This picture itself is a spoiler, so…sorry.
We had a small (but great) crowd on Friday’s Watch Party, so I picked something short and sweet. I hadn’t seen The Vampire Bat since I was a kid, and only vaguely remembered it as another poverty row cheapie. That largely proved incorrect. It wasn’t a lavish studio flick, but it had a great cast. There were shots where a weirdly restrained Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Melvin Douglas and Dwight Frye were onscreen at the same time. Solid veteran support was added by George E. Stone (from the Boston Blackie series), Maud Eburne playing one of her trademark comic aunts, and Lionel Belmore as the Burgermeister, best known for appearing in the 1931 Frankenstein, where he played…the Burgermeister. He appeared in like half a dozen of the Universals, usually in the Frankenstein series. The film also benefited from surprisingly fluid direction from Frank R. Strayer. He went to direct a ton of films in the Blondie series.
It was fun, if not a classic by any means. Free with Amazon Prime, and probably on YouTube. Check it out.
