This Picture Is Bloody!

Radio Record, Volume XII, Issue 32, 20 January 1939, Page 18

This Picture Is Bloody!

{**The Vampire Bat.’? Action Pictures, Directed by Frank Strayer. "With Mélvyn Douglas, Fay: Wray, Lionel Atwill. First reléase: Wellington, January. 20.} "ry HAT heading; Ii¢t me hasten to make ¢lear, is not intended to refer to the quality of ‘‘The Vampire Bat,’’ but -to the nature of its contents. For what would you expect to find but buckets of blood in a film about vampires and the old superstition which’ makes them come out of their graves to gorge on the life-stream = ‘of ‘huMans? B-r-r-h! It is so long since’ we have been given the chance to sample. any good old-fashioned, © dyed-in-the-wool horror ‘on the screen’ :that I found : the’ nocturnal ‘flittings. of "The Vampire Bat" sufficiently :entertaining. .At-the same ‘time, I am afraid that my taste ‘for blood -is not as ‘strong.as it used ‘to -be. Perhaps that. is because ‘one film like "Dracula" sucked nearly ‘everything there was ‘out of "the subject ‘of. vampires; or perhaps it is because "The Vampire’ Bat" explains. itsélf ‘all away with- another mad ‘séientist. ‘ Spoils The Fun J ALWAYS ‘feel it :is rather a mistake when ghost: ‘stories ‘or ‘ghost films ‘end with rational, pseudo-scientific explanations, "it ° takes half the fun of ‘the thing

away when you know that the spook ‘is caused by wing in the chimney. A story ofthe supernatural should .remain in the realm of the supernatural, should leave you, if possible, with the ‘uncomfortable ‘query "Can Such "Things Be?" ‘That: is«where "Dracula" scored -so0-heavily, -with: its hearty «Grand ‘Guignol thrilis-‘and its pretence of reality. That is where "The Vampire Bat" scores not quite ‘so heavily. Even though you suspect from the outset-in spite of a lot of quotations from ancient legends ta prove the existence of vampires ‘that the apparently benign doctor of the panic-stricken, murder‘Tidden village will'turn out to ‘be a madman who goes round leaving corpses drained of-their blood in "order to prove his’ theory about creating Hfe; even though you suspect all this, it is -still something ‘of an anti-climax when the doctor ‘Yealiy is c.unmmasked as the vampire, Things On The Roof STILL, if you like horror, half.a . blood-pudding is better than mone. « Alf.the good old iraivraising

machinery "is. put into effective motion-din. shapes crawling over the housetops while the clock strikes ‘twelve; a village idiot who gibbers horribly and comes to a nasty, but undeserved, end; and rows and rows of sinister testtubes and bubbling retorts in the laboratory where the mad doctor visibly-and audibly-syphons. his victims’ blood into a bottle, and where, finally, he is sent to his account by the plucky, but ‘puzzled, detective. The People In It | '7'HE picture has the ‘benefit of a good cast. Melvyn Douglas plays ‘the -detective-hero, and rather gave me ‘the impression -he was wWordering what it was all nN ee Te a ee

about-why he should be ‘assigned: to catching: vampires’ when ‘he ‘is so much ‘mMiore at home in sophis-. ticated crmedy. ‘But his* -bewild- ° ered expression ‘is at léast-in ‘char--acter. Fay Wray, the heroine, haslittle more’ to do than sé¢ream. when laid on the operating-table’ (though, Heaven. knows,’she’s been" in so many monsters’ -clutches during her screen. career ~she must. know it will. all come -out right in the.end). As ‘chief bloodcurdler, Lionel Atwill-a man I love to hate-didn’t fool me-for a moment that he wasn’t up to ‘something ‘particularly unpleasant, ‘but acted well’ enough ‘to keep the character of the :mad doc‘tor interesting. For ‘comedy-and it’s almost the bést thing in the Picture-there’s Maud °.burne; ‘and for.:additional ‘horror. there’s Dwight Frye, whom I last remember .eafing flies in "Dracula." "This time,-he’s the village idiot with -bats ‘(real-ones) inchis attic; ‘and--poor fellow!--he-looks it. As forthe. blood---wéll, it’s there . by ‘the bucketful! ;