''The Devil Bat'' is a 1940

black-and-white Black-and-white (B&W or B/W) images combine black and white in a continuous spectrum, producing a range of shades of grey. Media The history of various visual media began with black and white, and as technology improved, altered to color. ...

American horror/

howcatchem An inverted detective story, also known as a "howcatchem", is a murder mystery fiction structure in which the commission of the crime is shown or described at the beginning, usually including the identity of the perpetrator. The story then describ ...

film produced by

Producers Releasing Corporation Producers Releasing Corporation was the smallest and least prestigious of the Hollywood film studios of the 1940s. It was considered a prime example of what was called "Poverty Row": a low-rent stretch of Gower Street in Hollywood where shoestr ...

(PRC) and directed by Jean Yarborough. The film stars

Bela Lugosi Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (; October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), known professionally as Bela Lugosi (; ), was a Hungarian and American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 horror classic ''Dracula'', Ygor in ''S ...

along with

Suzanne Kaaren Suzanne Kaaren (March 21, 1912 – August 27, 2004) was an American B-movie actress and dancer who starred in stock film genres of the 1930s and 1940s: horror films, westerns, comedies, and romances. Early life A native of New York City, she w ...

, Guy Usher, Yolande Mallott and the comic team of Dave O'Brien and Donald Kerr as the protagonists. It was the first horror film from PRC.''The Devil Bat''
at TCM LugosiDevilBat3

Plot

;Foreword Dr. Paul Carruthers (

), a chemist and physician in the small town of Heathville, is offered a $5,000 bonus from his employers for his contributions to the company, a pittance compared to the million dollars in income the company earned from his work. (His employers argue that he took a buyout early in the company's history instead of retaining his partnership stake.) Embittered and insulted, he seeks revenge and develops a system in which ordinary bats are enlarged to massive size, training them to be drawn to a new, pungent

aftershave Aftershave is a product applied to skin after shaving. Traditionally it is an alcohol-based liquid (splash), but it can be a lotion, gel, or even a paste. It often contains an antiseptic agent such as denatured alcohol, stearate citrate or ...

he is testing. 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, targeting the families of his employer's owners. The bats succeed in attacking and killing one of the owners and two of his sons. A hot shot reporter from the ''Chicago Register'', Johnny Layton ( Dave O'Brien) gets assigned by his editor ( Arthur Q. Bryan) to cover and help solve the murders. He and his bumbling photographer "One-Shot" McGuire (Donald Kerr) begin to unwind the mystery with some comic sidelights. In the climactic closing scene, Layton dumps a sample of the aftershave on Carruthers, leading the bat to attack and kill its own master. Mary, the last surviving member of her family, runs into Johnny's arms.

Cast

as Dr. Paul Carruthers *

as Mary Heath * Dave O'Brien as Johnny Layton * 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 Harry Franklin "Hal" Price (June 24, 1886 – April 15, 1964) was an American film and stage actor. He appeared in more than 260 films between 1930 and 1952. He is the father of character actress and comedian Lu Leonard. On stage, Price ...

as Chief Wilkins * John Davidson as Prof. Raines * Billy Griffith as Coroner * 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 comeback when he signed a contract on October 19, 1940, with PRC's Sigmund Neufeld to star in the

Poverty Row Poverty Row is a slang term used to refer to Hollywood films produced from the 1920s to the 1950s by small (and mostly short-lived) B movie studios. Although many of them were based on (or near) today's Gower Street in Hollywood, the term did ...

studio's first horror film.Weaver (1993). p. 15. The shooting of the film began a little more than one week later. PRC was known for shooting its films quickly and cheaply, but for endowing them with a plentiful amount of horror, and ''The Devil Bat'' established this ''modus operandi''.

Current status

Following its theatrical release, ''The Devil Bat'' fell into

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired ...

and since the advent of home video, has been released in countless truncated, poorly edited video and DVD editions. In 1990, the film was restored from original 35mm elements by Bob Furmanek and released on laserdisc by Lumivision. In 2008, Furmanek supplied his original elements to

Legend Films Legend Films is a San Diego-based company founded in August 2001. The company specializes in the conversion of feature films, both new release and catalog titles, and commercials from their native 2D format into 3-D film format utilizing proprietar ...

, which performed a new restoration and also created a computer- colorized version. Both the restored black-and-white and colorized versions were subsequently released on DVD. In 2013, ''The Devil Bat'' was released on Blu-ray by

Kino Lorber Kino Lorber is an international film distribution company based in New York City. Founded in 1977, it was originally known as Kino International until it was acquired by and merged into Lorber HT Digital in 2009. It specializes in art house films ...

under its Kino Classics label.

Reception

The film was re-released in 1945 on a double bill with ''

Man Made Monster ''Man-Made Monster'' is a 1941 American Science fiction film, science-fiction horror film directed by George Waggner and produced by Jack Bernhard for Universal Pictures. Filmed in black-and-white, it stars Lon Chaney, Jr. (in his horror film deb ...

''. The ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'' described the duo as "two of the scariest features on the market." In the book ''Poverty Row Horrors!'' (1993), Tom Weaver judges ''The Devil Bat'' as one of Lugosi's best films for the poverty row studios.

Sequels

PRC's 1946 film ''

Devil Bat's Daughter ''Devil Bat's Daughter'' is a 1946 American horror film directed by Frank Wisbar. It stars Rosemary La Planche, who was crowned Miss America 1941. It is a sequel to the 1941 film ''The Devil Bat'', with no returning cast members. It marked the fi ...

'' starred Rosemary LaPlanche as Paul Carruthers's daughter. Neither Lugosi nor any other actors reprise their roles; Carruthers is an

unseen character An unseen character in theatre, comics, film, or television, or silent character in radio or literature, is a character that is mentioned but not directly known to the audience, but who advances the action of the plot in a significant way, and w ...

in the latter film. In contrast to the horror elements of the original, ''Devil Bat's Daughter'' was mainly a

psychological thriller Psychological thriller is a genre combining the thriller and psychological fiction genres. It is commonly used to describe literature or films that deal with psychological narratives in a thriller or thrilling setting. In terms of context and c ...

. In 2015 Indie filmmaker Ted Moehring directed the sequel '' Revenge of the Devil Bat'', which stars

Lynn Lowry Linda Kay "Lynn" Lowry (born October 15, 1947) is an American actress, screenwriter and producer. She is perhaps best known for her work in horror films, having appeared in the cult films '' I Drink Your Blood'' (1970), George A. Romero's '' The ...

, Ruby Larocca and veteran actors Gary Kent, John Link, Dick Dyszel, George Stover and

Conrad Brooks Conrad Brooks (born Conrad Biedrzycki; January 3, 1931 – December 6, 2017) was an American actor. Career Brooks moved to Hollywood, California, in 1948 at age 17 to pursue a career in acting. He got his start in movies appearing in Ed Wood film ...

.Revenge of the Devil Bat, Sequel to the 1940 horror movie The Devil Bat.
/ref>

References

External links

* * * * *
Review of film
at You Call Yourself a Scientist
''The Devil Bats'', a band influenced by the movie and Rock N Roll!

IMDB link to ''Devil Bat's Daughter'', a sequel of sorts
{{DEFAULTSORT:Devil Bat, The 1940 horror films 1940 films 1940s science fiction horror films American black-and-white films American science fiction horror films Articles containing video clips Films directed by Jean Yarbrough Producers Releasing Corporation films American films about revenge Mad scientist films American monster movies American natural horror films Films about bats 1940s English-language films American exploitation films 1940s American films