Great shadowy cinematography and kinetic camera work (rare for 1930) are the highlights of this story about a mad criminal called The Bat who goes thieving in the night in a mask and a cape. He works to find a bag of stolen money from a recent bank robbery in an old dark house. The plot’s on the convoluted side and it trots out some creaky comic relief (courtesy of constantly frightened maid Maude Eburne), but it’s enough of an Expressionist visual knockout to make up for all of that.
The restored widescreen edition is a must. Director Roland West shot two different versions of the film, with two different cinematographers, for release in 1930. There’s one shot in the standard 1.33:1 dimensions of the day and then there’s the super-cool 2:1 Magnifilm version, shot using an early 70mm widescreen process. In 1930, almost no theaters were capable of showing a widescreen movie, so the Magnifilm Bat Whispers fell into obscurity and wasn’t shown again for another sixty years.
Based on a play by Avery Hopwood and Mary Roberts Rinehart. Some sources claim that comic book artist Bob Kane took inspiration from this film to create Batman in 1939. Other sources credit the earlier 1926 silent adaptation of the play, The Bat (also directed by Roland West).