Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

SincereFinest disgusting, overrated, pointless

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

JohnHowardReid All three versions of The Bat, a 1926 stage play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, are available on DVD. The 1926 original (a 7/10 Alpha/Mill Creek offering) is usually accounted the best, though the 1930 widescreen re-make (a 9/10 Milestone DVD) has its fair share of admirers. Both were directed by Roland West. The silent is more fluent and cleverly employs a full arsenal of suspenseful atmospheric effects. It also has the benefit of Tullio Carminati in a key role. He easily outclasses Chester Morris in the re-make, which is further burdened by the demands of early soundproof booth sound recording and a widescreen camera. By contrast, the 1959 "B" film (a 7/10 Mill Creek DVD) has little to recommend it. In an attempt to get away from the confines of the stage play, the plot has been both watered down and augmented. Vincent Price heads the cast and charms his way through several superfluous scenes, while Agnes Moorehead tries over-valiantly to hold down the main role of Cornelia Van Gorder. Although he manages to bring off a few mild effects, director/writer Crane Wilbur is way, way, way behind Mr. West.

ferbs54 Although Vincent Price had appeared in a number of scary films before the late 1950s, it wasn't until 1958 and '59 that the beloved actor really began to concentrate his efforts in the fright field and thus become one of the true titans in the arena of horror. During those two years, Price starred in "The Fly," "House on Haunted Hill," "The Tingler" and "The Bat," thus getting the ball rolling for one legendary horror career. This viewer, up until recently, had long enjoyed every one of those films except for "The Bat," which had somehow escaped me. Thus, how pleased I was to discover that this film fits in very nicely with those other great three! "The Bat" was based on a 1908 novel by mystery writer Mary Roberts Rinehart entitled "The Circular Staircase," which I had enjoyed; Rinehart and playwright Avery Hopwood had later turned this book into a stage hit called "The Bat" in 1920, and this stage version had subsequently been filmed no fewer than three times prior to the Price outing. Released in August 1959, the most recent version of "The Bat" teams Price with the great Agnes Moorehead, in an atmospheric B&W picture that originally appeared with the Hammer film "The Mummy," for one flabbergasting double feature. And if the film is not quite as frightening as some of those other Price films just mentioned (especially "House on Haunted Hill," which remains, for me and many other boomers, I have a feeling, one of the scariest films ever made), and does reveal its origin as a stage vehicle, it yet remains a lot of fun.In the film, Moorehead plays the part of Cornelia van Gorder, a mystery writer who has rented a creepy old mansion known as The Oaks to do her summer work. At the same time, the head of the local bank, John Fleming (Harvey Stephens), has absconded around $1 million in securities and bonds and stashed the resultant loot away somewhere. The perpetrator of this deed confesses his crime to Dr. Malcolm Wells (our Uncle Vinny), seeking his assistance in getting away with the crime, but the good doctor, rather than be pressured into cooperation, simply grabs a hunting rifle and shoots the banker down instead. Soon enough, the neighborhood surrounding The Oaks is plagued with a rash of murders. A black-masked killer with clawed gloves--known as The Bat--has been tearing the throats out of his/her victims, and soon enough, begins to sneak around the creepy abode where Cornelia and her maid, Lizzie Allen (Lenita Lane), are staying. The Bat, it would seem, is in search of the missing loot...but WHO is The Bat? The audience of course assumes the culprit to be Price, who has not only shot down a man in cold blood, but who is also later seen in his home laboratory doing experiments with baby bats. But there are other possibilities: Cornelia's chauffeur/butler Warner (John Sutton), Fleming's nephew Mark (John Bryant), maybe even the pretty wife of the bank clerk accused of the theft, Dale Bailey (Elaine Edwards), or houseguest Judy (Darla Hood, the former "Little Rascals" cutie, here in her final film). That's what Lt. Anderson (Gavin Gordon), the detective on the case, has to find out....From its strangely incongruous jazzy theme music to its surprising revelation at the film's tale end, "The Bat" works hard to entertain its audience, and if the film is never distinctly scary, it as often highly atmospheric and suspenseful, despite the light tone and moments of humor. Director/screenwriter Crane Wilbur, who had turned in the screenplays for earlier Price vehicles "House of Wax" and "The Mad Magician," does a fine job here of making things move along nicely (the whole film runs to a streamlined 80 minutes) and engendering a creepy mood; this could almost be a product of the great William Castle, who had helmed both "House on Haunted Hill" and "The Tingler," and if you only knew how highly I esteem that great showman and filmmaker, you would realize that this is very high praise, indeed. But most of the credit for the moderate success of this film must fall on its lead, Agnes Moorehead, who turns in a wonderfully animated performance. Typically intense and waspish, she is yet highly likable and even attractive here, and her Cornelia character is shown to be both highly competent and intrepid, although she DOES still cling on to her maid in fright when the shadow of The Bat is seen on a corridor wall. It is to be regretted that she and Vincent did not appear in more films together, as the two work very well together, old pros that they both were, at this point. "The Bat" contains any number of highlights, including the throat slashing of one victim and the discovery of that victim's body behind a grandfather clock; the scene in which Dale and Judy go upstairs to investigate the nighttime sounds that are booming throughout the house (why The Bat thought he/she could start hammering away at walls in search of the missing loot, in the dead of night, and NOT be heard is anyone's guess); and Cornelia's discovery of the secret room where the loot has been stashed, and her subsequent entrapment and near asphyxiation therein. The identity of The Bat should come as a surprise to most viewers, after numerous red herrings have been strewn about, although to be honest, I DID manage to guess who the culprit was, as events converged to a conclusion. But I would never dream of revealing that secret. As the promotional poster for the film proclaimed, "Warning! Keep the Secret! Anyone who reveals who I am will have to answer to The Bat!" And I would never want to risk THAT! Bottom line: I watched "The Bat" on an October evening as a nor'easter raged outside my windows and found it to be the perfect accompaniment to this very entertaining picture.

