The Vampire Bat

 (1933)

Directed by Frank R. Strayer
Written by Edward T. Lowe, Jr.
Starring Lionel Atwell, Fay Wray, Melvyn Douglas, Dwight Frye, Maude Eburne
IMDB Entry

Hollywood loves to jump on the bandwagon. And when Dracula became a massive hit, other studios started making movies with vampires in them. The Vampire Bat was one of the better examples.

The village of Kleinschloss is suffering a rash of people dying from mysterious blood loss and suspect a vampire. Kerl Brettschneider (Melvyn Douglas), the chief of police, thinks the whole idea preposterous and meets with Dr. Otto van Niemann (Lionel Atwell), who cares fpr the victims. They are visited by Hermann Gleib (Dwight Frye), a strange man who liked bats, calling them "soft like a cat."

There are more attacks and things seem to point to Gleib as the vampire.  The townspeople get out the pitchforks and hunt down Gleib. But the real story is not what they think.

This is a pretty routine vampire flick and the twist should be obvious. As for the cast, this seems to be Lionel Atwell month at Great But Forgotten. But it should be clear to the viewer that he is behind all this, though not in the way you might expect.

Melvyn Douglas became a respected actor thirty years later, getting two Oscars and several nominations. He's quite good as the skeptical chief of police. 

Dwight Frye was the go to actor to play madmen during the 30s, appearing in Frankenstein, Dracula, Bride of Frankenstein,* and Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman, with walk ons in other Frankenstein films as Universal. He also appeared in the first version of The Maltese Falcon as Wilmer.

Fay Wray was once again paired with Atwell after their success with Doctor X. 

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*Brought back as as a different character, since he had died in Frankenstein.