Old Movie Reivew: The Bat (1959)

     While I was reading about Agnes Moorehead, an actress that I admire very much, I ran across a reference to a movie called The Bat, in which she stars as an author of mystery and suspense books.  Her character in The Bat, Cornelia van Gorder, encounters a real life mystery involving embezzled bank money, a criminal called “The Bat,” and real bats.

     The movie also stars Vincent Price, another of my favorite old-time actors.  I was surprised at the way he portrayed his character in the movie–pleasantly surprised.  I think of him as a heavy-handed actor with an eerie melifluous voice.  In this movie he spoke in a standard miwestern American dialect and was very subltle in his technique.

     An interesting fact about the cast of the movie is that Darla Hood, the Darla of the Our Gang and Little Rascals movies, plays a minor role.

     I watched The Bat last night on Google Video.  It was brilliant.  The humor was understated and brilliant.  At times the acting was overdone, as was common in that era; nevertheless it was superb acting.  The plot did not actually leave me in suspense that much, but it was captivating, and there were some wonderful twists at the end, which I shall not spoil for you.

     If you have any interest at all in good, old movies, you ought to watch this one.  As I mentioned, you can watch the entire movie on Goggle Video.  It is also available for sale on DVD.