Weirdhouse Cinema Rewind: The Devil Bat
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Hello, welcome to Weird House Cinema Rewind. My name is Joe McCormick. Today we're bringing you an older episode of Weird House Cinema. This one originally published on July 12th, 2024, and it is our feature on The Devil Bat from 1940s starring Bela Lugosi. So let's jump right in. Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. ♪

Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb. And I am Joe McCormick. And today on Weird House Cinema, we are going to be talking about the 1940 horror thriller The Devil Bat, starring Bela Lugosi and Suzanne Karin. A movie where the one-sentence plot summary not only includes the phrase giant mutant bat, but also the word lotion. Yeah, that's right.

Yeah, in this episode, we're returning once more to the 1940s. This is only our third 40s picture on Weird House, and the first in a long time, following 1940s Dr. Cyclops and 1946's The Beast with Five Fingers. So I am excited to return to one of our least explored decades on the show, like this, the 30s and the 20s. We just haven't hit as much.

Yes, though, you know, some of the sci-fi movies we've done from like the 30s and the 40s have been some of my favorites, actually. I actually, in fact, came to the idea of doing Devil Bat this week by looking specifically for movies that are similar to The Beast with Five Fingers starring Peter Lorre, which I love.

And I was thinking, ooh, I want something in that zone. And this is what I turned up. And I think it's close. Beast with Five Fingers, I think, was a little more, you know, higher budget, a little more elaborate, had a little bit more class, but ultimately on, I think, the same frequency. Yeah, it had more of a gothic flair. This one is more middle America meets mutant bats. So that's a deal.

And while I would say that the plot of this movie is quite formulaic, like there, there was a pattern that's established with how each of the bat murders takes place that just sort of repeats and is the same way each time. It's almost like the setup to a joke, you know, or it's just like, there's a very formulaic repetition until the inversion. It's like that. And yet at the same time, the script isn't actually half bad. I think there is more kind of character and formality.

flair in it than you would get for a lot of similar movies from this time period. I'll also say for a horror movie from 1940, I found Devil Bat to have a surprisingly lively pace after the first 10 minutes or so that is. The opening scene, I don't know if you felt the same way, Rob, opening scene is almost comically dull. It's like they thought, you know what people want to see?

Bela Lugosi looking through a pane of glass for like three minutes straight while he microwaves a bat. Yeah. There are a lot of scenes of Bela Lugosi microwaving bats in this film, and you just need to be on board for that. But then again, it's Bela Lugosi, and if you have to watch any actor do these scenes, it might as well be Bela, because at least...

You know, he had even at this point in his career, you know, he still had a lot of energy, a lot of charisma. And you see that in a film like this where he's working alongside a lot of very solid professional actors of the time period. This is not this is a low budget picture, but it's not like a zero talent picture.

This is not the Ed Woods end of the spectrum for Bella's career. But even with all these other like they're perfectly, perfectly good and sometimes kind of great performances around him, he still shines and you still see that in him.

I totally agree. Bella is the star. There's no question about that, which is it's always a good move to make the villain the real star of the movie. I like that choice here and I think it works out. But also, as I was saying, I think even with the more mundane characters and the more mundane scenes, I think it's pretty lively. Like the pace really picks up once we meet the journalist character. And there's a good bit of snap and personality to the dialogue. Yeah.

Absolutely. It doesn't have the at times dull plotting pace that you encounter in genre pictures from these decades.

So, of course, I had to look up this one in the Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film. And Michael Weldon, the reviewer, the author there, look him up if you're not familiar with him. If you love weird films, you'd love the work of Michael Weldon. He points out that this was a Producers Releasing Corporation, or PRC, film. And PRC was the, quote, cheapest studio in the business, bottom of the ranking of the 11 Hollywood film companies active in the 1940s.

They only lasted from 1939 to 1947, and The Devil Bat was their very first horror film.

It was also a success, so they followed it up in 46 with what Weldon refers to as a cheat sequel, which does certainly sound like a cheat because it concerns the daughter of Bela Lugosi's character while also, yeah, it's his daughter. I don't recall him having one in this movie. I know. He has one now. So introducing the unknown daughter and then completely exonerating his character for all of his actions in the first film and blaming them on a new villain. Yeah.

uh this is a picture no spoilers this is a picture where there's never any doubt that bella lagosa is murder is plotting to murder people with mutant bats and doing it and there's like scenes with internal dialogue about it yeah in fact i would almost say if there were any criticism i would make uh of the the plot in this movie the first one i would probably make is that

The good characters are trying to solve a mystery, but you know the answer to the mystery the whole time. You know the answer before they even start investigating. So there's no attention for the audience in resolving the mystery except like wanting to see what happens when Bella gets caught. There's no ambiguity. Yes, he's sending the bats. We know he's sending the bats. We watched him make the bats. Yeah, yeah. You completely derail everything about the first movie. Yeah.

So, yeah, it's not supposed to be that great. It's supposed to be more of a psychological thriller and less of a horror film. And I'm not even sure there are any bats in it. But we're not talking about that one. Devil Bat 2 doesn't have bats? I know, I know. But anyway, we're not talking about Devil Bat 2 or Daughter of Bat Devil. I forget what it was called now. But Weldon certainly liked this one. He thought this one was pretty lively.

And I have to say, given the low-budget nature of the picture, I have to say, yeah, the pace is great. And the bad action looks, I thought, surprisingly good. I know we're going to maybe disagree a little bit on the special effects in this film, but...

But I went into it with very low expectations for my flapping bats. I love any bad effects in a film from bad puppets to great puppets, from bad CGI to just mind-bending CGI. I'll take any of it. And so I was expecting everything to be a lot more flippity and floppity. And I was pleasantly surprised that it was more believable than that.

It is better than the bat puppet in Suspiria, but that's not a high bar. The bar is low for this sort of thing, I'll admit. But yeah, what will I say? I don't think it looks great. I don't think it looks realistic, but it's fun. You know, they staged the scenes well. Yeah.

All right. I have an elevator pitch for this one. I think it'll make sense once we get into the plot, but it's Breaking Bad, except with bats and aftershave. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's if Walter White, instead of making methamphetamine, was making bats. Yeah.

Because you do have a similar plot with him, like he was this brilliant innovator who kind of got jerked around by the money men and has a lot of personal pride in his scientific powers. But again, no meth, just bats and aftershave. Yeah, I think a great villain, they always need one characteristic sin of your seven deadlies. And in both cases, the sin here is pride. Yes.

All right, let's go ahead and listen to at least some of the trailer audio here. I think this one gives you some of the snappy dialogue as well. When an animal attacks a human, there's bound to be a lot of noise. But I, as a scientist, take many things into consideration a layman might overlook. Ever smell anything like this before? Found it in Don Martin's bathroom. Yes.

That's the same stuff that's been on every one of the Devil Bat's victims. All four of the murdered people had this lotion on them when the Devil Bat struck. Layton, I'm afraid all these murders have affected your mind. Now, my plan is to sit in the garden, and when the killer makes one of those power dives, I'll blast him. ♪♪

Alright, now at this point you may be wondering, where can I see the devil bat? This one apparently entered into the public domain a while ago, which may sound good at first, but this isn't necessarily a good thing because while it means you can easily find a film like this in various streaming and physical formats, not all of them are going to be worth your time.

The best source that I'm aware of for the film is the 2013 Kino Classics Disc. You can get it on DVD or Blu-ray, mastered in HD from Archival Film Elements. And that one also features audio commentary by film historian Richard Harland Smith.

