Das Rätsel der Fledermaus

There certainly is a lot happening in this film. Trap doors. Secret passages. Staircases. A "Bat" man. A hysterical maid who screams and leaps and circles and points. She must have been totally worn out when this film ended. Having seen the later version, I kind of knew the ropes a little bit. The idea is to get people out of an old mansion in order to grab a bunch of money that was embezzled from a local bank. The title character harasses the inhabitants, but doesn't know he has a real foe in the tough, matronly, unflappable owner of the mansion. She holds her own no matter what transpires. We have lots of suspects and that bat costume is pretty good. We can see elements of the Batman character of the early comic books. For a silent film this is very high quality and wears very well.

An outstanding picture in so many ways. Based on the play by Mary Roberts Rhinehart, The Bat tells the story of a master criminal who tries to scare some people out of an old, dark house. The trouble is that there are other criminals afoot, and the story becomes a mystery as to who is hiding behind the mask(looking very much like the inspiration for Batman for a young Bob Kane). The acting is very good for this silent picture and first of several film adaptations of Rhinehart's work. Lousise Fazenda really steals much of her screen time as an easily frightened maid/companion. She uses her face to its limits whether it be for screaming or being childish. A real treat to watch. Emily Fitzroy is equally good in her role as a woman with a lot of smarts. The real star here though is Roland West, who takes parlour room material and turns it into something grandiose. The mood West creates is hypnotic. The camera shots he uses are phenomenal. West also is ably assisted by the tremendous sets employed by art director William Cameron Menzies. The house is awesome and the opening settings are just breath-taking.Another real plus here is the titles used throughout the film. they are informative, yet not too wordy. They help create, maintain, and sustain suspense throughout the picture. This is a craft not to be too easily belittled. The film was and is an absolute joy!

This superb silent thriller finds the malevolent fiend of the title lurking about in a dark mansion, competing with -as well as terrifying!- a host of treasure hunters, cops, and family members. Everyone is desperately searching for almost a quarter of a million dollars (a fortune in 1926) in embezzled money.

Director Roland West creates an unsettling atmosphere, using the grand, creepy sets and wonderful Menzies miniatures to full effect.

THE BAT is a twisty tale with a surprise ending, perfectly overblown characters, and a memorable villain.

See if you can guess the Bat's true identity by movie's end...

No hesitation in giving this movie a 10.In the past I've given some movies an 8 but compared to them "The Bat" deserves an 15,honestly.Taking into consideration that it's vintage it does so much without the benefit of modern technology.The viewer is given the impression that the main setting takes place in a huge mansion with 3 or 4 levels(I lost count),with it's dark shadows and at tmes slanted looking scenery it can be dreamy looking.The setting is only one of the ingredients that makes this movie so entertaining,it goes back and forth from being funny to scary smoothly,it seems to have the viewer at it's mercy.One of the interesting characters is Bloodhound Anderson-super sleuth,with his derby hat he resembles Mr.McNab the truant officer from "little lulu" comic books.He does his share of trembling while holding two six shooters.Adding plenty of comedy also is the maid played by the very popular Louise Fazenda.The movie overall is eerie and suspenseful with the Bat fierce looking.Watch it by yourself in a dark room.

Like WEST OF ZANZIBAR (1928), this was a much-desired Silent ‘horror’ classic even if I had already watched the plot in action, so to speak, via a couple of Sound remakes – the 1930 version (from the same director!) and a later one made in 1959. Actually, this first adaptation of a popular ‘old dark house’-type play of the 1920s – when these proliferated in both mediums – was long considered a lost film; I watched it, in fact, via a serviceable 16mm print which suffered from constant (though not overly distracting) combing whenever characters moved!

To get back to the later versions, I’ve enjoyed THE BAT WHISPERS (1930) twice in its “Grandeur” i.e. early Widescreen format – I own the now out-of-print Image/Milestone DVD (which also includes the alternate “Standard” edition filmed simultaneously by a different cinematographer, but I’ve yet to check it out). Now, the film seems to elicit mixed reactions from most viewers (including myself): that is to say, being impressed with its distinctive visuals (spare but stylish production design, clever models – both qualities also evident in the original – and fluid, ground-breaking camera-work) yet being put off by the unfortunately archaic comedy relief supplied by an ugly and diminutive middle-aged maid (still, this ‘fraidy cat’ figure was something of a pre-requisite for the subgenre concerned). The 1959 film was a major disappointment on first viewing (dubbed in Italian) – despite the presence of an icon like Vincent Price; I do recall liking it a bit more in English (re-watched by way of a budget DVD I rented), but the result still lagged far behind either Roland West version!

Now that I’ve caught up with the original as well, I can safely say that it more than holds its own alongside THE BAT WHISPERS; I’m not always partial to directors remaking their own work but, in spite of my even greater reservations about the maid’s histrionics in the later version (remember that we can also hear her now and, therefore, is all the more liable to get on one’s nerves!), as I said, the gliding cinematography – presumably intended to emulate the movements of a real bat – was a lot more pronounced in the remake…where we also had archetypal lines (missing from the 1926 film) such as “Reach for the ceiling!” that were even parodied by Tex Avery in the cartoon short WHO KILLED WHO? (1943). The intricacies of the plot – revolving around a remote country estate which is gradually inundated by people (relatives of the current elderly female tenant, the doctor charged with her care, employees of the house’s recently murdered banker owner accused of embezzling funds, police officers on the trail of arch-criminal “The Bat” whose intended crime at the bank was anticipated but who has followed the culprit to the premises, etc.) – are pretty much identical, and the result equally entertaining. Incidentally, while the villain here sports a grotesque bat mask, in the 1930 film he exchanges this for a black cape (thus both helped give cartoon artist Bob Kane the idea for Batman, extending also to that character’s trademark ‘Bat Signal’!).

It’s been some time since my last viewing of THE BAT WHISPERS, so I’m understandably fuzzy about some aspects: I know the villain adopts a particular disguise in order to roam freely about the house – but he goes by different names in each version (the one from the remake is also present in the original but it turns out not to be him after all and is, in fact, a bit of a buffoon!); both, then, feature a suave male lead – Tullio Carminati (in his first American film and looking an awful lot like Rudolf Kleine-Rogge!) here and Chester Morris in the 1930 version (I’ll be seeing him presently in another title by director West, the noir precursor ALIBI [1929]). For the record and, as far as I can recall, the only other films in this vein from the Silent era I’ve watched were the interesting but lesser THE MONSTER (1925; yet another Roland West picture – with Lon Chaney, no less, though their individual styles didn’t really jell) and two outstanding efforts by similarly gifted film-makers, namely Paul Leni’s THE CAT AND THE CANARY (1927; itself adapted three more times for the screen!) and Benjamin Christensen’s SEVEN FOOTPRINTS TO Satan (1929; which is an even rarer title than THE BAT – since the copy I own only carries Italian intertitles which, luckily, I’m able to understand).

Trivia: leading lady Jewel Carmen was married to her director at the time; apparently, the couple remained on friendly terms after their separation and she would, in fact, become involved in a restaurant business with him and future companion Thelma Todd (a venture which, however, ended badly with the latter’s notorious and still unsolved mysterious demise in 1935!).