Return of the Ghost of the Son of the 31 Days of Cheese - Day 15 - Devil Bat

Has the madness of Scientists no end?

Apparently not.

And nobody played a mad scientist quite like Bela Lugosi.

This 1940 poverty row production (PRC pictures to be exact) has Bela playing Dr. Caruthers . Called beloved by several of the actors which is a bit of stretch – it’s hard not to look at Lugosi and not feel that something isn’t right but the script insists he is beloved and so he is beloved damn it.

However he is quite mad. He’s got a bat in his – well belfry is as good a word for it as anything – very fake looking even for 1940 – he has enlarged it with electricity. It’s science trust me on this. And he plans to use it to take his revenge.  Not against a scientific establishment that refuses to understand his theories no. He’s going to kill the folks who ripped him off. Which if nothing else is a refreshing change of motive.

The Doc has sold the Morton Heath Cosmetics company a formula for cash straight up that made them all very rich – think axe body spray without being horrible – the Doc feels ill used by this and has decided that they all have to go.

The manner of revenge is a bit elaborate – it involves each victim trying, at Bela’s insistence, a new aftershave he is developing and putting it, as Bela suggests “on the tender part of the Throat” then Bela will leave, pointedly saying “goodbye” to each victim and then he’s off to the belfry to release the devil bat – a combination of bad effects and a close up of the harmless fruit bat. The bat is seems is driven into insane fury by the scent of the after shave – again think Axe Body spray – and tears the victims throat out – to the accompaniment of a silly sound screech.

What is a nice touch Bela is often then asked to look at the body once it has been discovered.

The news that there is this huge bat of some sort  flying about and tearing throats out attracts the attention of the press and the male lead is the reporter who is almost always with the utterly unfunny comic relief cameraman.

There is toing and froing of course – some romance between the male and female lead (daughter of one of the folks what has gotten their throats ripped out by the bat) they even manage to kill the bat but Bela goes and makes another one – and then after some more toing and frowing – and Bela is of course hoist on his own bat.

Enjoyable for Bela’s performance but not a whole lot else  but he’s on the screen a lot and he is having great fun with the role. Now if they had only not had the comic relief.

Enjoy with Fruit.