre, as central to horror as Wayne was to the Western, Garland to the musical, and Bogart and Cagney to the gangster flick. I never get tired of watching him, regardless of the vehicle, but I'm not as willing as some other fans are in granting him ameliorating critical dispensations towards his later, riper turns...such as in The Devil Bat. I don't think it's necessary to always describe him in terms of qualifiers: "Admittedly slumming Lugosi still manages to project dignity and bearing and nobility in this rotten cheapie." Why can't one just enjoy him for the wholly and completely original ham that he is in these one-week knockoffs? After all, you can't truly be a "ham" unless you've got the acting chops in the first place. We already know he was a good actor, but even when he's not "good," he's great (is that Mae West or Groucho?). When he delivers a line like, "Imbecile! Bombastic ignoramus!" and waggles his eyebrows while grotesquely grinning (tell me you don't see more than a little of Robert DeNiro in those grins), I don't need to excuse away his excess--I celebrate it.

The same goes for the horror elements in The Devil Bat. Yes, the bat looks like a flattened, moth-eaten raccoon with wings. Yes, it comes flying in on a wire. Yes, the story makes no sense when O'Brien should easily solve the mystery once Kerr is almost killed (he practically verbalizes it...and then it's conveniently dropped). And yes, it makes no sense that a brilliant chemist like Lugosi couldn't just conjure up an exotic poison to kill his enemies, rather than going through all the bat rigmarole (as much as all the victims comment on the high-end stink of that lotion, why don't the bats just turn right around after going out that window and attack Bela? You're telling me he and that place doesn't reek of his shaving lotion?). All that ridiculousness is true, and precisely for that reason, I enjoy The Devil Bat. When Lugosi lets off one of his perfectly-pitched, "Good byes" to his victims, or when that phony bat comes screaming in like Rip Taylor with his wig snatched off, and the intended victim stands rooted in terror, joining in on that silly-yet-oddly-creepy shriek, that's all The Devil Bat needs to do. And it does it quite badly. Which means quite goodly.

The DVD:

The Video:
The back of the DVD hardcase for The Devil Bat states this is an HD transfer from archival 35mm elements provided by Bob Furmanek (except for a 9 minute sequence taken from 16mm elements)-- the same materials utilized for Legend Films' 2008 transfer. Is it the same transfer here? Not sure...but it looks and sounds like it. The full-frame, 1.33:1 black and white transfer sports a lot of print damage, but overall, this is the best I've ever seen the movie, with decent-enough contrast, a sharp image, and at least tolerable blacks.

The Audio:
The Dolby Digital English mono audio track of course has hiss, but that's to be expected. Re-recording levels are strong here, while dialogue can sound a tad warbley at times. No closed-captions or subtitles available.

The Extras:
There's a full-length commentary track by "film historian" Richard Harland Smith, of TCM and Video Watchdog. Anybody who reads me knows how I feel about using the word "film" instead of something like "movie," but...to each his own. Good background info on the movie and its players, although Smith's obvious love and enthusiasm for the movie makes him--perhaps playfully, and hopefully not too seriously--overreach at times, as admittedly we all do when we talk about a childhood favorite (to say Lugosi's money-motivated vengeance-seeking is "inherently American" in that he's the "architect of his own destruction," is a veiled political observation that's as bogus as it is humorously out of place here). Solid track, and a good bonus for context.

Final Thoughts:
Amusing at times (for many reasons), The Devil Bat still conjures up an undeniably creepy atmosphere, no doubt coming from a combination of the disjointed production, Lugosi's sheer force of will, and that unnerving screech of the devil bat. If you watch this and laugh and think it's a bad movie, that's fine. If it makes you mad, though, that people enjoy this kind of marginalia and you want to get all snooty about it, then you really don't get it. I'm highly recommending The Devil Bat.