The Bat (1926)

Can you keep a secret?

That’s the question that opens The Bat, the 1926 film version of a play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, one of the best of the early 20^th century American commercial playwrights. Hopwood’s work includes The Gold Diggers (origin of the long-running series of Warner Bros. musicals), Getting Gertie’s Garter, and two other plays co-written with Rinehart, credited with being the originator of the “Had-I-But-Known” school of mystery writing.

In the film, elderly spinster Miss Cornelia Van Gorder (Emily Fitzroy) has rented the mansion (or “dark old house” to stick with the cliché) of deceased banker Courleigh Fleming. As Cornelia’s maid Lizzie Allen refers to the place, “the happy home of the Heebie-Jeebies.” A Japanese houseman, Billy the Butler (Sojin Kamiyama) came with the rent, and he is soon joined for one reason or another by group of mysterious strangers.

Then we are all informed that the frightening jewel thief/murderer The Bat is in the vicinity because before he died Courleigh Fleming stole a fortune from his own bank and hid it in a secret room somewhere in the mansion.

The entire old dark house cast of characters is here: spinster detective, comic maid, creepy butler, ne’er-do-well son of the deceased, doctor, lawyer, serious cop, comic cop, injured stranger who shows up for no reason, a nerdy boyfriend, scaredy-cat servant, tough talkin’ cops. And, of course, The Bat.

Just as the film includes the usual suspects as characters, so director Roland West takes advantage of as many creepy devices as he can: reveals behind slowly opening doors, shadows, masked faces in dark doorways, back lighting to create sinister silhouettes, trap doors, sliding panels, candles, suddenly dimming lights. The set design was by William Cameron Menzies and looks great.

Even by 1926, the tone of movies like this was more comic than menacing. In 1925, West had directed another of these pictures; that one, The Monster, had the added benefit of an amusing performance from Lon Chaney.

Director West would become involved and live with actress Thelma Todd. They would co-own “Thelma Todd's Sidewalk Café," in which, rumor had it, the west coast mob was interested. Todd didn’t want gambling on the premises, and she wound up dead in her garage, a victim of carbon monoxide poisoning. She and West had been overheard arguing the night of her death and although he was considered a suspect, he was never charged. Seventeen years later, in a deathbed confession, he told his pal, actor Chester Morris, that he had indeed murdered Todd. Can you keep a secret?

The Bat is pretty rough going during the middle hour, only picking up speed in the last reel when the villain is revealed. If you’re addicted to the old dark house genre, you have to see it, but if you’re just curious about it, check out The Cat and the Canary, Paul Leni’s 1927 creeper.

The Bat was produced by Joseph M. Schenck and Roland West, the titles were written by West, Julien Josephson, and George Marion, Jr., and the cinematography was by Arthur Edeson. The rest of cast included George Beranger, Charles Hersinger, Arthur Houseman, Robert McKim, Jack Pickford, Jewel Carmen, Tullio Carminati, Eddie Gribbon, and Lee Shumway.