I had every intention of viewing it in this format. They have this disc at Atlanta's own Videodrome, but then my week got super busy. I wasn't able to make it over there and rent it. So I had to find a stream instead. I found a pretty solid stream of it, but I am going to rent the disc at some point from the Drome and maybe dive in a little deeper. You know, a little forward-facing research for...

forthcoming Bela Lugosi pictures. I do want to see a higher resolution version than I saw of the flat bats, the flat bats on the coat hangers. Yes. All right, let's get into the people who made this film. Starting in the director's chair, as usual, it's Gene Yarbrough.

who lived 1900 through 1975. American producer and director who worked his way up. This is one of those crazy Hollywood stories. A guy who worked his way up from being a chauffeur for like a producer to all the way up to being a director. His directorial duties began in RKO's short subjects division, so doing a lot of shorts for RKO. This was beginning back in 1936.

And then he went on to direct his first full feature for the Poverty Row studio. This is the term for like the lower budget Hollywood studios. Progressive Pictures in 1938. It was called Rebellious Daughters. Oh, boy.

The head of that studio would then go on to found PRC, the studio behind this picture. So he did this film in 1940, followed by, I believe, a few different PRC films, Caught in the Act in south of Panama in 41, and The Brute Man in 46. That one starred Rondo Hatton. If you've never seen a picture of him, a very famous character actor with an extremely unique look.

And even if you haven't seen a Rondo picture, you may have seen the Rocketeer, which features a henchman character who is modeled via special makeup effects to look like a Rondo character. Okay. Yeah.

So Yarbrough also directed for other studios during this time and moved on to work for Monogram Pictures, which became Allied Artists in 53, and ultimately Universal Pictures, where he directed the 1946 Rondo film House of Horrors and some of the lesser known but still quite successful Abbott and Costello movies, as well as multiple episodes of TV's The Abbott and Costello Show, which ran 52 through 54.

I don't know about you, Joe, but I often forget that there are all these Abbott and Costello movies. There's something like 37 of them. Uh-huh.

though I'm mostly familiar with it. I imagine a lot of you are only familiar with the ones that have monsters in the title, like Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein or whatever. He did not direct any of those. He directed these various other ones that don't even necessarily mention Abbot and Costello in the title. I've actually never seen any of those, but I know some of the core ones where they meet, I don't know, Dracula or Frankenstein, whatever the main universal crossover ones are, are supposed to be pretty funny. Yeah, I don't know. I don't think I've ever watched one myself.

So Yarbrough cut his teeth on quick and low budget film projects. He developed a great reputation and skill set for quick turnaround. And this made him a natural for television. So he just ended up doing more and more of that, serving as a director for TV until around 1971. His last feature film was 1967's Hillbillies in a Haunted House.

I believe I've seen a Riff Trax version of this. It features John Carradine, Lon Chaney Jr., Basil Rathbone, and Merle Haggard. Merle Haggard? Well, yeah, it is Hillbillies in a Haunted House. I think if memory serves, it's like...

a Nashville country act, you know, uh, contemporary to the time, uh, encountering creepy characters in a haunted house. I don't recall it being very good, but I remember there being some laughs. Mama tried to make me not a hillbilly in a haunted house, but, but failed. Yeah.

Now, the screenplay here is by John T. Neville, who lived 1886 through 1970, American screenwriter with credits going back to 1927. He worked on a lot of Westerns and adventure films with some crime sports thrown in there. There's like a boxing film called The Heart Punch, I think.

But however, this in 1946 is The Flying Serpent. They seem to be the only horror films that he worked on. And The Flying Serpent is said to be very similar in plot to The Devil Bat, but with some sort of a giant Mesoamerican flying serpent instead of a devil bat. And I can only assume this might have been at least some small influence on the much later film, Cue the Winged Serpent. Okay.

Ah, okay. You remember, actually, there is a similar plot device to make a connection to another director who made a name for himself by working fast and cheap. Roger Corman's movie, Not of This Earth, the one where the guy from another planet is trying to send people back or trying to steal people's earth blood because his home planet has been contaminated. But he's also got a suitcase that sends out this flying bat monster. It's like an alien that I guess steals people's blood.

I like that one. Uh, there's a, there's a really cheap kind of variation on this theme too. And the phantom creeps, the, uh,

At times exciting, at times exceedingly dull Bela Lugosi serial for more or less the same time period. They're like robot spiders or something of that effect. A couple times recently that's come up. Did you say there's a version of that that's like condensed that maybe we could watch for the show? There is. At some point it was cut down from like, what did I say before? Way too much. From an extremely long serial format into a condensed film format that probably makes less sense but is probably less boring. Okay.

All right. So that was the screenwriter. The original story credit goes to George Bricker, 1898 through 1955, worked from the mid-30s to the mid-50s with his most notable works being a pair, that pair of 1946 Rondo Hatton films, 1946's She-Wolf of London, which was also directed by Yarbrough, and 1952's Macau.

All right. But getting into the cast. Yes, of course, this is a Bela Lugosi film. And we've talked about Bela Lugosi at least briefly before because we covered Plan 9 from Outer Space. And I think in that one we said this cannot be.

the first episode where we really talk about Bella. We'll have to come back to him. So I guess this is the episode where we go into more detail about Bella Lugosi. Oh, okay. Because I, in fact, I think we recently reran plan nine from outer space, which of course made for a really fun, weird house episode. But yes, Bella is barely in plan nine. It's only a couple of scenes. So I can understand why we said that. So let's talk about him now. Yeah, that was his last, his last picture. Uh,

And certainly not his best picture. This is not his best picture either, but I think it's more fitting to talk about him here. Yeah, yeah. This is a good one. Yeah. Bela Lugosi here plays Dr. Paul Carruthers. Lugosi lived 1882 through 1956. Legendary Hungarian-American actor and classic horror icon, who's, of course, best known for his portrayal of Dracula in the 1931 universal horror film of the same name. I mean, it's pretty impressive, I think, that

all these years after that film came out, he is still like one of the stars you think of when you think of Dracula. Like you, yeah, you think of Christopher Lee, you probably think of Gary Oldman. Maybe there's one or two others in the mix, but probably not. Like, I feel like

I feel like Bela Lugosi is still like somewhere in that top three for most film fans or horror fans in general. So Lugosi started out in Hungarian theater and silent films before making his way to Germany and doing some silent films there and finally making his way to America.

He made his way up to New York, became very active in the theater scene there, mostly as an actor, but I think he did a little directing as well. I don't have any details on that, but he also did some silent films there. And it's here that he landed the lead in the Broadway play Dracula in 1927 and then moved to L.A. in 1928. I believe it's part of a tour of Dracula. And this is where he kicked off his proper Hollywood career.

The next year, he appeared in Todd Browning's The Thirteenth Chair. Browning would, of course, go on to direct Bella in that 1931 adaptation of the Dracula stage play. And this, of course, led to many of his best-known films, especially the horror films that remain such a central part of his legacy. Though we have to point out that he was typecast by all of this, and I think accounts indicate that he was rather...

He felt limited by this. He saw himself as a more versatile actor, but he was mostly relegated to horror roles and the scary Bela Lugosi-type characters that we think of today.

Uh, and wasn't really able to break out of that. And we have to remember too, in all of this, that yeah, as big of a film as Dracula was, as things like Frankenstein, uh, and Bride of Frankenstein were, horror and science fiction, these other genres were very much considered, uh, further down the studio pecking order. Mm-hmm.

But anyway, a number of notable films followed. 32's Murders in the Rue Morgue, White Zombie and Island of Lost Souls, 34's The Black Cat, that's one we might come back to, Mark of the Vampire, 39's Son of Frankenstein, and the serial The Phantom Creeps.

