El vampiro del mar

The lives of sponge divers are disrupted by the arrival of a tough cleric and the deprivations of THE SEA BAT.

It is unfortunate that this splendid little film from MGM has become so obscure as it has much to offer in the way of ambiance and good acting from an interesting cast. The production values are high and the location shooting (on Mexico's Mazatlán coast) with its glimpses of pseudo West Indies island culture add to the film's atmosphere. Director Lionel Barrymore keeps the action moving right along, with just enough requisite romance, suspenseful encounters with the hideous sea bat and a dandy fist fight near the end to keep the viewers happy.

Mexican actress Raquel Torres plays the fiery island miss who wants to escape the tragedy which has attacked her family. Silent screen star Nils Asther is her gentle, loving brother, a sponge diver. His departure from the story early on is poignant & regrettable. Disheveled George F. Marion steals most of his scenes as their disreputable father. Sturdy Charles Bickford is the no-nonsense pastor with a secret who arrives on the Island of Portuga and is quickly confronted by danger. All four give excellent performances.

Other crew members of the sponge boat are played by lecherous John Miljan, who acted the villain in many early MGM talkies; blustering Gibson Gowland, who only five years earlier had starred in von Stroheim's masterpiece GREED; and, in a tiny role, pre-celeb Boris Karloff. Silent movie comic Mack Swain portrays the owner of the island grog shop.

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The giant Atlantic manta (Manta birostris), sometimes called a sea bat, is a type of devilfish and is characterized by its large flapping fins and two horny protrusions near its mouth, giving it a diabolic appearance. It lives in the warmer waters near both islands and coastlines, where it eats small fish & plankton. The Atlantic manta can grow to 23' from fin tip to fin tip and weigh up to 2,200 pounds. Despite its sinister aspect it is known -contrary to legend- to be gentle and does not attack divers.

After scoring well in Cecil B. DeMille's first talking picture Dynamite and opposite Greta Garbo in Anna Christie, Charles Bickford's career might well have taken a bath with Sea Bat. For those who don't know, The Sea Bat is a jumbo size stingray which can grow to the size of a great white shark. They're the terror of the sponge divers in the West Indies.

Into this tropic paradise otherwise than for the present of those giant creatures in the water comes Charles Bickford pretending to be a man of the cloth, but who is actually a Devil's Island escapee. If he were really a man of the cloth we would have had yet another version of Rain as Bickford fends off the amorous advances of Raquel Torres. But he's not a real minister and in fact has other things on his mind besides a little with nookie with Torres. He wants to get out of the area where he's been in disguise for a few years now.

Raquel Torres has made going after the giant stingray a personal crusade after her brother Nils Asther is killed during a sponge dive. With what she has to offer to the guy who gets the giant a lot of the men are ready and willing.

Bickford also has to worry about a pair of sponge fisherman who recognize him and want to claim the reward from the French. And it's not easy to keep up the pretense when folks are looking for you to preach a sermon or offer up some spiritual guidance like Raquel's father George Marion.

The Sea Bat which probably for its location shooting and special effects wizardry for its time in creating the giant stingray and its encounters with man was really something. It really hasn't aged well and now is one camp hoot.

Wesley Ruggles began directing THE SEA BAT but Lionel Barrymore completed it. This would account for the contrast between the outdoor scenes, shot on Mexican locations, and the interiors, particularly a sponge-diving episode, filmed in the studio tank, and some dialog between Charles Bickford and Raquel Torres.

The exteriors bear all the hallmarks of Ruggles - in particular a long tracking shot following Torres through the ramshackle village to the dock, where the sponge fishing boat is about to leave with her brother Asther aboard. The hand of Ruggles is also evident in the scene of Torres fending off potential rape on the rocky seashore, the star pulling a knife and snarling defiance at John Miljan and cronies as spray soaks her flimsy blouse (revealing a pre-code absence of lingerie.)

On the other hand, one is inclined to lay at Barrymore's door an embarrassing voodoo sequence, with Torres performing an unconvincing dance, and also the scene where she tries to vamp Bickford as he stolidly studies the Bible.

The casting, as often in early sound films, mixes talents on the way up with once-eminent silent performers working out the end of their contracts; Charles Bickford and Boris Karloff among the former, Gibson Gowland (GREED), Nils Asther (WILD ORCHIDS)and Mack Swain (Keystone) the latter. George F. Marion parades another of his excruciating accents, a serious rival to his performance in ANNA Christie as Garbo's father.

Considerable effort has gone into creating the manta ray "bat",a towed semi-submersible on the order of "Bruce", the shark in JAWS. More whale than ray, it spouts, and overturns boats. This impressive piece of physical special effects, as usual with early studio productions, is uncredited.

I totally forgot this Wesley Ruggles' early masterpiece. Because, yes, for a thirties flick, the early talkies, this is a true tremendous piece of work. It may announce MOBY DICK, but of course at a lesser scale. I enjoyed this movie so much, and it is even more painful to realize that many other films of this kind will forever remain unknown, forgotten for good. This one, fortunately emerged from the darkness, from the depth - not of the sea - but from oblivion. Wesley Ruggles also directed CIMARRON, a gem of the western genre. The rest of his filmography remains mostly unknown, because there are so many silent features.

This movie is SOOOOOO boring!

The Seabat only has around 3-2 minutes of screen time and disappears for a good 40 minutes. I think it's false advertising.

Bad acting from most of the supporting cast, unlikable characters, outdated depictions of native tribes, and probably Boris Karloff's worst movie.

But there is a couple good things about the movie!

The cinematography is dang good for the time, the underwater scenes look good too! At the end of the film when the Seabat gets shot with a harpoon it cuts to this beautiful shot of the Seabat jumping out of the water while the sun rises and the camera is placed on a high shot while on a 60 degree angle! It's one of the best shots in early sound films!

If you wanna watch this one, skip to the last five minutes.