The Sea Bat
1930 film by Lionel Barrymore, Wesley Ruggles
The Sea Bat is a 1930 American pre-Code melodrama film directed by Wesley Ruggles, starring Raquel Torres, Charles Bickford. Part of the film was filmed on location in Mazatlán, Mexico. The film was originally intended as a vehicle for Lon Chaney, who was too ill from throat cancer to undertake the project and died a month after the film's release.
Plot
A community of sponge divers are harassed by a large and hostile manta ray.
Cast
Raquel Torres as Nina
Charles Bickford as Reverend Sims
Nils Asther as Carl
George F. Marion as Antone
John Miljan as Juan
Boris Karloff as Corsican
Gibson Gowland as Limey
Edmund Breese as Maddocks
Mathilde Comont as Mimba
Mack Swain as Dutchy
James Dime as the sailor
Production
The film was originally announced for filming in early 1929 as a collaboration between Lon Chaney and Tod Browning. By August 31, 1929, Victor Fleming had taken over as the director, but was replaced by Hunt Stromberg by October 2, 1929, and finally by Wesley Ruggles, as of January 20, 1930. Some contemporary reports state that Lionel Barrymore as an additional director, but his name is not mentioned in any trades at the time of the production.
Filming had begun by February 8, 1930, on location at Mazatlan, Mexico.
Release
The Sea Bat was released July 5, 1930. It was released in both sound and silent versions.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Sea Bat” is 1930 film by Lionel Barrymore, Wesley Ruggles. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through film, Lionel and Barrymore, not as a finished interpretation.
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Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3796157. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1930 and 1929.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Sea Bat” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.