THE DEVIL BAT / THE CORPSE VANISHES

Lugosi on Poverty Row

This double feature of weird thrillers, both of which feature Bela Lugosi as a mad scientist, is volume 7 in Roan’s “Horror Classics” series. While they may not be true classics in the minds of most people, many of Lugosi’s ever-growing legion of fans have great affection for his Poverty Row features, and anything with Lugosi is collectible. 

Though he’d made a bit of a comeback in the role of Ygor in Son of Frankenstein, Lugosi found himself unable to capitalize on his success, and by 1940 had signed on with the lowest of the Poverty Row studios for a series of horror thrillers. In Producers Releasing Corporation’s The Devil Bat, Lugosi plays a beloved scientist who is secretly out for revenge against the men he believes swindled him out of a cosmetics fortune. By applying electric current, he makes bats grow to the size of rotweilers. He also makes them vicious killers when they smell a rare Tibetan herb, which he cleverly adds to his latest after-shave lotion formula. 

Director Jean Yarbrough, who would go on to a prolific career in b-movies and television, made full use of the cheesy virtues that PRC had to offer, showing off the low-rent old dark house sets full of Kenneth Strickfaden’s electrical machines, secret passageways, and odd props. What’s that headboard doing leaning against a wall? And what’s with that wicker basket? 

Lugosi also gets to strut his stuff, always giving his all to a role. He seems to really enjoy it every time he gets to say “Goodbye” to another victim. He seems like Olivier next to leading lady Suzanne Kaaren, who doesn’t seem the slightest bit distracted by the fact that her family is being torn up by devil bats. With bat-ravaged corpses piling up, the local police can do little but call in a shifty big city reporter (Dave O’Brien) from the Chicago Register to crack the case. As for the bats – in between attacks they bob merrily on their wires waiting for O’Brien and his sidekick Donald Kerr to track them down, doing their best to look as unlike the stock footage of real bats they’re intercut with as possible. 

In Monogram Picture’s The Corpse Vanishes, Lugosi is at it again. Young brides have been dropping dead at the altar all over town, and immediately after the corpses have been – um, vanishing. Again it is a reporter, this time pretty Luana Walters, who traces the clues back to the spooky house of the local mad scientist, Dr. Lorenz. And again, she’s the only one that suspects that the extremely suspicious behavior of said scientist is indicative of nasty business. It seems that Lorenz has been abducting the young brides – presumably virgins – to take part in an experimental serum that reverses the aging process of his wife. 

The doctor’s house is once again all antiques and secret panels, though both are of a better class than the ones he had at PRC. Even the library music at Monogram is better. By turns spooky and strangely goofy, this is one of the more entertaining of Lugosi’s nine pictures for Monogram. Shots of Lugosi and wife sleeping in coffins, creeping through shadowy corridors, or playing downbeat tunes on his organ, bring a nice little chill. Lorenz even takes time out to whip an assistant now and then, much to the delight of little Angelo Rossitto (Lugosi's frequent co-star at Monogram). Unlike the self-righteous doctor of The Devil Bat, Lugosi’s character here is an obvious psychopath, ready to strangle anybody that gets in his way. 

Each film is given it’s own side on the disc. Both retain their rarely seen original studio opening logos – an especially charming touch. Most of us have only been able to see these films from television prints, where the logos are always trimmed off. Both prints are worn, but Devil Bat is especially so, with even large fingerprints showing up on several frames. Though cleaner, The Corpse Vanishes is taken from a much darker print – so much so that I suspect the deep shadows may have been deliberate, both for mood and to obscure Monogram’s cheap sets. Corpse also has better designed menus. The audio tracks for both films are also badly in need of a clean-up. Devil Bat is also available on DVD in a double feature with Scared to Death, Lugosi’s only color feature.

The Roan Group's DVDs are now distributed by Troma

Devil bats; psycho killer; Old Dark Houses; mad scientists; implied necrophilia; p-stars Lugosi, Rossitto, Yarborough.

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The Movie Madness section and its contents are ©2007 Brian Thomas