Down and Dirty in Gower Gulch: Poverty Row Films Preserved by UCLA
- The Vampire Bat
- USA1933
- Frank R. Strayer
- 65 DCP
- NR
- Poverty Row Films
Screening Dates
- April 11, 2019 6:30
- April 15, 2019 8:15
“It’s foolish fun, mercifully brief, and probably the best-remembered film from the prolific Frank Strayer, auteur of umpteen Blondie movies for Columbia. UCLA’s restoration recreates the sensational Gustav Brock color sequence, unacknowledged and unseen since first run.”
UCLA Film & Television Archive
Vampirism is suspected when residents of a picturesque German village start showing up dead and drained of blood in this stylish, spooky horror thriller made by the unusually ambitious Poverty Row studio Majestic Pictures (whose audacious The Sin of Nora Moran also screens in this series). Shot on sets left over from Universal’s Frankenstein and The Old Dark House, the film features a cast of notable 1930s Hollywood (and 1930s horror) talent, including Lionel Atwill as a mad doctor, Melvyn Douglas as a police inspector, Fay Wray as the scream-queen love interest, and Dwight Frye as the creepy town fool.
Restored by UCLA Film & Television Archive with funding provided by The Packard Humanities Institute
preceded by
Hearst Metrotone News, Vol. 4, No. 250 • USA 1933 • 9 min. Short newsreel
Jack Frost • USA 1934 • Ub Iwerks • 9 min. ComiColor Cartoons short