I Watch Films: The Bat

The Bat

There’s a small New England (?) town terrorised by a criminal called “The Bat” who has no face and kills women with steel claws. Cornelia Van Gorder (Agnes Moorehead), a lady detective novelist has rented the house of the bank president John Fleming; a million dollars of securities goes missing from the bank while he is on a hunting trip. He tries to suborn his doctor Malcolm Wells (Vincent Price) to fake his death, threatening him with a gun, but Wells turns the tables on him thanks to a forest fire, killing Fleming.

The Bat breaks into Van Gorder’s house, her assistant is hurt, the doctor is called as is the police detective who’s trying to find the securities. Van Gorder manages to befriend several women in the town, including the wife of the bank clerk who is the chief suspect. They theorise that the securities could be hidden in the house, which Fleming would not normally have allowed to be rented out.

The doctor does experiments on bats. I’m just saying.

There’s some extended sequences of women being threatened in the house, coming up with semi-reasonable plans to protect themselves that they immediately give up on when something happens. It’s quite chaotic.

Watch This: For a wacky murder mystery that is happy to throw more and more nonsense at you, lifted by a superior cast and a villain in a silly outfit
Don’t Watch This: This convoluted set of circumstances is just stupid