1940 gave us The Devil Bat, followed by the likes of 42's The Ghost of Frankenstein and The Corpse Vanishes, 43's Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, 48's Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, this being his last A-list movie and also his final portrayal of Count Dracula. So I feel like The Devil Bat in the arc of Lugosi's film career is kind of positioned in the middle between

early apex with Dracula and the early Universal movies and

And then what would happen later in the 50s when he would end up working with Ed Wood? Yeah, the 50s were rougher, including 52's Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla. That's at least one of the titles. And of course, that trio of Ed Wood films, 53's Glyn or Glinda, 55's Bride of the Monster, and 57's Plan 9 from Outer Space. And during this period in particular, I'm to understand he battled physical ailments, drug addiction, for which he sought treatment, and financial problems.

Um, um, it, it is fitting though, that he was apparently buried in that Dracula cape. Um, you know, like he, he ultimately, you know, he wanted to escape the legacy of that character to a certain extent, but he also fully embraced like the, the star power, the lasting legacy of what that role meant. I believe Devil Bat is not Bela Lugosi's

best performance of all time. It's not in his top, top tier, but I would find Bella entertaining if he were sleepwalking. So I love all of his scenes, even the ones where he's just like infinitely sniffing chemicals or...

Or looking through the glass. You know, he's great and all that. But the really good scenes are the dialogue scenes where he's like trying to get somebody to try on the lotion that makes the bats kill them. He has so many hilariously overt, like, I am about to murder you with a bat lines. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, the charisma and the talent shines through. And one of the reasons, again, that Plan 9 from Outer Space is not

generally considered a good film is that Bela Lugosi's barely in it. Like if he had been in it more, had he not died, you know, it would have been a better picture. Would it have been good? No, but it would have been a better picture.

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All right, let's get into the supporting cast here because we have some interesting characters here as well. We have Suzanne Karen playing Mary Heath.

She's one of the daughters of the main families involved in this pivotal fragrance company in the film. Yeah, the plot is sort of... So, like, Bela Lugosi is trying to wipe out these two families who run this cosmetics and perfume company. And there's this long list of brothers he's working down before he gets to Mary. And I guess the whole point is the audience is supposed to be like, no, you know, you can get all the brothers, but don't hurt Mary. Yeah. Classic, um...

You know, classic structure here. You know, you have your vengeful killer who either begins by killing characters you want to see die, or at least you're neutral about before working their way to the characters that you're more invested in. Yeah. And this is the one we're invested in. Yeah.

So Karen was, she lived 1912 through 2004, American actress and dancer who also worked in the New York theater and on Broadway. In Hollywood, she worked in, I believe, some Three Stooges shorts, as well as some various uncredited roles and occasional lead roles such as this. She was active on the screen from around 33 to 44, but also made an uncredited cameo in 1984's The Cotton Club.

I think she's good in this. She has very captivating eyes. Solid performance. Like I say, this is a film that may be low budget, but it is filled with very competent actors. Yeah.

All right. The next one of note, ooh, this one's a real treat, is the character Johnny Layton. He's your hotshot reporter looking into all these what turn out to be mutant bat murders. Yes. And for a time, they think prehistoric bat murders. Yes. Played by Dave O'Brien, who lived 1912 through 1969. Yes.

American film actor, I think at least one time director, also a screenwriter. He wrote a number of screenplays as well. He's pretty prolific. And I think he was credited, he has co-credited on an Emmy for work on the Red Skeleton show, writing comedy. So this guy, really,

very talented. He worked a lot in these categories, but he's best remembered today, perhaps secondarily for his role in this film, but mostly for his role as a deranged dope fiend in the 1936 film Tell Your Children, better known, I think, to everyone as its re-release title, Reefer Madness.

Just a powerhouse performance. He's the one who is aggressively puffing the marijuana cigarette over and over as the lady is playing the piano. He's screaming at her to play faster, play faster. Yes. And the narrator tells us that this is this is what happens to the reefer addict, that he ends up with this. They call him like inescapable madness or something. Yes.

A notorious film, a piece of anti-marijuana propaganda that would later on to become like a cult classic because it is so ridiculously over the top and ultimately very telling of this time period and its sensibilities and objectives in its messaging. But it's a delirious performance, and it's interesting that it ultimately outshines a lot of his—

very successful and popular contemporary work. Like he was a successful contemporary actor. Um, but you know, we often end up remembering folks for the weird stuff.

Yeah, yeah. So yeah, as you said, in Devil Bat, he plays our sort of jackrabbit-wise newspaper man. He's cool, he's quick-witted, he's a touch devious, like he's got a little bit of a flim-flam artist in him, but just enough that he's a bad boy, but still the good guy. Yeah, it is weird that there's a whole subplot that goes on with him and his photographer attempting to fake a bat attack, or fake a bat so they can get a photograph of it. So they don't have a

they're a little low on journalistic integrity, but they're still our heroes. We're still totally rooting for them. You know, we've talked on the show before about how so many sci-fi and horror films from before roughly the 60s have very boring male leads. I mean, some after the 60s do too, but especially like in the 50s, that's just the dead zone for protagonists in this male protagonists in

in these genres. The kind of low-def rectangles who are there to just kind of look vaguely handsome and punch the villain, rescue the female lead, but don't really have any interesting dialogue or sharp angles to their personality. I found this guy refreshingly different. He's got a good bit of personality. There are weird quirks about him, and some of his dialogue is kind of witty.

You know who he actually reminded me of was the male lead in Dr. X from 1932, the pre-code horror film with synthetic flesh. That character was also a wisecracking newspaper reporter. That's good. I mean, I guess that ultimately, like, the newspaper reporter...

Just in the long term as a fictional archetype, you know, kind of removed from the reality of actual journalism. It is often a space where we play with more rogue individuals. You know, they are in this gray space between like pure authority figures and and, of course, the criminal element, the forces of chaos.

and so forth. And so there's often a lot of room there for it to be wacky, weird, or even just completely chaotic itself. And it's like fear and loathing in Las Vegas, getting into gonzo journalism and all. So even in this time period where there's a lot that's getting more and more straight-laced and buckled down, this is so much better than just your square-jawed

you know, steak-eating policeman type character you would get in various other pictures. Yeah. And though I don't want to oversell the weirdness of this character, he's not super, I mean, he's not Hunter Thompson, but he is kind of a fox. He's kind of like, he's kind of wily and funny and not just there to be your, you know, lawful good slab of meat. Yeah. And ultimately, I thought, held his own in his big one-on-one scene with Bella at the end of the picture. Yeah. Agreed.

All right. Supporting character in this is Yolanda Donlon, who plays the character Maxine, who is a French maid. She lived in 1920 through 2014, American-born, British-based actress who mostly worked in the UK. This is not the only film where she plays a French maid, but her career on the British stage seems to have been far more substantial. So she worked with the likes of Laurence Olivier.

And her last film was 1976's Seven Nights in Japan. She was a ray of sunshine here. I loved Maxine. All right. The main perfume boss is this guy, Henry Morton. And he is played by Guy Usher, who lived 1883 through 1944. Prolific character actor of the 30s and 40s. His films include The Case of the Black Cat from 36, Buck Rogers from 39, and The Spanish Kate Mystery from 1935.

