The Bat Whispers

Chester Morris eyes Una Merkel in The Bat Whispers

Roland West's The Bat Whispers, from 1931, is a superior mystery thriller. Derived from a novel and play that were also the basis for West's silent film The Bat in 1926, The Bat Whispers centers on an old mansion, an old dark house if you will, where a motley cast of characters search for a hidden room that contains a bag of stolen loot. The film contains elements snatched from German Expressionism, Les Vampires, drawing room mysteries, and dime novels into bracing escapist fare. Like Fritz Lang's films of this transitional era, the keynote theme is the omnipresence of surveillance.

The Bat Whispers' bravura camera work belies the myth of the static camera in the early sound era whether swooping down a skyscraper or navigating the estate where the vast majority of the action of the film occurs. The vivid camera work gooses the film above its hoary premise. I also appreciated West's judicious rationing of close-ups. He eschews them for most of the film, heightening the intensity of their use in the final reel. The film has an amusing coda in which one of the leads asks the audience not to play the spoiler and divulge the film's villain. The Bat Whispers features Chester Morris, Una Merkel, Grayce Hampton and Spencer Charters.

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Morris, a veteran stage and silent film actor, had made his sound film debut in West's Alibi in 1929 which proved to be a great success for both men. Morris even nabbed an Academy Award nomination for his work in the film. Morris appeared in West's next and last film, Corsair, with West's lover, the ill-fated Thelma Todd. After Corsair, West seems to have abandoned his film career to run an LA eatery with Ms. Todd. There were rumors that the restaurant was a mob front both prior to and after Ms. Todd's mysterious death in 1935, but I don't want to enter the quagmire surrounding the case. West's departure from the film biz, whatever the cause, robbed the industry of an interesting directorial stylist.