Cinema Sunday
By special request, here's Scott C's Subliminal Cinema summary of The Devil Bat. And by special coincidence, Devil Bat is scheduled to be on TCM today (check your local listings). So, read the summary, watch the movie, and then consider yourself culturally literate. Or just read the summary and skip the movie -- it's up to you. But with the final presidential debate coming up, this film has special relevence, in that it demonstrates how the Bush-Cheney campaign (which, much like Bela in this film, has gone crazy) intends to get Kerry and Edwards: by targeting their grooming.
Enjoy. (Oh, and while this DVD cover makes it look like Walter Cronkite appears in the movie, he really doesn't.)
The Devil Bat (1940)
(AKA Killer Bats)
Directed by: Jean Yarborough
Screenplay by: John Thomas Neville, which seems like a pretty snooty moniker for a guy who’s written something called Devil Bat
Our story opens in the quiet village of Heathsville--a town apparently founded on the candy bar industry, and controlled by two powerful families, the Heaths and the Zagnuts. A title card appears, saving many minutes of expensive exposition, informing us that kindly village doctor Paul Carruthers (Bela Lugosi) is conducting "weird, terrifying experiments." Bela is embittered that, despite his obvious mitteleuropean origins, he’s been stuck with a name like Paul Carruthers, and seeks revenge by speaking in an accent so impenetrable that he makes Eva Gabor sound like Alistair Cooke.
Bela walks into an attic full of bats and explains his theory of "glandular stimulation through electrical impulses," leading the viewer to conclude that Bela has just invented a vibrating novelty item. Instead, the good doctor takes one of the bats--now dangling upside down from a coat hanger--puts him in a closet, and turns on some humming electrical equipment, causing the bat to grow to horrifying proportions. The viewer’s worst fears are confirmed: Bela has learned the secret of creating hideous monsters with One-Hour Martinizing.
Meanwhile, Mr. Zagnut sends his dim-witted son Roy over to Bela’s lab to present him with a $5,000 bonus check on behalf of the firm. Naturally, this makes Bela want to kill everybody, so he asks Roy to try the new shaving lotion he’s just invented. The deeply stupid young man sees nothing sinister in Bela’s request that he "rub some on the tender part of the neck," and happily complies.
After the reeking Roy departs, Bela takes center stage with a dramatic, Dune-style voice over, telling us that he feels ill-used by his employers and will make them all pay. We also learn that "the worm is the spice! The spice is the worm!"
Bela releases the Devil Bat, which promptly follows the stink of the shaving lotion to Zagnut Manor. It dives out of the night sky and murders Roy, all the while shrieking "Yeeeeee-HAAAAAAA" like Slim Pickens at the end of Dr. Strangelove.
Later, at a big city newspaper, managing editor Perry White gets ace reporter Johnny Layton on the case. Something of a science whiz himself, Johnny has been conducting secret experiments to enlarge the brim of his hat, and makes his first appearance wearing a fedora the size of the Flushing Meadows Unisphere.
Johnny heads for Heathsville in the company of his incredibly abrasive photographer-sidekick "One Shot McGuire." The less said about this character the better, but if Jimmy Olsen had been half this irritating, Superman would long ago have popped his skull like a zit.
Johnny visits the local Chief of Police, who is impressed by the awning-like brim of Johnny’s hat, and instantly agrees to let this total stranger conduct the homicide investigation himself. He also allows Johnny to carry a gun, declare martial law, and suspend the Constitution at will.
The following night, Roy’s brother Tommy permits Bela to shave his butt and apply the untested shaving lotion. Predictably, the monster drains Tommy’s blood and leaves nothing behind but the great smell of Brut, leading Johnny to believe that the murders and the after-shave lotion are connected. The chief scoffs at Johnny’s theory, even though Bela has just given them each a sample of the lotion in a bottle labeled "Big Bat Bait."
Johnny, being no smarter than anyone else in this film, slaps on the shaving lotion, causing the Devil Bat to attack Jimmy Olsen. Johnny pulls his gun and fires five times, idiotically missing Jimmy and killing the star.
Undaunted, Bela One-Hour Martinizes up another monster, then goes into the closet and gives the bat a hernia examination ("Turn your head and echo-locate").
Bela then visits the head of the Heath family, Oh Henry, to dab him with the scented lotion and remind him that "Your brain is too feeble to grasp what I have achieved!" Bela works himself into a Hungarian tizzy, and gloats aloud about killing half the Heath and Zagnut clans with his perfume and bats. The truth dawns on Oh Henry, who finally realizes that between love and madness lies Obsession. He’s on the verge of discovering that nothing comes between Bela and his Calvins when we cut back to Johnny, who is searching the laboratory. He has finally found ironclad evidence that will send Bela to the gallows: Bat guano and dry-cleaning fluid.
Meanwhile, Bela drives off to kill Mr. Zagnut. He has the new bat in his trunk, but he has to release it just outside Zagnut Manor, since it’s a spare bat, and is only good for 25 miles at 50 miles per hour.
Johnny splashes Bela with the lotion, and then, while they wait to see which one of them the bat will kill first, Johnny asks Bela how he managed to develop the monster. Bela gives the "your brain is too feeble" speech again, then he and Johnny Apache dance until the giant bat arrives to kill Bela with a hearty "Yee-Ha!"
The movie comes to an abrupt end, and we are left not so much with a moral as with a motto. "One-Hour Martinizing: Gets Clothes Clean. Makes Bats Big."
12:55:08 AM 
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