I thought he's pretty solid in this. Yeah, he is businessman. Yeah, he has a kind of, there's a very funny, but at times very awkwardly written scene with him and Bela Lugosi's character. We'll get to it. Which is one of the many scenes where Bela's trying to convince somebody to put lotion on. Yes, and also like Bela Lugosi, like,

eventually just out of pride, like all but admitting to the previous murders in the film. And Henry Morton is just kind of like, what's this guy talking about? And then finally it dawns on him, oh, he killed all these people. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, wait. Next, are we going to get to the the newspaper editor? Yes. The character is Joe McGinty. The the the actor is Arthur Q. Bryan, who lived 1899 through 1959. American actor and radio personality who he had. He had many other credits.

But he served as the voice of the Looney Tunes character Elmer Fudd from 1940 through 1959. Yeah, he was not the originator. And there were others who did that voice during this time. But he was an official Elmer Fudd voice actor. That totally fits. I did not make that connection. I mean, it feels like the least shocking thing in the world when you see him in the film because...

He looks like Elmer Fudd. He has a very Elmer Fudd look. He's just not wearing the hunting cap. But he's also so, I mean, it's early in the existence of this cliche. So I guess he's one of the examples that is being copied in later films and TV shows. But he is the classic, like,

police chief or newspaper editor who's barking at our rogue main character about how you're a loose cannon he's mcgarnigal's boss on the simpsons he's like well mcgarnigal you know billy is dead yeah there are a lot of fun scenes with this character

All right. And I'm going to mention the musical director here. This is, you know, films of this nature from this time period, they're often using like stock music. And ultimately, I don't know. I couldn't tell. I didn't do deep enough research to find out exactly how much this guy worked on the music, how much of it is stock and so forth. But he was very prolific. So I'm just going to mention him briefly anyway. It's David Chudnow, who lived in 1909 through 2002.

Russian-born composer and musical director who worked as music supervisor or musical director on 164 credits between 38 and 56. His composer credits include 1942's The Mad Monster and then later Russ Meyer's 1961 film Erotica.

And he went on to produce a number of projects in the 60s and 70s, mostly the films that were directed by his son, Byron Chudnow, born 1926, including a trilogy of G-rated intelligent Doberman pictures. I've mentioned these on the show before. They are The Doberman Gang, 72, The Daring Dobermans from 73, and The Amazing Dobermans from 76.

William Goldstein of Dr. Fibes fame was one of the writers on that last picture. These are Dobermans. You're not talking about people named Doberman. These are Dobermans the dogs. These are straight up dogs. I think solving crimes and stuff. Again, not a horror movie or anything. It's like apparently G-rated fun. But it was like a whole franchise that I feel like is largely forgotten.

Beautiful. Well, I don't want to be mean, but nothing about the music in this movie really struck me. It was kind of forgettable. It does everything you expect a film from this time period to do and nothing more.

All right. Well, shall we unleash the plot in an unsuspecting audience? Yeah, let's open the window and let the bats out. Okay. So we begin with a text legend over like superimposed over a shot of just a town that, by the way, did you have an idea of where this was supposed to take place? Because the opening shots made me think this is supposed to be in the American Southwest. Yeah.

Looks like the Southwest. But then the reporter that goes to investigate is from the Chicago Register. Yeah.

They might just have a satellite office here. So, yeah, I don't know. Everything feels very solid middle America, you know? Okay. Anyway, the text says, "...all Heathville loved Paul Carruthers, their kindly village doctor. No one suspected that in his home laboratory on a hillside overlooking the magnificent estate of Martin Heath, the doctor found time to conduct certain private experiments."

weird, terrifying experiments. Period.

Okay. So then we open on Bela Lugosi hunched over a table covered in chemistry equipment. You got beakers, flasks, gas flames in a room with fake stonework walls. And he's doing chemistry, mixing solutions, decanting things into bottles, occasionally just having him a little free sample, like sniffing, you know, getting a sniff. Yep, yep. Doing some mad science, basically. You know what he's up to.

You didn't even need the crawl. Of course, Bela Lugosi is up to weird, terrifying experiments. And, you know, I don't know. We don't know it's illegal. You know, God bless him. Go ahead. Do your weird, terrifying stuff. Why would he be sniffing the chemicals if there was anything wrong with them?

So he goes into a secret passageway. This is accessed by way of a hidden switch in a bookcase. And this leads down into a dungeon. And the dungeon is full of bats. It's hard to tell exactly what's going on. So, Rob, I'm going to lay it out what I thought was going on. And you tell me if it matches your impressions.

I think there are lots of bats, but for substantial portions of the movie, only one bat seems to be active at a time. So I believe these other bats are backup bats that are in storage waiting to be activated by the microwave, as you put it, the thing that he's going to put this bat into in a minute.

That's right. You can only cook up one mutant bat at a time, but you've got to have a lot of normal bats on hand to cook up if something happens to that prime bat. Okay, so the bats are dangling upside down from what look like coat hangers. There is one main bat at the center of the room. It's bigger than all the others, and Lugosi approaches it. To say the first line of the film, what do you think the opening line of dialogue in this movie will be? Yeah.

He says, ah, my friend, our theory of glandular stimulation through electrical impulses was correct. All right.

That's a hell of an opener. And then he goes on to say, a few days ago, you were as small as your companion. And now look at you. And he I think he's got to be a good 30 percent bigger than the other bats. Now, here we cut to a close up shot of a real bat's face. We will see this exact same bat close up footage so many times in the movie.

I don't know if it was something shot for the film or if they were just getting, you know, nature stock footage, but it's like right up in the bat's face and it's some kind of bat like looking around, looking like it's struggling against restraints.

Yeah, I thought they did a pretty good job integrating their live animal shots and their prop shots here. Of course, as you might expect, as is often the case, the bat we see in close-up is clearly a fruit bat of some sort, which is, of course, in real life, absolutely not interested in human flesh or anything like that. It wants to eat mangoes or something. But to the undrained eye, they look more ferocious. They look kind of like wolves.

So that's what we get. But yeah, I thought the integration between these shots was pretty good. Though the hanger bat...

Kind of looks like some sort of like cured bat jerky, right? Yes, it looks like a bat got caught into a hydraulic press. So it's just a furry pancake with wings and then they left it out to dry in the sun. Exactly, yeah. So Lugosi dismounts the bat hanger and transports it to another room. This is a high voltage bombardment chamber behind a steel door with thick glass viewing windows.

He leaves, he like hangs the bat up in the room, leaves the room, puts on welding goggles, flips the switch. The electricity starts going nuts inside the room. It's like arcing from all these Tesla coils and stuff. And the bat is just hanging there while Lugosi watches through the glass and

And I think the director must have thought that people would just really get a kick out of the glandular stimulation scene because it goes on for quite some time. It's like zap, zap, zap, zap for a while. Then Lugosi goes inside the room to make some adjustments, then goes back outside and starts zapping it again. And we just get to watch. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's worth pointing out that like what the full runtime of this picture is 68 minutes.

So maybe we do have a certain amount of padding going on here. Yeah. But as the electrical stimulation continues, the bat begins to flex its wings. So I guess it's coming to life, coming out of cold storage. Mm-hmm.

Now, once the stimulation is over, Lugosi checks the bat for a heartbeat. He goes in with like a stethoscope and he's checking it out and he seems very, very pleased with himself. But he is interrupted by a phone call. It's a call from his bosses. They're the business partners, Henry Morton and Martin Heath, Heath of this Heath, Heathville, the Heath company. And Henry Morton is his partner. And they are inviting Dr. Carruthers to a family get together at the Heath residence that night.

