The Devil Bat
| The Devil Bat | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Directed by | Jean Yarborough |
| Produced by | Jack Gallagher |
| Written by | John Thomas Neville |
| Based on | original story by George Bricker |
| Starring |
Bela Lugosi Suzanne Kaaren Dave O'Brien |
| Music by | David Chudnow (musical director) |
| Cinematography | Arthur Martinelli, A.S.C. |
| Edited by | Holbrook N. Todd |
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Production
company |
Producers Releasing Corporation
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| Distributed by | Producers Releasing Corporation |
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Release date
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Running time
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68 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Devil Bat is a 1940 black-and-white American horror film produced by Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC) and directed by Jean Yarborough. The film stars Bela Lugosi along with Suzanne Kaaren, Guy Usher, Yolande Mallott and the comic team of Dave O'Brien and Donald Kerr as the protagonists. It was the first horror film from PRC.
Although described as a sequel, PRC's 1946 film Devil Bat's Daughter has no actors, characters or close plot elements from the 1940 film.
The story involves a small town cosmetic company chemist Dr. Paul Carruthers (Bela Lugosi) who is upset at his wealthy employers, because he feels they have denied him his due share of company success. To get revenge, he breeds giant bats. He then conditions them to kill those wearing a special after-shave lotion he has concocted. He cleverly distributes the lotion to his enemies as a "test" product.
Once they have applied the lotion, the chemist then releases his Devil Bats in the night, which kill his two former partners and three members of their families. A hot shot big city reporter, Johnny Layton (Dave O'Brien) gets assigned by his editor to cover and help solve the murders. He and his bumbling photographer "One-Shot" McGuire (Donald Kerr) begin to unwind the mystery with some comic sidelights. The mad chemist is done in by his own shaving lotion, and by his own creation—the dreaded Devil Bat.
PRC was a young studio when it planned to enter the horror film genre, which had been neglected by the major studios during 1937 and 1938. Lugosi was beginning a come-back when he signed a contract on October 19, 1940, with PRC's Sigmund Neufeld to star in the Poverty Row studio's first horror film.
The shooting of the film began a little more than one week later. PRC was known for shooting its films quickly and cheaply, but for endowing them with a plentiful amount of horror, and The Devil Bat established this modus operandi.
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