Hello from Golden Age Classics! Today we are excited to announce the release of “‘The Vampire Bat” (1933), the classic pre-code horror film, now in 4K UHD! Click here to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mj0QFtk0rYQ
Read some more about the movie below!
Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill had been in the successful film Doctor X (film) the previous year and had already wrapped up work on Mystery of the Wax Museum for Warner Bros. This was quite a large scale release and would have a lengthy post-production process. Seeing a chance to exploit all the advance press, poverty row studio Majestic Pictures Inc. contracted Wray and Atwill for their own “quickie” horror film, rushing The Vampire Bat into production and releasing it in January 1933.
Majestic Pictures had lower overheads than the larger studios, who were struggling at the time during the Great Depression. Part of the reason that The Vampire Bat looked almost as good as any Universal Studios Pictures horror film is because Majestic leased James Whale’s castoffs, the beautiful “German Village” backlot sets left over from Frankenstein (1931 film) (1931) and the interior sets from his film The Old Dark House (1932), plus some location shooting at Bronson Caves. Completing the illusion that this was a film from a much bigger studio, Majestic hired actor Dwight Frye to populate scenes with Wray and Atwill. A stock musical theme by Charles Dunworth, “Stealthy Footsteps”, was used to accompany the opening credits.
The Vampire Bat ruse worked well for Majestic, which was able to rush the quickie film into theaters less than a month before Warner’s release of Mystery of the Wax Museum.
According to The Film Daily of January 10, 1933, the film’s running time was 63 minutes, like most extant prints.
Cast:
Lionel Atwill as Dr. Otto von Niemann
Fay Wray as Ruth Bertin
Melvyn Douglas as Karl Breettschneider
Maude Eburne as Gussie Schnappmann
George E. Stone as Kringen
Dwight Frye as Herman Gleib
Robert Frazer as Emil Borst
Rita Carlisle as Martha Mueller
Lionel Belmore as Bürgermeister Gustave Schoen
William V. Mong as Sauer
Stella Adams as Georgiana
Paul Weigel as Dr. Holdstadt
Harrison Greene as Weingarten
William J. Humphrey as Dr. Haupt
Ferm Emmett as Gertrude
Carl Stockdale as Schmidt
Paul Panzer as Townsman