The Devil Bat (1941, Jean Yarborough) (v) 2

Another excerpt from “On Strings Of Darkness: An Interview with the World’s Phoniest Bat”, Cinefantastique, Vol. 28 No. 7 January, 1996, pp. 56-59.

You played both bats?

That’s right, the “before” and “after” bat. We shot all my skinny bat scenes first, and then I gained a bunch of weight to play Bela’s killer bat. I’m small, I’m used to eating insects, so it didn’t take more than a couple hamburgers. But mind you, this was years before DeNiro. I’m not going to say I’m better or anything, I’m just saying I was probably there first. But no one thought about those kinds of things then, either. You did what you had to do to get a film in the can in three weeks. I played all the bats.

You did?

If you look carefully, you can see that each time a bat flies out of the window, there’s a cut. I played a whole colony’s worth. Got paid once, though. [Laughs.]

PRC [Producers Releasing Corporation – ed.] offered you a three-movie contract after The Devil Bat.

That was Bela’s doing. He was the total “leave nobody behind” kind of guy. It didn’t matter that his career was on the wane. He still wanted to make sure doors opened for those less fortunate than him. And PRC treated him like he was Gable. So when Devil Bat was a hit – I don’t know how or why – Bela used his influence to help me out.

But you opted to invest in the company instead.

Well, here’s the thing. I could do three more Devil Bats, movies that a six year-old would find patronizingly stupid, movies where people don’t know what a bat is, if it’s a kind of bird or something, movies where news reporters do the work of police detectives… Anyway, I could do that or I could put myself in a position where I could make something I’d be proud of. It’s a horrible, awful cliché, but truth is, I wanted to do Shakespeare. Or O’Neill.

What happened?

[Long pause.] PRC didn’t do too bad, and I took the money. And that’s all I want to say about that.

Did you also provide the Devil Bat’s scream?

Oh God, no. I forgot about that. No, that was dubbed in later. Sounds like Carol Burnett, doesn’t it?

Where we saw it: tv | We deign to rate it: outta 100
Posted by kza at 10:37 AM | Comments (1)