The Bat Whispers *** (1930, Chester Morris, Una Merkel, Maude Eburne, Spencer Charters) – Classic Movie Review 3,592

People explore an old mansion looking for a hidden treasure but a caped killer picks them off one by one, in the 1930 American mystery film The Bat Whispers.

Writer-director Roland West’s 1930 American mystery film version of Mary Roberts Rinehart’s spooky mansion stage chiller play The Bat is a notable early talkie and one of the first widescreen films.

The Bat Whispers was shot in three versions: a pair of 1.33:1 aspect ratio, 35mm negatives for US and foreign prints; and a 2:1 aspect ratio 65mm widescreen Magnifilm version. It is produced by Joseph M Schenck for United Artists, but Roland West himself financed the Magnifilm widescreen cinematography, which required two cameramen and several pioneering techniques. 

It is inevitably creaky but still suitably creepy and satisfyingly amusing, as a master arch criminal called The Bat steals a necklace from the safe in the house of a rich socialite, robs a bank, and then terrorises the occupants of an isolated country mansion.

The Bat Whispers is well and imaginatively directed by West, who also made the second silent version of The Bat in 1926, successfully going for chills and laughs. Everything takes wing – the deliciously hammy performances of the actors (Chester Morris as Detective Anderson, Una Merkel as Dale Van Gorder, Maude Eburne as Lizzie Allen, Spencer Charters as The Caretaker), the sets (settings by Paul Crawley), the black and white noir-style night photography (by Ray June [35mm version] and Robert H Planck [65mm version]), and even the models.

West keeps to his original 1926 formula – ghosts, secret panels, lightning flashes, disappearing bodies, but delights in the coming of sound by adding screams and his witty dialogue. At the end, an actor asks viewers not to reveal the Bat’s identity. 

Also in the cast are Chance Ward, Grayce Hampton, DeWitt Jennings, Wilson Benge, Richard Tucker and Gustav von Seyffertitz.

The Bat Whispers is supposedly the film that inspired comic-book creator Bob Kane to create Batman. Kane agreed in his 1989 autobiography Batman and Me that The Bat Whispers villain was an inspiration for his character Batman.

The special effects were shot in 35mm.

It was long thought a lost film, but the 65mm version was among film collection of producer Mary Pickford willed to the US Library of Congress on her death in 1979 and in 1988 the UCLA Film and Television Archive restored and preserved the 35mm foreign version and the 65mm Magnifilm from the original camera negatives.

Release date: November 13, 1930.

Running time: 83 minutes.

Mary Roberts Rinehart’s 1908 novel The Circular Staircase and subsequent 1920 hit Broadway play version The Bat (written with Avery Hopwood) were previously filmed as The Bat in 1915 (now a lost film) and again as The Bat in 1926, remade here in 1930, and again in 1959 as The Bat by Crane Wilbur in 1959 with Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead. 

The 1926 film The Bat was also considered lost for decades, until a print was discovered in the 1980s, and it is now available in the public domain.

Cast as credited in order of appearance

Cast: Chance Ward as Police Lieutenant, Richard Tucker as Mr Bell, Wilson Benge as The Butler, DeWitt Jennings as Police Captain, Sidney D’Albrook as Police Sergeant, S.E. Jennings as The Man in Black Mask, Grayce Hampton as Cornelia Van Gorder, Maude Eburne as Lizzie Allen, Spencer Charters as The Caretaker, Una Merkel as Dale Van Gorder, William Bakewell as Brook, Gustav von Seyffertitz as Dr Venrees, Chester Morris as Detective Anderson, Hugh Huntley as Richard Fleming, Charles Dow Clark as Detective Jones, Ben Bard as The Unknown.

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 3,592

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