Ben Model is probably the best-known silent film accompanist in the Northeast. He has undertaken many projects to get obscure films out to the public. His recent release of Roland West’s The Bat is a striking example.

The visual quality is excellent for a nearly-lost 1926 movie. The UCLA Film & Television Archive scanned a 35 mm nitrate print, and Model’s Undercrank Productions converted it to a 2K digital version. He added his accompaniment to the film, capturing the moods and adding to the suspense.

A hit Broadway play of the same title provided the source material, and Undercrank says the movie follows it closely. The story concerns a master criminal, “the Bat,” who wears a bizarre headpiece with bat wings and sneaks around in dark places, climbing with agility. In one scene a circle of light with a bat silhouette sweeps across a room — an unmistakable precursor to the Bat-Signal. Bob Kane, the creator of Batman, credited The Bat Whispers, the 1930 sound remake of this film, as one of his inspirations.

The movie is complicated to follow. It deals with the death of a bank executive and the disappearance of $200,000 from the bank. The story takes place in a creepy house which is said to have a secret room where the money may be hidden. William Cameron Menzies, one of the great names in early movie visual design, provided dark passages where mysterious figures pass, lights that ominously go out, and a brightly tinted garage fire that’s all the more striking for its brevity. There’s a good amount of comedy relief, especially by Louise Fazenda as Lizzie. The eventual unmasking of the Bat is almost anticlimactic against all the rest.

Director Roland West isn’t well-remembered today. His career came to an end with suspicions about him when Thelma Todd died in 1935. This edition of the movie is well worth seeing for its atmosphere, its early suggestions of Batman, and Model’s excellent music.