Mobile Navigation
Restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive with funding provided by The Packard Humanities Institute
The Vampire Bat (1933)
Everybody loves Dr. von Niemann (Lionel Atwill), clueless that his tales of medieval vampirism are a cover to murder the local proletariat to feed the artificial being he has created. Capitalizing on the moment’s spooky movie craze, Poverty Row producer Phil Goldstone packed the cast with genre luminaries—Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas—and staged them on cast-off sets from The Old Dark House and Frankenstein. It's foolish fun that plays like a midnight matinee from the old Shock Theater TV package. The UCLA Film & Television Archive restoration recreates the sensational Gustav Brock color sequence, unacknowledged and unseen since its first run.
Post-screening Q&A with Victoria Riskin, daughter of Fay Wray and author of Fay Wray and Robert Riskin: A Hollywood Memoir.
B/w & color, 63 min. Director: Frank Strayer. Screenwriter: Edward T. Lowe, Jr. Cast: Lionel Atwill, Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas.
Restored from a 35mm composite acetate fine grain master and a 35mm nitrate print. Laboratory services by The Stanford Theatre Film Laboratory, West Wing Studios, Inc., Fotokem, Audio Mechanics, Simon Daniel Sound, DJ Audio, Inc. Special thanks to: Stanton Rutledge, Bill Broderson, Andrew Oran.
Special thanks to Phil Hopkins. The UCLA restoration of The Vampire Bat is available on Blu-ray through The Film Detective.