And then Carruthers says he appreciates the invitation, quote, but I am very busy working on a formula for a new shaving lotion. And then Heath replies, oh, you know, but Doc, this is my daughter's idea. And this is referring to Heath's adult daughter, Mary. They say, you know, Henry Morton's son, Don, is going to propose to her tonight. And apparently she will be very upset if Bela Lugosi isn't there for that. Yeah.

So they hang up the phone and then Henry Morton says he's going to be surprised when he finds the special occasion is to present him with this bonus check. He says this while holding the check in his hand. And then Heath takes the check and stares at it and says almost wistfully, $5,000.

I don't know. Maybe it's not coming across in the way I'm describing, but there are so many like out loud references to this $5,000 check. It got very funny to me. Yeah. 5,000 smackers. Yeah. This is, this is a lot of money. Well, whatever the amount is, it's just all these people gathered around being like, wow, this is the dollar amount of the check. Yeah.

Anyway, before Carruthers goes to the party, we see him explaining his giant bat scheme to the giant bat. He dips a cotton ball in the new shaving lotion he's making, and he holds it up to the glandular stimulated bat, the glandularly stimulated bat. And the bat starts screaming. And Lugosi is like, good, yes, I taught you to hate this fragrance while you slept. Now, if you smell it while you are awake, you will strike to kill.

All right. All right. Murderous conditioning. Okay. Then we go to a scene of the party at Morton and Heath's house. So Mary is Heath's daughter, but there are also just a bunch of loose sons running around. I don't remember whose son is whose. There's a bunch of them. And Morton is like, remember, Roy, Tommy, you're not supposed to say anything about this $5,000 check that I hold in my hand until you get the signal from Heath.

And then Mary Heath and a Morton son named Don are sort of cuddling and flirting on the other couch. And Morton starts to give them the same talk. And they have all these ideas about how they should unveil the $5,000 check. But then they find out Carruthers is not going to come to the party because he is busy with his lotion. So Roy, one of the Heath sons, offers to take the check up to the laboratory.

And here we get our first, like, put on the lotion Roy scene. So Roy goes up to the lab and Carruthers reacts with this strange kind of hard to read cascade of emotions when he receives the $5,000 check. He'll explain why in a minute. But then he's like, OK, Roy Heath, I want you to try my new aftershave.

And so Roy takes some of it and he smells it. He says, ooh, pretty strong, isn't it? This establishes a pattern. All the victims are going to say this, like, wow, it smells really strong. But Lugosi reassures him. He says, no, no, the scent evaporates a short time after you use it.

So Roy takes a few drops in his hand, and then Lugosi gleefully explains. He says, now rub it on the tender part of your neck here. I love these scenes where he keeps, like, touching his throat and being like, here's where you rub it. It's so soft on the skin. Yes, because you want to apply lots of it to the esophagus and the jugular. Yeah, that's right. So Roy rubs the lotion on his throat, then he departs. When he leaves, he says, good night, doctor. And Lugosi replies, goodnight.

Goodbye, Roy. He will also do this in every one of the murders. Yes. Then we get a weird voiceover of Lugosi's thoughts. Is this the only time in the entire movie when we hear a character's thoughts out loud? I think so. It is. Yeah, this really feels like one of those classic moments of the director or someone in the production saying, I don't think we got this across.

Let's have some voiceover here. And that's what they do. Absolutely. It feels tacked on. So he's standing there staring at the check, and we hear Lugosi's voiceover say, Lovely check, isn't it, doctor? They are wealthy because of you. You made them rich, doctor. It was your formula. Tonight they gave you $5,000 and wanted you to come down to their house and thank them for it. That was your money they gave you, like a bone tossed to a faithful dog.

And we get some very good facial expressions from Bella here. First, he looks...

and then it turns into a grimace, and then it turns into maniacal laughter, and then straight into a furious glower, he is ready now to send the bats. So he goes down into the secret passageway. He goes to his mutant bat, and he says, tonight you have work to do. And the bat flies out. Yep, yep. And I think the bat flying looks pretty good, though there's going to be a plot element that kind of tarnishes the effect a bit later on. Yeah, yeah.

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So, first we see Don and Mary out in the garden on a bench. Remember, they were the ones who were going to get engaged. This part I found incredibly perplexing. Don says, you know, while our families are here, tonight is a good time to announce our engagement.

And Mary says to him, look, Don, I love you. I've loved you since we were kids, but not in that way. You're more like a brother to me. I was like, what? How did you get to the point of thinking they were going to be engaged? Yeah. Yeah. He seemed exceedingly sure of this. So this was this was a real head scratcher. But he takes it well. He doesn't get mad or anything. He's just like, oh, OK, fair enough. Yeah.

Yeah, it's like we needed more information. Why was this miscommunication in place? Were they betrothed? What was going on here? We had no idea. Okay. But yeah, Don takes it well. He's like, okay then.

Um, meanwhile, nearby, Mary's brother, Roy, the guy who put the lotion on his throat, he arrives home, gets out of his car, and is immediately dive-bombed by a bat. And, uh, we don't see a lot of it. I mean, we see the bat flying, and we see sort of a dark dive-bomb thing, but it's not like we get, like, a clear close-up. Eventually, we'll probably watch Life Force for Weird House Cinema, and we'll have to compare the dive-bombing bat sequences. I think they have some of these in, uh,

Fright Night as well, right? Isn't there a dive-bombing bat scene in that? That sounds right. Yeah.

And there's a dialogue exchange that goes like this. Carruthers says, there's nothing I can do. And Heath says, you mean he's dead? Carruthers says, yes, I'd better call the coroner. Heath says, you think it's murder? Carruthers says, I don't know. I never saw anything like it before. The jugular vein is severed. They all look down. It cuts to black. And

And this is where the news media comes into play. Yeah, but because everybody trusts Carruthers. I mean, of course, we should have. Yeah, they tell us this a lot. They're always like, everybody trusts Carruthers. Everyone loves Carruthers. The community loves them. We're given very little in addition to that to to make us believe this is the case. Because, come on, it's Bela Lugosi.

Like he brings that aura here. We don't really see him doing like nice things for the community. He just wants to do terrifying experiments in his laboratory. Yeah, he's acting incredibly suspicious from the first scene. Yeah, but all right. Fair enough. Nobody suspects him.

Alright, so it's time to meet some new characters at the offices of a newspaper, the Chicago Register. So it shows a busy, bustling newsroom. Were two guys on the floor of the newsroom throwing punches? It looked like it, but then it cuts away quick. Yeah, it's a scrappy environment. They're having fun. They're working hard. They're playing hard.

And so we're going to meet a couple of characters here. The assignment editor McGinty, who again, he's your classic large cigar chewing police chief slash newspaper editor. He's, he's telling the cop or reporter, you're a loose cannon. You're off the force. Here's your new partner. And in fact, we get all three of those in this movie. Yes. Yes. I,

I do like the elements, too, though, with our newspaper editor here, who is like, we got to remember the Heath company. It's a big account, you know, big advertising account for the paper. So they do interject a little bit of like realistic newsroom politics here.

Well, kind of, but I didn't understand the dynamics. So, yeah, I thought that was interesting. They're like, Heath is a big advertising account. So you've got to go to Heathville. You got to get a photographer to go with you. Go to Heathville and do a big sensational news story about his son's unsolved mutant bat.

murder? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that part makes less sense. It would be more realistic where it's like, okay, you're going up there, but make sure you play it really respectful. We've got to cover this, but they're a huge advertiser. So again, some things are maybe lost in the message here. I mean, normally if there's like a big industry mogul who has a child with an, their adult child is killed in an unsolved murder, you want the National Enquirer up there getting into it.

