The Vampire Bat
                                                                                               
Director: Frank Strayer
Year: 1933
Rating: 6.0
This low-budget film from Majestic Pictures takes a bit from Dracula and a bit from Frankenstein to make a solid addition to early horror. Majestic was run by Larry Damour who had produced Stan Laurel shorts, the Mickey McGuire shorts with Mickey Rooney before he formed Majestic. It was a low-budget studio but in this one they managed to get some big names - pre becoming famous. It is directed by Frank Strayer who did loads of the Blondie series and the scriptwriter is Edward Lowe who was behind scripts for Bulldog Drummond, Charlie Chan but also later on House of Dracula and House of Frankenstein. It is a tight film running just over 60 minutes with a few fine eerie atmospheric images. The director does a lot with a little.



In the small town of Kleinschott bodies are showing up dead with all their blood drained out. Not surprisingly, the people are worried and locking up their windows and doors at night. The town's leaders are sure a vampire is behind this and recall that way back in 1643 there had been similar cases until they put a stake through a man they were sure was a vampire. Then the killings stopped. The town Chief of Police refuses to believe in such nonsense - perhaps miscast is the always suave Melvyn Douglas. He feels out of place in a small European town - but at least he has Faye Wray to keep him company. Faye looks fabulous when terrified. Both actors had not yet become stars - King Kong was a year away and Douglas had just completed James Whale's The Old Dark House but it was a bit before he appeared in his screwy comedies. The biggest actor in the film at the time is probably Dwight Frye of Dracula and Frankenstein fame and he keeps up the morbid insane act here as the town crazy who creeps around saying things like "Bats are soft. Like cats" with his eyes ready to pop out. You can be pretty sure that at some point the town's people will suspect him. 



The murders continue but we never see who or what is behind it. Just dead people in the morning. An equal opportunity blood sucker - both men and women. Faye works for the village doctor. A kindly man who is available for house calls night or day. But damn, he is played by Lionel Atwell and he seems to have an awfully elaborate lab in the basement for a village doctor - and a door that he always keeps locked.  Atwell was well on his way to the many mad scientist roles he was so good at - Doctor X the year before and Mystery of the Wax Museum later in the year. One interesting scene is when the villagers gather with torches and in the version I saw from YouTube the flame of the torches is bright red but nothing else in the film has color.