The Bat (play)

The Bat is a Broadway play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood first produced in 1920. The plot relates how wealthy spinster Cornelia Van Gorder and her guests uncover a mystery at their rented summer home while being stalked by an enigmatic, costumed criminal known as "The Bat".

The Bat originated as an adaptation of Rinehart's mystery novel The Circular Staircase, published in 1908. Rinehart and Hopwood made a number of alterations to the source to prepare it for Broadway, most notably adding the titular antagonist. The connection to the original novel led to a legal dispute over film rights with the Selig Polyscope Company, producers of a 1915 Circular Staircase film; subsequently, Rinehart denied the relationship between the two works as she attempted to license The Bat for a film adaptation.

The Bat was massive critical and commercial success, running for 878 performances in New York and spawning seven additional companies who brought the show to other areas. It led to a number of adaptations, including a 1926 novelization anonymously written by Stephen Vincent Benét. Three films were produced: the 1926 silent film The Bat, as the 1930 talking film The Bat Whispers, and as the 1959 horror picture The Bat. The play and its adaptations had a wide influence on contemporary media and popular culture, inspiring a number of bat-themed characters in subsequent works, most notably the superhero Batman.

Productions

The Bat premiered as a Broadway play on August 23, 1920, at the Morosco Theatre in New York City. The melodrama mystery was produced by Lincoln Wagenhals and Collin Kemper, who also staged the show. The play closed in September 1922 after 867 performances.

Two Broadway revivals of The Bat followed. The first of these opened on May 31, 1937, at the Majestic Theatre, and closed that June after just 18 performances. The second of these opened on January 20, 1953, at the National Theatre, and closed on February 7, 1953, after 23 performances.

Plot

The story takes place in an old mansion, where people look for hidden loot while a caped killer (nicknamed "The Bat") murders them one by one.

Cast

• Richard Barrows as Richard Fleming
• Edward Ellis as Doctor Wells
• Effie Ellsler as Miss Cornelia Van Gorder
• Harrison Hunter as Detective Anderson
• Kenneth Hunter as Reginald Beresford
• Anne Morrison as Miss Dale Ogden
• Harry Morvil as Billy
• Stuart Sage as Jack Brooks
• Robert Vaughan as An Unknown Man
• May Vokes as Lizzie Allen

Film and TV adaptations

Three films were made based on the original Broadway play.

• The first film, also called The Bat, was released as a silent film on March 14, 1926 by United Artists, was produced and directed by Roland West, and written by West and Julien Josephson.
• Director Roland West remade his film four years later in 1930 as The Bat Whispers, also by United Artists, and starring Chester Morris and Una Merkel.
• A third film by Crane Wilbur was released by Allied Artists in 1959 as The Bat, starring Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead.

TV adaptations include:

• Broadway Television Theatre (23 November 1953) one-hour syndicated WOR-TV series, with Estelle Winwood, Alice Pearce, and Jay Jostyn
• Dow Hour of Great Mysteries (31 March 1960) one-hour NBC TV special with Helen Hayes, Margaret Hamilton, and Jason Robards
• Der Spinnenmörder (30 July 1978) 88-minute German TV movie

Legacy

Comic-book creator Bob Kane said in his 1989 autobiography Batman and Me that the villain of the 1930 film The Bat Whispers was an inspiration for his character Batman.^[1]

References

External links

• The Bat at the Internet Broadway Database
• The Bat at the Internet Broadway Database
• Mary Roberts Rinehart Papers, 1831-1970, SC.1958.03, Special Collections Department, University of Pittsburgh
• The Bat public domain audiobook at LibriVox