The Bat (play)

The Bat is a Broadway play by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood. Rinehart published a book version of the play under the same title in 1926.

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