Directed by: Crane Wilbur

Starring: Vincent Price, Agnes Moorehead, Gavin Gordon, John Sutton, Lenita Lane, Elaine Edwards, Darla Hood, John Bryant, Harvey Stephens, Mike Steele

STORY

Mystery writer Cornelia Van Gorder thinks she has found the perfect place to spend a quiet summer working on her latest book.

She could not have chosen a more dangerous house.

Cornelia, played magnificently by Agnes Moorehead, rents an isolated country mansion known as The Oaks, accompanied by her nervous but wonderfully talkative companion Lizzie Allen. The house is enormous, secluded and filled with exactly the kind of dark corridors, locked rooms and hidden corners that belong in one of Cornelia’s own mystery novels.

Unfortunately, the terror outside the pages of her books is very real.

A mysterious murderer known only as The Bat has been terrorizing the area. Dressed in black, faceless and almost impossible to identify, the killer strikes without warning and leaves the entire community wondering who might be underneath the mask.

Then there is Dr. Malcolm Wells, played by Vincent Price.

Wells is sophisticated, intelligent, charming and just sinister enough to make absolutely everyone suspicious of him. When a bank president named John Fleming reveals that he has embezzled a fortune and hidden the stolen securities, the mystery surrounding The Oaks becomes considerably more complicated.

Somewhere there may be one million dollars in stolen securities, and suddenly Cornelia’s rented mansion is attracting far more attention than any summer house should.

People begin prowling around the property.

Strange noises echo through the house.

Doors open when no one should be there.

Someone is watching.

And The Bat is getting closer.

Cornelia refuses to become a helpless victim. While Lizzie reacts to practically every noise as confirmation that they are about to be murdered, Cornelia approaches the danger with the instincts of the mystery writer she is. She observes. She questions. She investigates.

But nearly everyone around her has something to hide.

Police Lieutenant Andy Anderson is trying to uncover the identity of The Bat. Warner, the mysterious new butler, raises suspicions of his own. Members of the Fleming family become entangled in the missing-money mystery. Dr. Wells seems to know considerably more than he is willing to reveal.

And somewhere inside this increasingly complicated web of murder, money and deception is the person behind the mask.

The Bat combines an old-fashioned locked-house mystery with horror, murder and wonderfully theatrical suspense. Vincent Price brings his unmistakable presence to Dr. Wells, but Agnes Moorehead is every bit his equal. Her Cornelia is intelligent, composed, funny and remarkably fearless.

The result is a terrific Halloween whodunit where the question is not simply whether The Bat will strike again.

It is who is The Bat?

AIN BACKSTAGE SECRETS & AINTOIDS

THE BAT STARTED WITH A MYSTERY NOVEL

Long before Vincent Price entered The Oaks, the story began with Mary Roberts Rinehart’s enormously influential 1908 mystery novel The Circular Staircase.

Rinehart later joined playwright Avery Hopwood to transform the story into the stage mystery The Bat, which opened on Broadway in 1920.

The stage version became the direct literary source for the 1959 movie, giving The Bat a remarkable journey from novel to Broadway stage to motion pictures.

HOLLYWOOD HAD VISITED THE BAT BEFORE

The Vincent Price version was not Hollywood’s first encounter with this mystery.

Mary Pickford produced a silent adaptation of The Bat in 1926, directed by Roland West. West returned to the material again for the early sound production The Bat Whispers in 1930.

Decades later, producer C. J. Tevlin acquired the remake rights from Pickford, clearing the way for the 1959 incarnation starring Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead.

CRANE WILBUR KNEW VINCENT PRICE VERY WELL

Director and screenwriter Crane Wilbur had an important previous connection to Vincent Price.

Wilbur wrote the screenplay for the 1953 horror landmark House of Wax, one of the films most closely associated with Price’s transformation into a major horror star.

Six years later, Wilbur was directing Price himself in The Bat.

AGNES MOOREHEAD IS REALLY RUNNING THIS HOUSE

Vincent Price may be the name horror audiences immediately recognize, but The Bat gives Agnes Moorehead a marvelous starring role as Cornelia Van Gorder.

Cornelia is no screaming victim waiting for someone else to rescue her. She is a successful mystery novelist whose professional instincts become extremely useful when an actual murderer begins stalking her house.

Moorehead plays her as smart, determined and frequently amused by the madness surrounding her.

Put Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead in the same creepy mansion, add a masked killer, hidden money and several suspicious characters, and you have exactly the kind of gathering we want for an AIN Halloween Watch Party.

THE HOUSE HAS A MILLION-DOLLAR SECRET

The Oaks is not simply a spooky old mansion chosen because it looks appropriately ominous.

The possibility that stolen securities worth one million dollars have been hidden there turns the house itself into the center of the mystery.

That means the people creeping through its rooms may not all be hunting The Bat.

Some of them may be hunting a fortune.

WHO DO YOU TRUST?

One of the great pleasures of The Bat is that the movie surrounds Cornelia with possible suspects.

Dr. Malcolm Wells knows more than he initially reveals. Warner arrives as the new butler under suspicious circumstances. The Fleming family has its own secrets. Police are investigating the murders. Other characters have connections to the missing money.

And somewhere among them is The Bat.

The movie keeps shifting suspicion from one character to another, turning the audience into detectives right alongside Cornelia.

BEHIND THE CAMERA

The Bat was photographed by Academy Award-winning cinematographer Joseph F. Biroc, whose extraordinary career eventually included films such as It’s a Wonderful Life, Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte and The Towering Inferno.

William Austin edited the film, Louis Forbes composed the musical score, and David Milton served as art director.

The film was produced by C. J. Tevlin for Liberty Pictures and distributed by Allied Artists Pictures.

AINTOID: DARLA GREW UP

Look closely at Judy Hollander.

She is played by Darla Hood, remembered by generations of audiences as Darla from the Our Gang comedies.

The Bat became Hood’s final feature-film appearance, making this creepy Vincent Price mystery an unexpected final chapter in the screen career of one of the most recognizable child performers of the 1930s and 1940s.

AINTOID: THE BAT HAD BEEN FRIGHTENING AUDIENCES FOR NEARLY 40 YEARS

By the time Vincent Price encountered The Bat in 1959, audiences had already been trying to identify the mysterious killer for decades.

The stage version of The Bat opened in New York in 1920.

That means the masked murderer had already been creeping through darkened houses for nearly four decades before this version reached movie screens.

AINTOID: FIVE WEEKS INSIDE THE MYSTERY

AFI records show that production on The Bat ran from April 27 through May 27, 1959.

The finished film runs approximately 80 minutes and was photographed in black and white with a 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio.

AINTOID: LIBERTY PICTURES AND ALLIED ARTISTS

The Bat was produced by Liberty Pictures Corporation and distributed by Allied Artists Pictures Corporation.

Producer C. J. Tevlin had previously been an executive at RKO before moving into independent production. He acquired the remake rights from Mary Pickford, connecting this 1959 production directly to the story’s earlier Hollywood history.

AINTOID: THE OFFICIAL RELEASE

The Bat was released in the United States in August 1959.

AFI specifically records a San Francisco opening on August 29, 1959, while contemporary release listings place the film’s original U.S. theatrical release earlier that month.

By December, The Bat was also appearing on a double bill with Hammer’s The Mummy, giving audiences a formidable horror combination: Vincent Price and Christopher Lee on the same program.

DATE RELEASED

August 1959

COUNTRY RELEASED

United States