Cristi_Ciopron Crane Wilbur's 'The Bat' is an unusual comedy ('don't you hear that awful noise out there?'), and I enjoyed its unwillingness to attempt the conventional suspense, and its dry, light style recalls sometimes that of Feuillade, if you wish, and of Hitchcock's TV, but mostly, increasingly, massively that of Ed Wood, unwilling to guide or patronize its public, it attempts something very different, with perhaps one of the most unflattering portrayals of a cereal killer ever, and the sense that all these events don't really matter that much, almost an Ed Wood soap opera …. The impression is that each actor did pretty much what he or she felt like; some of them were having fun, certainly the lead actress. As the movie nears its denouement, with that clueless, absurd cop, it becomes obvious that this is Ed Wood taken to the hilt. Possibly the 1st mystery movie where I guessed whodunit; and the whole subplot about the chauffeur was mere Ed Wood.

Robert J. Maxwell In the opening scene, Agnes Moorehead and her staff have moved into a large house, but the servants are muttering about the threat of rabid bats. When I lived in Philadelphia there was a similar warning on television. "Look out for bats behaving oddly." The warning was of course futile because everything a bat does is odd. I suppose they could get REALLY odd by sitting down at the piano and hammering out "C Jam Blues" while grinning at you, but short of that, how could you know something was up? The story is too complicated to go into in detail. Some nonsense about a bank's founder stealing a million dollars from the bank, being murdered by Vincent Price (a doctor), four or five ladies ensconced in Agnes Moorehead's mansion and being threatened by somebody in a black mask and wearing gloves with claws, a snoopy detective, a grandfather clock, cut telephone lines, an uppity maid, a clumsy director, 1959 bouffant skirts (nice), the shadow of a villainous hand cast on the wall by a flash of lightning, that million bucks hidden somewhere under the floorboards or behind a secret panel in the wall or something.The budget was low. Few outdoor shots, no extras. And the tale, suitably tweaked, might have made a good hour-long episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents." There are a few unexpected witticisms in the dialog, nothing too challenging. But for the most part we get lines like this: Two young women are spending the night locked in their room. The beds are next to each other. One young lady turns to the other and says, "I can't sleep. I keep thinking of that man with the slashed throat." The other replies soothingly: "Don't think about it." How do you DO that? How do you not think about something? The mind will think what it will. It's its own agent. Unless -- is it possible that there is a mind BEHIND the mind? Somebody make a long-distance call to Descartes. We'll get to the bottom of this.Look, the whole movie seems to have been lying at the bottom of a shoe box labeled "B movie scripts, 1930s.") But I had to stick with it to the end.