Yeah. Well, they send an A-team, as we'll see. That's right. So our hero here is Johnny Layden. He's a scrappy reporter who's always causing trouble. Somebody's always calling the editor to get him fired. But you know what? He gets results. Yeah.

And McGinty explains there's this mystery killing in Heathville. It's old Martin Heath's son. He wants Layden looking into it. Layden is unfamiliar. He's like, who's Martin Heath? And McGinty, this was also weird. McGinty's like, who's Martin Heath? Say, have you ever had a date with a girl?

And Leighton says, you know, he might have had one at some point. And McGinty says, well, did she smell sweet? If so, that's because of Martin Heath Cosmetics Limited. They make all that goo that women put on their faces. So is the premise here that Heath is the only perfume and cosmetics company in the world and invented and has exclusive rights to the concept of makeup and perfume? Yeah.

I don't know. I guess they're just a major player. Anyway, so Layton goes to Heathville. He takes along with him a photographer, as he was told to. This character has a great name. It's One-Shot McGuire. Pfft.

One shot. McGuire is a bow tie guy who keeps his suit jacket buttoned. Uh, but he has a kind of, uh, he's a little bit more nerdy than Layton, but also has, he's kind of got a nerdy, but rascally temperament to match Layton's. Yeah. And I don't know, Ed, from the title, I'm not sure if he's supposed to be a really good photographer or just a really sloppy photographer. Like, Oh yeah. Did you get pictures of the, uh, the sporting event? I got one shot.

does that mean you only needed one like perfect shot first take or you just really don't care you're just like good enough I didn't know yeah so if it's a writer and they call you like first draft McGuire what does that mean that could yeah nailed it first draft well I guess sometimes it works like that but um

One has a right to be suspicious. So our two reporters go to Heathville. They meet the police chief there and they begin the inquest. And the police chief admits that they have not gotten very far with the investigation, but that Roy Heath suffered the strangest wounds. He had shallow slashes in his throat, too deep for fingernails, not deep enough to be a knife.

And then the coroner says that they could have been the talons of a bird, a bird. But the sheriff says they know that it wasn't a bird because they found several hairs on the shoulder of Heath's coat. So it couldn't have been a bird. Side note that there's going to be a lot of dialogue in this film related to the idea that people think bats are birds and need to be corrected on the matter.

Multiple characters have to correct. I think Dr. Carruthers and Layton are frequently correcting people on calling bats birds. Yeah, nobody knows exactly what a bat is. But they say that the hairs on the coat, they're not human. Lab tests showed that they came from a mouse.

And Leighton says, say, a bat has hair like a mouse. What if it was a bat? And I don't know. I call BS. I think that is too extreme of a bullseye connection there. Unless Leighton has like undisclosed psychic powers or something. Another clue, though. They say there was a peculiar odor about the wounds, but the police were unable to identify it. And now it has been destroyed by evaporation.

Uh, so we're going to go on to the meeting with Mary that the reporters are continuing the investigation. The sheriff, uh, the, the, the police chief is just like, Oh yeah, sure. Look into it. You know, I know you'll get no objection from me, which is kind of unusual for these films. I feel like it's always a territorial squabble about who gets to investigate. Mm hmm.

So the newspapermen go to the Heath residence. Of course, it's immediately clear that Leighton and Mary are going to fall in love. And then there's a secondary romance as well, because Mary's got the French maid, the gorgeous French maid named Maxine, who's running around saying, we mademoiselle. And apparently she is just wild for photojournalist. And from their very first introduction, one shot Maguire is saying, yes, I will marry this French maid.

Now, they've got competing theories about the murder. They ask, you know, did this guy have any enemies? Not really. Was it an animal attack? Carruthers says, yes, it was a wild animal who attacked him. But Layton says, I don't think so.

And this sort of leads into this middle section of the movie that's more just sort of investigating the murders and more murders taking place. So there is a murder of another one of the sons. This time it's a guy named Tommy. Lugosi gives him the lotion to try and Tommy puts it on and he's like, ooh, that feels great. Very, very soothing. And Lugosi says, I don't think you will ever use anything else.

So he's, you know, walking around with the lotion on and he gets attacked by a bat in the garden patio. Now, at this bat attack, the journalists witness it. They see it happen. And so they try to report on it. They call it McGinty. They're like, yeah, he was attacked by a devil bat. McGinty doesn't believe them at first, but then he does run with their story. And the headline is Mysterious Devil Bat Kills Thomas Heath.

I do like that this movie shows us lots of newspaper headlines. Yeah, my one disappointment was I couldn't make any of the lower headlines out. You know, that's always, there's always a lot of fun there, especially in like parodies on The Simpsons. Like what were the stories that didn't make the very top because of whatever supernatural shenanigans are going on? I feel like multiple times we see a newspaper and there's another article with the headline praise from cheerleaders. Hmm.

Okay. Otherwise, a slow news day. Oh, and then they show a second paper that says, who will be the devil bat's next victim? Villagers cringe in terror of murderer. Oh, and another one of the articles has the headline Pericles the Great. What? Yeah, local theater maybe? I don't know. Lorem ipsum.

So anyway, there's this whole middle section where they've seen the devil bat, but McGinty's like, hey, I need a photo. We got to run a photo. So they stage a hoax photo using a stuffed bat from a taxidermy shop. Yes, I loved and hated this because it's just such a weird, wacky element that suddenly like journalistic integrity is out the window and they're going to fake this shot. But then it does feel from a filmmaking standpoint, like kind of an error because let's face it, these bat effects, I don't know.

I think they're pretty great considering the budget and the time period. But when you also introduce a fake bat into the scenario, that fake bat looks too much like the actual bat. Yes. And it makes me second guess the effects on some level. So I didn't like that.

Same thought. The hoax bat looks the same as the real devil bat. Yeah. It's like if somebody wears a monster mask in a movie that also features a monster, that monster mask can't look too good and your actual monster effects better be like a cut above. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So this. Oh, but also this movie has a debunking scene. So the hoax photo.

is debunked by a skeptical scientist on a national radio program. And it shows just like everybody in the country sitting around listening to this radio program. They introduce a scientist named Professor Percival Garland Raines, whom the announcer calls the world's greatest authority on animals. And Raines says that devil bats may have existed in the dark ages when people lived in caves, but not anymore.

And he has proof that the photo is a fake. He analyzed it under a magnifying glass and he says the bat has a tag on it, which says made in Japan. But I was thinking, wait a minute. What if the real devil bat is simply a manufactured object?

You know, created by magic. How did they get a fake bat? Across the ocean. Either across the ocean or like, are they selling these at the local store? There's just so many questions arise from this. I would have thought that taxidermy bats would be a more locally produced article. Yeah.

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Oh, hey, folks, we're back. We had to just take a break in the middle of our recording session. But now we are in real time a few hours later, continuing our discussion of the devil bat. So where do we leave off? It was where, oh, they just pulled off the hoax and they got caught. They got caught by the radio guy. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. They attempted to do the fake photo. And is it now or in just a little bit where like basically it's like, I've got to fire you guys. This is awful. And they're like, you can't fire us because we're on we're on to this great case. We're going to keep working it. That's right. So McGinty, they're on the phone with McGinty, the chief, the editor, and he fires Layton and one shot McGuire, though I guess they did conspire. So fair enough. Yeah. And obviously this is not the first time he has fired them. They even say so. They're like, you'll hire us back. You always do.

But the real downside, they don't seem all that upset about getting fired. The real downside is they are now on the outs with their their new lady friends. Mary and Maxine are not happy with them for doing a hoax, especially since this hoax involves the creature that allegedly killed their brothers and family friends and so forth and almost fiance. Yeah, it seems like a massive misstep, especially on that angle.

