The Vampire Bat
| The Vampire Bat | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical film poster for The Vampire Bat |
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| Directed by | Frank R. Strayer |
| Produced by | Phil Goldstone Larry Darmour |
| Written by | Edward T. Lowe Jr. |
| Starring | Lionel Atwill Fay Wray Melvyn Douglas Dwight Frye Maude Eburne |
| Music by | Phil Goldstone Larry Darmour |
| Cinematography | Ira H. Morgan |
| Editing by | Otis Garrett |
| Distributed by | Majestic Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 10 January 1933 |
| Running time | 71 min |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
The Vampire Bat (1933) is an American horror movie starring Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas, and Dwight Frye.
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[edit] Plot outline
When the villagers of Kleinschloss start dying of blood loss, the town fathers suspect a resurgence of vampirism. While police inspector Karl remains skeptical, scientist Dr. von Niemann cares for the vampire's victims one by one, and suspicion falls on simple-minded Herman Gleib because of his fondness for bats. A blood-thirsty mob hounds Gleib to his death, but the vampire attacks don't stop.
[edit] Production
Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill had been in the successful film Doctor X the previous year and had already wrapped up work on Mystery of the Wax Museum for Warner Bros. This was quite a large scale release and would have a lengthy post-production process. Seeing a chance to exploit all the advance press, skid row studio Majestic Pictures Inc. contracted Wray and Atwill for their own "quickie" horror film, rushing The Vampire Bat into production and releasing it in January 1933.
Majestic Pictures had less overhead than the larger studios, who were struggling at the time during the Great Depression. Part of the reason that The Vampire Bat looked almost as good as any Universal Pictures horror film is because Majestic leased James Whale's castoffs, the beautiful “German Village” backlot sets left over from Frankenstein (1931) and the interior sets from his film The Old Dark House (1932), plus some location shooting at Bronson Caves. Topping the illusion that this was a film from a much bigger “A” studio, Majestic hired actor Dwight Frye to populate scenes with Wray and Atwill.
The Vampire Bat ruse worked well for Majestic, which was able to rush the quickie film into theaters less than a month before Warner's release of Mystery of the Wax Museum.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- The Vampire Bat is available for free download at the Internet Archive [more]
- The Vampire Bat at the Internet Movie Database
- The Vampire Bat at AllRovi
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