The Bat Whispers (1930)
(Roland West, US 1930, 83 min., 35mm)
The same year that Raoul Walsh was making The Big Trail for Fox, Roland West was making The Bat Whispers for United Artists. Produced in what West called “Magnifilm,” he used a 65mm negative to capture the action of this haunted house spectacle. Following a bank robbery, a group of people gather in the house of the bank president, two of whom believe the money from the robbery is hidden there. When a mysterious figure in a cape appears, leaving shadows that look like a bat, the occupants start to meet nefarious ends, and it’s up to Detective Anderson (Chester Morris) to uncover the culprit and solve the mystery. This film is based on the Broadway hit The Bat by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood, which was filmed once before, also by West. While only 35mm prints were made of this film, it retains the 2:1 aspect ratio that the 65mm negative captured.
35mm restored print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.