MovieChat Forums > The Bat (1959) Discussion > This is based on a play?

This is based on a play?


I'm curious...I've read the 1926 novel The Bat, but I've NEVER seen a play format of this story anywhere...but it says in the credits that this movie is based on a play...so has anybody on here seen this play? Is it any different from the novel?

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The play was popular in the twenties. I don't think its been performed in decades.

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You said you've read the novel "The Bat," but there really was no such novel. The original Mary Roberts Rinehart novella (1908) was called "The Circular Staircase" (not to be confused with "the Spiral Staircase," a good Dorothy McGuire thriller from the 40s). Anyway, Rinehart herself later adapted the novella, with the help of writing partner-dramatist Avery Hopwood, and greatly expanded the original plot, even adding the character of the Bat, and called the play just that -- "The Bat" (1920). The play, as another commenter has noted, was indeed highly successful through the 20s -- and is, in fact, far better either than the original novella OR this dopey Moorehead/Price vehicle. Matter of fact, it was so successful that after Rinehart made a bundle selling rights for a silent film version, a lawsuit was commenced over the EARLIER screen rights to the underlying and inferior novella.

The original 1926 silent film, incidentally, is quite flamboyant, but really interesting, and much more imaginative than this 1959 reductio ad absurdum.

Anyway, the Rinehart stage version has lots of atmosphere, snappy dialogue, special surprise effects, and is still popular among amateur and school groups. Performance rights are still leased through Samuel French, Inc.

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You say there's no such book but I find that a little hard to believe as I own both the Ciruclar Staircase, AND the Bat, both novels or novellas if you prefer, and by this time I have also read the play The Bat so I know full well that the two do exist separately, or in this case the three of them do.

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I also remember reading the book. In the fifties and sixties it was common to publish novelizations of popular films as a promotional tool. These books were, sometimes loosely, based on the screenplay.

Hope that clears things up.

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Okay, if you've read "The Circular Staircase" and Rinehart's play "The Bat," you can see the relationship between the two, but also how greatly expanded and improved the play is.

If, however, you have a novel called "The Bat," could you provide the information from the flyleaf, copyright and credit pages? What year was it written? Is it merely a re-issue of "The Circular Staircase" under the later, more popular title? (Though that would be a little deceptive, since the character of The Bat doesn't actually appear in the earlier novella.) Or is it, as someone else has suggested, merely a novelization of the play and/or the movie by some hired hand in the 50's or 60's? I still contend there is no utterly separate prose (i.e., non-dramatic) work called "The Bat" which was actually penned by Mary Roberts Rinehart herself.

Please advise!

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It was written in 1926 and it is a separate story than that of the Circular Staircase, similiar they are in certain elements but there are obvious differences.

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Okay, got it. This should clear things up:

"In 1926, a novelization of 'The Bat' appeared, apparently written by poet Stephen Vincent Benét with little input from Rinehart. This novel version usually appears in paperback under Rinehart’s name, without any mention of Hopwood [Rinehart's co-dramatist/collaborator on the original play] or Benét."

Source: http://www.mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=125

Incidentally, the year 1926 was also the year of the flamboyant Roland West film version, so that was probably the impetus for commissioning the above-referenced novelization. And I'm sure it's quite good, too, since Benét (author of, e.g., "The Devil and Daniel Webster") had a knack with the sinister.

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Yes, the 1959 film The Bat was based on the stage play of the same name, which was written by Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood. This play was first produced on Broadway in August of 1920:
http://www.ibdb.com/show.php?id=1862

The play was based on Miss Rinehart's novel The Bat, written with Avery Hopwood, which was published in 1920.

Miss Rinehart also published a novel called The Circular Staircase in 1908.

Both of these novels, like most of Miss Reinhart's books, are in the public domain and may be read online or downloaded free.

The Bat:
http://www.publicbookshelf.com/romantic-suspense/the-bat/
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/2019

The Circular Staircase:
http://www.publicbookshelf.com/romance/circular-stair/
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/434

General information:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Roberts_Rinehart
http://www.publicbookshelf.com/author/Mary-Roberts-Rinehart
http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/r#a183


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Many thanks for these links. I have wanted to read the original stories since I first saw the 1930 and 1959 versions of the movie.

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Back in the 1960s I bought a paperback book at a sort of little fair on the lawn of my high school.

The cover said:

Mary Roberts

Rinehart

The Bat

And after I read it I was puzzled by the fact that The Bat was never named as "Rinehart" anywhere, so I read the book again searching for the name "Rinehart" and still couldn't find it. So I was quite mystified why someone named Mary Roberts wrote a novel called Rinehart The Bat without the Bat ever being named Rinehart anywhere in it.

Anyway, Mary Roberts Rinehart wrote The Circular Staircase (1908) which was made into a feature length movie The Circular Staircase (1915). It was also adapted as an episode of Climax! (1956).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Circular_Staircase

Mary Roberts Rinehart and Avery Hopwood adapted and revised the plot of The Circular Staircase, making many changes including adding The Bat, to write a play called The Bat (1920). A novelization of The Bat was published in 1926, claimed to be by Rinehart and Hopwood, but ghostwritten by Stephen Vincent Benet. I suppose that what I read was a paperback reprint from the 1950s or 1960s of that 1926 novelization.

Film adaptations of The Bat include the silent The Bat (1926), The Bat Whispers (1926), and The Bat (1959), and there were some television adaptations. And I guess that there could have been novelizations of one of those movies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bat_(play)

The book I read described The Bat's fame and how he could not be captured by the police, and how "crime's four hundred" sought to capture The Bat and force him to work for them, but also failed. I had never heard of high society's "four hundred" but I vividly remember the strange phrase "crime's four hundred".

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I'm surprised that the play was apparently never revived in the 60s-80s by some veteran movie actress performing on the dinner theater or summer stock circuit. It would have been the perfect vehicle for a glamorous older actress. What fun it would have been to see Bette Davis, Gloria Swanson, Myrna Loy, Dorothy Lamour, Lana Turner, or one of the other movie legends who was doing theatre in this period in the part.

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The story as a play opened in New York in 1920. It had been previewed under the title 'A Thief In The Night' but it ran under 'The Bat' title. Vincent Price says the play frightened him as a child. That's why he decided to take the part with less screen time that he was used to having.

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