But Layton's a real go-getter. He doesn't let this put him to bed. He keeps investigating. And he finds out about the history of Carruthers and the Heath Company. He finds out that Carruthers missed out on getting part of the Heath Company fortune by just being paid in cash instead.

Um, and there's some notes somewhere in here about like a chemist examines the Lugosi lotion and finds out that it has a previously unknown element in it that could not be identified. I, I love this detail. It seems a bit much. Uh, but Bella explains that the otherwise unknown element was something he found in Tibet, which the llamas use in their ceremonies. Um,

Okay. All right. I don't know what those ceremonies could be if it gets bats riled up in this scenario, but okay. Fair enough.

Anyway, so Layton goes to confront Lugosi with questions about all this stuff. They take him some of the aftershave to analyze, I believe. And Lugosi is like, oh, you know, to the chief of police and to Layton, why don't you both each take a bottle of this stuff home with you and use it? Now, the chief of police, he's having none of it. He says, if my wife ever smelled perfume on me, she'd suspect me, sure. Sure.

So he won't take it. But Layton, he's like, yeah, sure, I'll take some. And of course, he gets attacked later that night while he is sitting out in the garden with one shot. But this actually works out to their benefit because Layton pulls a revolver out of his coat pocket, shoots the devil bat,

kills the devil bat so the devil bat wasn't i don't know all that threatening in the end they was destroyed by rather mundane means and then uh it's it's the biggest story on all the newspapers the headline is reporter kills devil bat subhead shoots monster well i wondered did he write this story for the paper that seems like it would be a massive um

Misstep as well, but I don't think he would. He would probably fight for it. He's like, look, I killed the devil bat. I should get to write the article. Yes, I can maintain my journalistic integrity. Yes, I did just try and fake a bat photo.

Do you see the article underneath shoots monster is called Americanism? I was trying to figure out if Americanism is part of the monster shooting or is this a separate article? There's a subsection. Somebody's weekly column on Americanism. In a classic display of Americanism, the reporter has shot the devil bat.

But, you know, now that they've actually got a real dead devil bat corpse in hand and not just a taxidermied object, they can prove they were right all along. So everybody has to has to eat crow. There's another radio program with this. Remember the skeptic Professor Raines? He comes back. He's like.

Look, I was wrong. The devil bat does exist, and it is the last of its kind, a giant bat from the Neolithic age, which he explains as another word for the Stone Age. Thank you, Professor. Of course, we know this is not true. We know that this bat is not an ancient creature. It is newly cooked up in Lugosi's microwave. But he's the foremost authority on animals.

Well, yeah. I mean, maybe he recognizes the process that's going on, but he doesn't understand the technology involved. Shows how much you know, Professor. Get out of your ivory tower. You don't even know about Bela Lugosi's bat microwave.

So Bella has to cook up another bat from the freezer, which he does. He gets it out and he cooks it with the electricity. And then he goes and checks the bat with the stethoscope and he's smiling. He says, splendid. You will be even greater than your unfortunate predecessor. And then the bat screams in stock footage and he's like, enraged, aren't you? Fine. I'm enraged also. Tonight I shall call on Henry Morton and you shall strike him down.

Uh, so we get another scene, another one of these classic scenes of Bella convincing somebody to put the lotion on their skin. He goes to the offices of Heath cosmetics where, uh, he's, he's showing everything to Morton, the big boss. And he's like, you know, my lotion is so good. Try it out. And Morton says, no, I'll, I'll try it tomorrow after I shave, you know, cause it's aftershave. Uh, he says,

quote, then my skin will be more tender and receptive to the lotion. And Lugosi is like, yeah, why not try it now? See, you can put it right over the jugular vein where the skin is always tender and receptive to a lotion. Yeah.

once again comments about, isn't it too strong? He's like, no, no, no, it'll evaporate quickly. So he sort of bullies Morton into putting the lotion on his throat. Then Morton starts gloating about how all of the doctor's formulas have been highly successful. And it was quite foolish of him to take cash for his work instead of a cut of the profits. Otherwise he would be, he would be a rich man now.

So you're not feeling that bad for Morton. Morton's just being a jerk here. Yeah, yeah, he is. He absolutely is. Though he does seem a bit oblivious, too. Like, so he's not... I don't know. It's a weird mix of him being kind of, like, accidentally jerky and...

and still a bit maliciously jerky. Yeah, you're right. He's like, huh, isn't it funny? You're the one that did the work, but I got rich, and that's funny, isn't it? Yeah, and it continues here as Lugosi keeps making even more cutting and suggestive comments that imply that he has been murdering people with

bats. Yeah, that's right. So he's like, you know, you've had a lot of fun in your laboratory with your experiments, dreaming up something new. You're a dreamer, Doc. Money's bad for dreamers. And Lugosi is just dissecting Morton's brain with his eyes. And Lugosi tells Morton that his feeble intellect cannot begin to comprehend the magnitude of his scientific discoveries. Morton's like, what discovery are you talking about? And he says, when you find out, Henry, it will be too late for you.

Anyway, good night. Oh, and also before he leaves, he mentioned something about having already proved his discovery three times. There have been three murders. Yeah. And this still doesn't instantly sink in for Morton.

It takes a minute. It takes a minute. Morton starts thinking about that and he's like, huh? So he puts in a phone call to Martin Heath and he's like, I think I've got a clue to solve the murders. He says, if half of what I suspect is true, it's the most diabolical plot that a madman ever concocted. So they're both out driving on a dark road and Lugosi leaves first and he's also going to Martin Heath's house.

But Lugosi gets there before Morton and he parks, he opens the trunk of his car and a bat just screams and flies out of the trunk. And so of course, right after this Morton arrives, but the bat, it gets him, it devil bats him.

Now, in this case, a bunch of the guys in the house, like they don't I think they don't see the bat, but they see Morton like he's banging on the door screaming for help and they go and open the door and he just like collapses into the foyer dead. And, you know, they're like, oh, whoops, another one. So we see a newspaper headline again called and it's devil bats mate kills Henry Morton. Yeah. I don't know. How do they know it's his mate? I feel like that that headline, the editor was playing it up a little bit like.

bit like let's get a love angle in here between the bats bride of devil bat yeah that was probably one of the candidates oh and while it's showing us all the headlines this time this has happened before it's like superimposing the shots of the newspaper with that footage of close up footage of a bat face

So who's the next victim going to be? Well, we see a silhouette of Bela Lugosi wearing a hat in the dark room with a bottle of his formula and he's surreptitiously adding it to something. What could it be? Well, after the scene, we get a scene where Leighton is addressing Martin Heath, Mary Lugosi and One-Shot McGuire.

And he explains, you know, he's very glad that Mr. Heath invited him to come live in their home until devil bat two is defeated, uh, because he's worried about Mary, right? You know, he thinks she may be targeted next. It's logical, but he hasn't quite caught on yet. He's like, why would you think that? And, uh, Layton explains, well, the other victims were members of the Morton and Heath families. Therefore he concludes that someone is using the bat to wipe out these two families. Uh,

Legosi, of course, claims this is preposterous. He says the thought of a human controlling a bat is fantastical.

And as a counterexample, he points out that even one-shot McGuire was attacked by a bat. And he's not a Heath or a Morton, so that's a good point. But one-shot McGuire argues, now, wait a second. I'm basically a member of this family because I am definitely going to get married to the French maid. Oh, well, yeah, that works out. So they all say their goodnights. And then Lugosi once again does it. You know, Mary says goodnight to him and he says goodbye, Mary. Hmm.

