VCI Entertainment
Blu-ray Release: August 13, 2024
Video: 1.32:1 (35mm versions), 2.00:1 (65mm Magnifilm version)/1080p/Black & White
Audio: LPCM 2.0 mono (music only)
Subtitles: English
Run Time: 85:32 (US 35mm version), 85:56 (UK 35mm version), 84:50 (65mm Magnifilm version)
Director: Roland West
Note: Due to the two films’ shared history, I am recycling some research from my review of The Cat and the Canary (1927).
An infamous burglar and jewel thief known as The Bat plays cat and mouse with the police and terrorizes the occupants of a mansion, who begin a search for a hidden room, hoping to find his stash. (From VCI’s official synopsis)
Two decades after the turn of the last century, at the end of the first Great War, but before the Wall Street crash, comedic horror whodunnits were thrust into the spotlight. Motion pictures were gaining ground on other narrative media, but the stage was still the location of choice for wide audiences. While Oscar Apfel & Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ghost Breaker (1914) was technically the first film to delve into the formula, Mary Roberts Rinehart & Avery Hopwood’s wildly popular 1920 play, The Bat, based on Rinehart’s 1908 novel Circular Staircase, was the most likely progenitor of the movement. The Bat’s success spawned similarly successful stageplays, notably Crane Wilbur's The Monster (1925), Ralph Spence's 1925 parody The Gorilla, John Willard’s The Cat and the Canary (1922), and Paul Leni’s 1927 Cat and the Canary remake.
Though Leni’s Cat and the Canary expanded the concept to inspire Gothic horror, gialli, and slasher movies, The Bat’s influence on the Old Dark House, drawing room mystery, and horror-comedy genres cannot be overstated. The play was officially adapted to film three times – The Bat (1926) and The Bat Whispers (1930), both directed by Roland West, and Wilbur’s The Bat (1959), which was a more horror-centric take starring Vincent Price – and Circular Staircase was itself adapted in 1914 as a series of shorts, then again as a feature in 1915. This review pertains specifically to The Bat Whispers, which was an opportunistic sound remake of their initial adaptation (the Bat literally whispers in this one). The idea is sort of akin to a studio reissuing a recent hit in digital 3D following Cameron’s Avatar (2009) in order to milk a few more bucks from receptive audiences, except that West needed to start from scratch with a new cast & crew.
Sound wasn’t The Bat Whispers’ only gimmick. The film was shot simultaneously on standard 35mm and Magnifilm large-format 65mm, requiring multiple takes and (at least) two different cameras. These versions share cast, crew, script, and many basic set-ups, but one might argue that they should be counted as two separate movies, because they’re made up of different takes. Magnifilm was one of the select number of early large widescreen formats. Due to the cost of theater installation – noting that it was the onset of the Depression and theaters had just upgraded for sound – widescreen wouldn’t catch on for another couple of decades, so the 2.00:1 version was a strictly limited engagement. Only four films are listed as being shot on Magnifilm and/or screened in Magnascope, including this one, Spoor-Berggren’s short subject Niagara Falls (1923), Lorenzo Del Riccio’s You're in the Army Now (1929), and an episode of Fox Movietone Follies from August of 1926.
The imaginative edits (cutting from a spinning clock to a spinning train wheel, for example), impressionistic lighting, and neat model work recall German Expressionism without too extreme of an avant-garde edge. The silent version is similarly expressionistic, due to its comparatively simplified, stage-like sets. These are, at times, quite striking (I love the impossibly tall doorways), but are never as moody as the textured, lived-in sets and locations created for The Bat Whispers. West recycles several shots between films, but he amps the scale and style, including some monumentally show-offy camerawork that dwarfs The Bat’s static point & shoot approach. The original film has its place and made its impact, but the remake is obviously the more polished, dynamic, and deliberate motion picture. Given that it’s based on a play and not a vaudeville bit, the dialogue also sells the comedy better than silent reactions and intertitles.
It is rumored that Bob Kane was partially inspired by The Bat Whispers – not the original film – when creating Batman, which is funny if you’ve ever seen his original design for the character. That said, the final Bill Finger-designed Batman does bear a passing resemblance to the titular villain, who wears a black mask, leotard, and scalloped cape to throw bat-shaped shadows. The Bat also utilizes ropes to rappel and swing, similar to Bruce Wayne’s grappling hook, and, in the silent version, he creates a sort of ‘bat-signal’ using his headlights, which is itself interesting, because it took almost three years for an equivalent to show up in the comics (Detective Comics #60, February of 1942). Additionally, the Deco sets and furnishings of this and the 1926 film – especially those fabulous cityscape models – may have been on Bruce Timm and Eric Radomski’s mind when they designed Batman: The Animated Series (1992).
