The Bat is a silent film

Silent film

A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...

 based on the 1920 hit Broadway

Broadway theatre

Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

 play by Mary Roberts Rinehart

Mary Roberts Rinehart

Mary Roberts Rinehart was an American writer, often called the American Agatha Christie. She is considered the source of the phrase "The butler did it", although she did not actually use the phrase. She is considered to have invented the "Had-I-But-Known" school of mystery writing...

 and Avery Hopwood

Avery Hopwood

James Avery Hopwood , was the most successful playwright of the Jazz Age, having four plays running simultaneously on Broadway in 1920.-Biography:...

, directed by Roland West

Roland West

For the basketball player, see Roland West Roland West was a Hollywood director known for his innovative film noir movies of the 1920s and early 1930s.-Biography:...

 and starring Jack Pickford

Jack Pickford

Jack Pickford was a Canadian-born American actor. He was best known for his tabloid lifestyle, marriage to the top starlets of his day, and being of the famous Pickford acting family.-Early life:...

 and Louise Fazenda

Louise Fazenda

Louise Fazenda was an American film actress, appearing chiefly in silent comedy films.-Early life:Of Portuguese ancestry, she was born in Lafayette, Indiana. Her father, Joseph Fazenda, was a merchandise broker. After moving west Louise attended Los Angeles High School and St. Mary's Convent...

. The story takes place in an old mansion

Mansion

A mansion is a very large dwelling house. U.S. real estate brokers define a mansion as a dwelling of over . A traditional European mansion was defined as a house which contained a ballroom and tens of bedrooms...

, where people look for hidden loot while a caped killer (nicknamed "The Bat") murders them one by one.

Preservation status

The film was rediscovered after being thought to have been a lost film

Lost film

A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons...

 for many years.

Remakes

Director Roland West remade his film four years later as The Bat Whispers

The Bat Whispers

The Bat Whispers is a mystery film directed by Roland West, produced by Joseph M. Schenck, and released by United Artists.-Plot:A mysterious criminal by the name of "The Bat" eludes police and then finally announces his retirement to the country, while a wealthy Cornelia Van Gorder takes up...

(1930), with Chester Morris

Chester Morris

Chester Morris was an American actor, who starred in the Boston Blackie detective series of the 1940s.-Career:...

 and Una Merkel

Una Merkel

Una Merkel was an American Tony Award-winning stage and film actress.-Life and career:Una Merkel was born in Covington, Kentucky, and grew up in Philadelphia and New York City. She bore a resemblance to actress Lillian Gish and began her career as a stand-in for Gish, most notably in the 1928...

. A 1959 remake, The Bat, starred Vincent Price

Vincent Price

Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...

 and Agnes Moorehead

Agnes Moorehead

Agnes Robertson Moorehead was an American actress. Although she began with the Mercury Theatre, appeared in more than seventy films beginning with Citizen Kane and on dozens of television shows during a career that spanned more than thirty years, Moorehead is most widely known to modern audiences...

.

Comic-book creator Bob Kane

Bob Kane

Bob Kane was an American comic book artist and writer, credited as the creator of the DC Comics superhero Batman...

 said in his 1989 autobiography

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

 Batman and Me

Batman and Me

Batman and Me is the autobiography of comic book illustrator and writer Bob Kane, nominally the creator of Batman....

that the villain of the 1930 film The Bat Whispers

The Bat Whispers

The Bat Whispers is a mystery film directed by Roland West, produced by Joseph M. Schenck, and released by United Artists.-Plot:A mysterious criminal by the name of "The Bat" eludes police and then finally announces his retirement to the country, while a wealthy Cornelia Van Gorder takes up...

was an inspiration for his character Batman

Batman

Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...

.

External links

(version with soundtrack)