THE DEVIL BAT (1941)

A notorious Poverty Row horror "classic" which feels in retrospect very much like a forerunner of the films of Ed Wood. Bela Lugosi is Dr. Carruthers, a seemingly kindly old doctor in a small town who, unbeknowest to the populace, has been experimenting with producing large mutant bats in his home laboratory--we're told this in an opening title card, the lazy, no-budget way of gettting exposition across. He's disgruntled because he feels cheated out of his share of the Heath cosmetics millions; he creates scents, but sold out his rights for cash years ago, and now gets no dividends from the company's success. His new scent is disguised as a men's shaving lotion, but it actually works to both attract and repel his giant bats, who hunt down and kill whoever is wearing it. A couple of times, the bat is effective, but mostly it's a ludicrous effect, looking like a tired buzzard on wires. Dave O'Brien, known more for the Dave Smith short comedy films of the 40's, is a wisecracking reporter; Donald Kerr, an uncredited bit player in hundreds of movies, is the gratingly silly photographer One-Shot McGuire; Suzanne Kaaren is the lame female lead. The sets are cheap, the acting mostly third-rate. Lugosi is OK, except when he continues to exaggeratedly intone, "Good-BYE!" to his future victims as he gives them the shaving lotion. This has become famous as one of Lugosi's worst movies, though it's not quite as bad as his Ed Wood films of the 50's. Too bad that MST3K never got their hands on this one.