Bibliography:
Rough Guide to Horror Movies by Alan Jones (Penguin Group, 2005)
Mysteries Mean Dark Corners visual essay by Fiona Watson (available on Eureka Entertainment’s 2024 Cat and the Canary Blu-ray)
Video
The Bat Whispers makes its Blu-ray debut via VCI Entertainment and its production history is detailed in the included booklet (for even more information, check out this even more detailed post from in70mm.com). Like many films of its era, it is a public domain picture, so there were budget label VHS tapes and DVD releases over the years, though I don’t know precisely where these early transfers were taken from. What is known is that, at some point in 1987 or ‘88, 65mm vault materials were supplied by The Mary Pickford Foundation (the actress didn’t appear in or produce the film, but owned it, because she was prepping another remake that was never filmed) to the UCLA Film and Television Archive for restoration, alongside a 35mm negative that included the UK cut and the additional takes to construct the US cut.
This two-disc collection includes all three different versions of the movie – the 35mm Academy Ratio (1.32:1) US cut, the slightly longer 35mm Academy Ratio (1.32:1) UK cut, and the 65mm Magnifilm 2.00:1 version – each with additional digital restoration from VCI. The 35mm cuts are branded with the Mary Pickford Foundation logo, while the 65mm version opens with verbiage that basically matches the booklet.
As you can see, these are different transfers with varying strengths and weaknesses, from basic framing to the qualities of the restoration. Due to the processes required to recreate the antique Magnifilm format from shrunken nitrate negatives, the 65mm transfer has slightly softer textures, including grain, a handful of shuddering reels, and crushier gradients than the 35mm version. On the other hand, the 65mm transfer is cleaner overall and its deep dark blacks better suit the mood of the film. Given the state and age of the film, there’s not a lot of room for improvement, aside from a higher bitrate, which might correct the minor compression artifacts.
Audio
All three cuts of The Bat Whispers are presented in uncompressed LPCM mono sound. The US and UK cuts are essentially the same, minus the few alternate takes and scenes. It was difficult to directly compare those 35mm versions to the 65mm, since they’re on completely different discs, but there aren’t many major differences there, either. Given that talkies had only existed for about three years at this point, I’m surprised by the clarity of the soundtrack. I suspect that the folks responsible for both restorations passed the tracks through a lot of noise-reduction filters, because the sound floor is incredibly low, as in completely silent, but this rarely squeezes out effects or the tail ends of sentences. There aren’t a lot of incidental effects, but more than I expected, including both diegetic and nondiegetic music (the stock music was written by uncredited composer Hugo Riesenfeld).
Extras
Disc 1 (Blu-ray)
The Bat Whispers, 35mm US version (85:32, HD)
The Bat Whispers 35mm UK version (85:56, HD)
Still gallery
US vs UK version comparison (10:14, HD) – A short sampling of the small differences between the two cuts.
Disc 2
The Bat Whispers, 65mm Magnifilm Version (84:50, HD)
Commentary by author and film critic Mick LaSalle (2024) – The critic and author of both Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood (Thomas Dunne, 2000) and Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man (Thomas Dunne, 2002) spends a little too much of his time narrating on-screen action, but still manages to explore the careers of the cast & crew, the conventions it utilized and inspired, the technical advances the film made, and compares the play and silent version.
US 35mm vs 65mm version comparison (10:14, HD) – A collection of sequences that are notably different between each version.
The Bat (1926) vs The Bat Whispers (1930) scene comparisons (7:33, HD) – Another set of side-by-side sequences taken from the silent and talkie versions.
The Bat (1926) before and after restoration demo (1:54) – This is a very strange extra to me, because a restored copy of the 1926 version isn’t available as part of this set. Based on the way the title card is worded, my best guess is that the restoration is still in production.
The Bat (79:57, HD) – The complete 1959 version of the play, directed by Crane Wilber, and a nice, slightly over-scrubbed HD transfer to boot. I really do wish they would’ve also included a copy of The Bat (1926), even if it had been a standard definition transfer, just to have all three in one place. Fortunately, you can usually find that one on YouTube, Amazon Prime, and some ad-supported streaming sites.
The images on this page are taken from the 1.32:1 and 2.00:1 BDs and sized for the page. Larger versions can be viewed by clicking the images. Note that there will be some JPG compression.
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