The Vincent Price Blogathon | The Bat (1959)

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of Vincent Price's death, and to celebrate his life and work, The Nitrate Diva is hosting The Vincent Price Blogathon all weekend. Click that link for the portal to reviews of several Price films with more coming today and tomorrow. For mine, I picked:



Who's in it?: Vincent Price (of course) and Agnes Moorehead (Citizen Kane, Bewitched)

What's it about?: A mystery novelist (Moorehead) rents a large mansion in a town plagued by a serial killer.

How is it?: Vincent Price gets top billing for being the bigger star, but Agnes Moorehead's Cornelia van Gorder is the main character in this Murder, She Wrote-like tale. Before the movie even begins, the murderer known only as the Bat (because he may or may not also be responsible for the town's infestation of rabid bats) has been at work for a while. But just as Cornelia moves in, an embezzlement at the bank sends several people looking for the money, the clue to which is possibly hidden in Cornelia's house. Price plays the local doctor who's certainly up to no good and is also a strong suspect for the Bat.

It's a simple mystery and even with lots of attempted misdirection it's not difficult to figure out who the killer is. The dialogue is also extremely clunky with the worst kind of exposition shoved in all over the place. There are a few occasions early on where instead of seeing something cool happen, we just get to hear a couple of people talk about it.

But what the movie lacks in craft it makes up in charm. I naturally hoped for Price to be the eponymous villain, but whether he is or not, he's perfectly sinister and Vincent Pricey. I also spotted a lot of Endora's wicked playfulness in Cornelia, just five years before the debut of Bewitched. It's a treat watching those two, especially in the scenes they have together. And of course there's also the spooky, old house with its secret rooms and the marvelous look of the faceless, fedora-wearing, claw-handed Bat. For those who can forgive its B-movie plot and dialogue, The Bat offers a lot to love.

Rating: Four out of five foreboding physicians.

Bluebeard (1944)

Who's in it?: John Carradine (Stagecoach, The Grapes of Wrath, House of Dracula); Jean Parker (One Body Too Many)

What's it about?: A serial killer (Carradine) falls in love and tries not to murder the woman (Parker) he adores.

How is it?: I like the Paris setting and Carradine is always interesting, but it's a tough movie to get into. Carradine and Parker don't have enough chemistry to make it a believable love story, and there's no mystery about who's committing the murders. It ends up being a character study about Carradine's attempt to resist temptation, but offers no reason to care.

What does remain a mystery until the end is Carradine's motivation for murdering young women. Unfortunately, not knowing why he started only makes it more difficult to give a crap about whether he can stop.

I was also disappointed that the story wasn't about the actual, fairy tale Bluebeard who murdered his wives on their wedding night. The Paris police just give him that nickname because he kills women, even though he's not marrying them or even in any kind of romantic relationship with them. Lame.

Rating: Bad.