The Devil Bat (1940)

★ 5.3 1h 8m IMDb

Dr. Paul Carruthers is frustrated because he thinks his employers, Mary Heath and Henry Morton, have cheated him out of the company's profits. He decides to get revenge by altering bats to grow twice their normal size and training them to attack when they smell a perfume of his own making. He mixes the perfume into a lotion, which he offers as a gift to Mary and Henry. When they turn up dead, a newspaper reporter decides to investigate.

The Devil Bat

Where to Watch

Netflix Netflix
Amazon Prime Video Amazon Prime Video
Disney Plus Disney Plus
Max Max
HBO Max HBO Max
Hulu Hulu
Paramount Plus Paramount Plus
Apple TV Plus Apple TV Plus
Peacock Peacock
Showtime Showtime
Starz Starz
Paramount+ with Showtime Paramount+ with Showtime

Rent / Buy

Rent

Apple TV Apple TV
Google Play Movies Google Play Movies
Amazon Video Amazon Video
YouTube YouTube
Vudu Vudu
Fandango at Home Fandango at Home

Buy

Apple TV Apple TV
Google Play Movies Google Play Movies
Amazon Video Amazon Video
YouTube YouTube
Vudu Vudu
Fandango at Home Fandango at Home

Cast

Bela Lugosi
Bela Lugosi as Dr. Paul Carruthers Died 1956 · Lugos, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary [now Lugoj, Timis County, Romania] Blaskó Béla Ferenc Dezső (October 20, 1882 – August 16, 1956), better known by the stage name Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian stage, screen, and television actor. He is best remembered for his iconic por...
Suzanne Kaaren
Suzanne Kaaren as Mary Heath Died 2004 · Brooklyn, New York, USA From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Suzanne Kaaren (March 21, 1912 – August 27, 2004) was an American B-movie actress and dancer who starred in stock film genres of the 1930s and 1940s: horror film...
Dave O'Brien
Dave O'Brien as Johnny Layton Died 1969 · Big Spring, Texas, USA From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Dave O'Brien (born David Poole Fronabarger, May 31, 1912 – November 8, 1969) was an American film actor, director, and writer. O'Brien was best known to movie a...
Guy Usher
Guy Usher as Henry Morton Died 1944 · Mason City, Iowa, USA From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Guy Usher (May 9, 1883 – June 16, 1944) was an American film actor. He appeared in more than 190 films between 1932 and 1943..
Yolande Donlan
Yolande Donlan as Maxine Died 2014 · Jersey City, New Jersey, USA Yolande Donlan (born June 2, 1920 in Jersey City, New Jersey) is an American actress who has worked extensively in the United Kingdom. She is the daughter of James Donlan, who was a hard working char...
Donald Kerr
Donald Kerr as 'One-Shot' McGuire Died 1977 · Eagle Grove, Iowa, USA Donald Kerr (5 August 1891 — 25 January 1977) was an American character actor. Some of his work includes Notorious, Cat People, The Big Country, The Big Heat, The Devil Bat, and The Woman in the Windo...

Audience Reviews

John Chard 6/10 Nov 04, 2013
Imbecile, Bombastic, Ignoramus.

The Devil Bat is directed by Jean Yarbrough and written by George Bricker and John T. Neville. It stars Bela Lugosi, Suzanne Kaaren, Dave O’Brien, Donald Kerr and Gary Usher.

The Heathville Horror!

Straight out of Poverty Row is this PRC production that’s as bonkers as it is fun. Plot sees Lugosi as a fed up cosmetic chemist who decides that the company he provides his inventions for have not done right by him financially. So in his secret laboratory at home he breeds big killer bats, bats that he rears to kill anyone wearing the scent of aftershave lotion that he has handed out to the targets of his ire. As the bodies begin to mount up and the press whip up a devil bat on the loose storm, journalists Henry Layden (O’Brien) and “One Shot McGuire” close in on the source of the town’s terror.

The low budget is often evident, be it props and sets that shouldn’t move etc, but at just over an hour in length this gets in and does its job with a sort of carefree abandon that is to be admired. Lugosi is having fun shifting from borderline mania to crafty dastard with a sense of humour, and of course there are big scary bats that shriek before homing in for the girl. Result! The flaws are obvious throughout, not least that Lugosi ends up playing second fiddle to the journalists’ blend of bravado and buffoonery, but as time fillers go, and as Lugosi’s Poverty Row Horrors go, this is impossible to dislike and not have a good time with. 6/10
CinemaSerf 6/10 Dec 26, 2024
OK, so almost all of the peril comes from a man out of shot careering about with a plastic bat on the end of a fishing rod, but somehow this daft sci-fi hokum makes a point. It's all about the rather shrewd scientist "Carruthers" (Bela Lugosi) who feels slighted by his pals who made a load of long-term cash from an invention that he took the quick buck from. By way of exacting his cunning revenge, he has devised a formula that purports to be an after shave but is actually toxically attractive to a giant bat. Suffice to say, nobody survives their encounter for long and so soon both the police and the press are trying to get to the bottom of things as the corpses pile up. The rest of this is all standard drive-in fayre, but I did rather like the swipe it took at the pomposity of scientists who simply make things up when they don't know the facts. Of course, it's basic from start to finish but Lugosi keeps this adequately cast little beastie caper running along smoothy for quite an entertaining hour.

Similar Movies