So later we see Mary getting ready for bed. She wonders if Maxine has filled her perfume bottles with something new because there is a strong smelling new fragrance in them. Maxine denies it, and Mary concludes that it must have been her father who apparently secretly switcheroos her perfume every time his factory produces a new one. That's a bold move.

Also, she's putting on perfume to go to bed. I don't know. Maybe she skipped a shower. I don't really know what the rules here. Maybe that was a thing in the 40s. Or maybe people do that. I don't know what people do with perfume. Do people put on perfume to go to bed? Maybe they do. After this movie, though, you'll never put on perfume before you go to bed again. Yeah.

Uh, so anyway, so Mary goes to bed and we see the bat fly out and what's going to happen. Of course, you know, it's going to come to her room, but it actually doesn't get in. It like zooms through the night screeching until it reaches Mary's window. And then it's just there banging against the window and she wakes up alarmed. She screams, all the dudes come running and Mary survives the night. Uh, but the next morning there's an investigation. What could have happened? And they discover the perfume switch, uh,

So Layden, he's finally putting all the pieces together here. He thinks he's figured out the case and he comes up with a plan. He's like, okay, we're going to lie to Carruthers and make him think that Mary was injured or perhaps driven insane by the bat. And then we're going to trick him into coming over to the house and then stall him here for time. Meanwhile, Layden's going to run around and do what he calls a little private bat hunting. Right.

What this really means is he's going up to Carruthers' lab to snoop around. He does that. And he finds the secret passageway and goes into the Bat Dungeon. All right. So now all is becoming revealed. But the others don't do a great job at their part of this plan. So, like, they're trying to stall Carruthers at the house.

And he's trying to leave. He needs to get back to his lab. And one shot McGuire is like, I don't feel so good. You ought to see my tongue. It looks like a squirrel's tail. But Carruthers just advises him to take a mercury compound. And so Carruthers goes back to the lab. There's some cat and mouse there with Layden sneaking around while Carruthers is, you know, doing things. And Layden witnesses Carruthers talking to his bats. So there's no going back now. He knows what's up.

Uh, he, uh, I, I think he's going to let them out for the night because I, if you interpreted this the same way, Rob, I think he thinks the jig is up and he doesn't want the bats around if somebody comes snooping. Yeah. Let him go like flush the bats down the toilet. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

And so, uh, and so Layden sneaks around, uh, around the house, knocks on the front door and he asks for some of the shaving lotion. He says, he thinks that if he douses himself in it, it might attract the killer. Legosi plays dumb, but you know, gives him the bottle anyway, and Layden dabs some around his throat and he really gets it up in there. And he explains his plan is to go sit in the garden and quote, when the killer bat does one of its power dives, I'll blast it.

which is what he did last time. So I guess he's planning to do this again. Maybe he's hoping there are only two bats total. And so Carruthers agrees to come along and watch this experiment.

So they have a little tense conversation in the garden at night. They're a little apprehensive, or at least Carruthers is. They trade some comments with heavy implication that maybe they understand one another's motives. And then suddenly at one point in the conversation, Layden just like tosses a bunch of the shaving lotion on Carruthers and then reveals that he knows the whole plot.

And so at first Carruthers seems weirdly kind of gloomy. He just kind of accepts his fate, but then tries to make a break for it. Like he tries to grab and wrestle the gun from Layden, but the devil bat appears and everybody scatters. Right, right. And you know what's going to happen next.

What is the comeuppance of any mad scientist that creates monsters? Oh, of course. Foiled by his own monster. Yeah, we're not foiled. So Carruthers, well, first he tries to trick Mary into coming back to his lab, but he doesn't make it. He gets Devil Bat dive-bombed in the garden on the way there. And so then Layden comes and has to explain to Mary, I laughed out loud at this part, where he's like, the Devil Bat belonged to him, Mary. He committed those murders.

And then Mary just lays her head on Layden's shoulder. And then it's the end title, the end. Yeah. They're like, check on the doctor. And they're like, I don't think the doc made. Yeah. I love the abruptness with which these older movies. And it's just the bad guy dies. The,

The leading lady like kisses or lays her head on the shoulder of the leading man. And then you get title card the end all within 20 seconds. Yeah. I mean, it's been over an hour. People need to get home from the theater and or they need to watch the next movie that's playing immediately after this one. But I think all things considered is a pretty good final showdown, like with the back and forth between the hero and the villain. Yeah.

Sometimes they're even more by the books than this. We definitely watched some of those and talked about them on Weird House Cinema where it's like bad guy makes a break for it and is shot by the police. Monster is shot by the police. Monster is...

Killed by... The military arrives. Yeah, the military arrives. Clint Eastwood is in a jet plane. Exactly. Tarantula, yeah. So this one is a little more thought out than that, a little less by the numbers. But then it does have that classic abrupt 30s and 40s ending, which, yeah, I mean, it cleans it up nicely. It's just like, bam, that's it. Nothing could destroy the monster except the power of explosives. Yeah.

And it's just so ridiculous that, granted, years later, someone would say, I got an idea for a sequel to this picture. What if he didn't do those murders? The whole movie was about him doing the murders. It's not in question. I've almost got to watch that now. Oh, I don't know. Maybe it's fun. I don't know. I haven't seen it. But it doesn't have Lugosi. Oh, it's called Devil Bat's Daughter. That's what it is. Mm-hmm. Which is weird, because she's not the daughter of the Devil Bat. She's Carruthers' daughter, but, you know. Yeah.

The poster makes it look like a Western. Yeah, I don't know. It's supposedly less of a horror film and it has Miss America from 1941 in it. So it's got that going for it. Okay. All right. So there you have it. Devil bat. The devil bat. Sorry. Except no substitutes.

Yeah, this is it's it's a surprisingly fun, watchable flick moved right along, had some fun performances in it. I feel like we really shouldn't stop here. We should just keep going with killer bat movies and and find them, rank them, discuss what they have in common, the themes they address. To what extent was Devil Bat really about the bats? And to what extent was it really about pride and lotion? Hmm.

Yeah, I think it essentially is about pride and lotion, much like Breaking Bad. Breaking Bad is not really about the meth. It's about other things. But undeniably a giant bat movie. So, yeah, it'd be interesting to look and see what all we have to consider in terms of other giant bat films, aside from the ones we already mentioned, like Life Force and

possibly Fright Night. Oh, what do you know? The British Film Institute website has a list of 10 great bat films. Oh, excellent. Just straight up bat films. Not like bad human hybrids because that's kind of another subgenre which I can think of at least one really good example there. But, uh,

Oh, one of the examples is Abominable Dr. Fibes, because remember, one of the guys gets attacked by bats. Oh, that's right. Yeah. I mean, if you have vampires in your film, there's a very good chance you're going to have bats. There's a good chance somebody's going to turn into a bat or bats. Yeah.

And yeah, I'm here for it. All right. I think that does it for this one. All right. We'll go and close it out. But just a reminder that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast. Core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. But on Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema. If you want to see a list of all the episodes we've done over the years, look us up on Letterboxd.com. That's L-E-T-T-E-R-B-O-X-D.com. Our profile is Weird House. And

And we got a list right there. You can look at it. Look at all the the fun box arts and poster arts. You can arrange things by decade and see what we've gotten into, what we haven't gotten into. Write in with your suggestions because we always want to hear what kind of films you'd like us to talk about. And we also want your feedback on the films that we've discussed. Do you have a history with the devil bat? If so, let us know about it.

Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, JJ Posway. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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