The Spider Woman Strikes Back

source: The Spider Woman Strikes Back

Despite the title and the fact that Gale Sondegaard stars in both films this is not a sequel to the Sherlock Holmes movie "The Spider Woman". Brenda Joyce plays Jean Kinsley, a young woman who gains employment as a companion to the apparently blind Zenobia Dollard (Sondegaard). However Zenobia is a cunning mad scientist, who with the help of her creepy butler/assistant Mario (Rondo Hatton) is cultivating carnivorous plants in order to drive away the farmers off land that her family once owned. The film is well filmed, fast paced and has an eerie feel to it, helped by the musical score, however the plot is pretty daft and the fiery finale is a bit weak. But the most appealing thing for me is Rondo Hatton, one of the most recognisable classic horror stars. He suffered with a growth defect called acromegaly which resulted in enlargement of the facial bones, hands etc, and unlike Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff, and so on he requited no make up to turn him into a "brute". Strikes Back was released after his tragic death.

This movie promises to be a sequel to the Sherlock Holmes movie, "The Spider Woman". It isn't. True, Gale Sondergard is the villainess and "Spider Woman" is in the title, but that's where any similarity ends. It's not a horrible film, but it's disappointing to tease the viewer with the promise of something that isn't there. Rondo Hatton plays a mute, deformed servant. Too bad that he was so exploited. I do wish Universal had made this a true sequel to the Holmes film. It would have been more interesting.

Having read the other reviews of this movie, I am struck with the idea that people must have been expecting another Dracula or Frankenstein or The Black Cat. This movie is emblematic of dozens of B horror films of the period that were fun to watch but were hardly great art. It adds the distinction of great atmospherics: the "old dark house", the fabulously creepy Rondo Hatton, the deliciously evil Gale Sondegaard and the handsome, wholesome hero, Kirby Grant. Citizen Kane it ain't, but in the context of films like "Fog Island", "The 13th Guest", or "a Shriek in the Night" it was certainly more enjoyable. Plot wise, it incorporates elements of vampire flicks (blood sucking), wolf man flicks (rare plant research), and the good versus evil conflict within Rondo Hatton's character. Oscar material? Hardly, but great fun. Lighten up people!

It's hard to hate anything with Gale Sondergaard in it. This subpar Universal thriller is light on thrills or chills. It's not much fun either. It does move quickly, however. As I realized the film was reaching its climax I was surprised as I thought it had only been on maybe half an hour. Outside of Sondergaard and (visually, at least) Rondo Hatton, the cast is pretty forgettable. The script is riddled with holes, too. When the villain reveals their big master plan I guarantee you'll say "Wait, what? Really? But what about..." It's that kind of movie. Still, it's watchable enough. Fans of Universal's horror classics from this period will enjoy it more than most.

Gale Sondergaard and Rondo Hatton, both of whom played villains in the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films, join forces in this creaky Z-grade thriller that, despite the title, has zero connection with the 1943 Holmes adventure The Spider Woman. Sondergaard plays supposedly blind woman Zenobia Dollard who hires pretty young Jean Kingsley (Brenda Joyce) to be her assistant. Rondo Hatton is Mario, Zenobia's disfigured, dumb henchman, who aids in drugging Jean so that they can extract her blood, using it do nourish the carnivorous plants growing in the basement. Zenobia's plan is to use the plants' petals to poison local livestock and buy back the farmland that once belonged to her family, paying rock-bottom prices. This weak plot struggles to sustain the incredibly slight runtime of 59 minutes, the action padded out with pointless scenes at the local store, of farmers struggling to understand what is happening to their cattle, and Jean wandering around the house at night. Sondergaard makes for a great villainess, and Hatton is suitably creepy, so it's a shame that the film is so mundane, the mystery not worthy of either performer. The ending is extremely abrupt, director Arthur Lubin seemingly in a hurry to wrap things up (and not a moment too soon): one second, Jean is making her way to her bedroom, the next she is in the clutches of Zenobia and Mario, having their nefarious scheme explained to her (for the benefit of any viewer still awake by this point). Jean's romantic interest, local farmer Hal (Kirby Grant), suspects that something is wrong and so Zenobia orders Mario to burn the evidence, the blaze claiming the lives of both villains. Jean is rescued from the inferno by Hal, who makes a gag about warm milk. The end. 3/10.

Thanks to Kino Lorber we are able to enjoy what is the best quality sound and picture Spider Woman has ever had. Fingers crossed they also release The Brute Man, House of Horrors and The Basil Rathbone Pearl film that's name escapes me right now. I'm sure someone wonder why I scored this film so high considering the average is much lower. I am a long time fan of Rondo Hatton and Universal Horror films in general. Perhaps I'm a bit biased but when you watch these films now you have to watch them through a certain lens. You're not gonna get slick productions or special effects but you don't need them. Spider Woman Strikes Back was an attempt to cash in on Gaye Sondergaard's previous Sherlock Holmes film but that doesn't mean this film isn't beautifully filmed or well written, because it is. The only thing I would've done different is have the reveal of the green room lab more dramatic and the other reveal, which I'm not going to spoil, done differently where the Jean character entraps the Spider Woman. But these are minor things. If you enjoy classic Universal films you'll appreciate this one.

The Spider woman strikes back, 1946 with Gale Sondergaard is a tad better than you might suppose. Old dark house, a mystery to solve re previous female companion to Zenobia. New female being doped up, cattle which are falling prey to a strange malady! Creepy goings on in house like nocturnal sounds coming somewhere adjacent to step in closet of bedroom. Sondergaard is fine in her part and film moves along at a steady pace!

Cheaply made and slow moving; promoted as a follow-up to the Sherlock Holmes adventure "The Spider Woman", but has little to do with it (there is only one small scene even featuring spiders!). Brenda Joyce is beautiful but bland in the lead; Gale Sondergaard is fine but not particularly well-served by the script. Unlike Leonard Maltin, I didn't find this film all that campy - just dull. *1/2 out of 4, mainly for the fire at the end which is not badly done considering the budget.

There was a second Universal horror cycle after the Karloff and Lugosi monsters, even if they never get discussed any longer. And so much of it was based around one man, Rondo Hatton. Well, Sherlock Holmes too. We'll get to that. Hatton was once a sportswriter for The Tampa Tribune and a World War I veteran, but then cromegaly distorted the shape of his head, face and extremities, giving him a unique look that made him a livings special effect. In fact, the studio system tried to play his looks up as an even worse defomity, sating that he'd received elephantiasisafter xposure German mustard gas attack during the war. After playing the Hoxton Creeper in the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes film The Pearl of Death, a series of Creeper films was planned. Sadly, House of Horrors and The Brute Man were released after his death, the result of shis acromegalic condition. Back to the master detective. The second character spun off from a Holmes film was The Spider Woman, who originally appeared in Sherlock Holmes and the Spider Woman. Again, like Hatton, Gale Sondergaard didn't need much makeup to achieve her fame as a dangerous and evil woman. In fact, after the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, MGM considered having the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz played as a glamorous villainess, much like Snow White's evil stepmother. They did two screentests with Sondergaard in the traditional witch look and the more out there sexy style. After the decision was made to go with the ugly wicked witch, Sondergaard was reluctant to wear the disfiguring makeup, so she stepped away from the role which went to Margaret Hamilton. Sondergaard also played the evi humanized cat Tylette in The Blue Bird - 20th Century Fox's answer to Oz - as well as the sinister wife in The Letter. So yes, back once again to Holmes. After playing the villain in one of the long series of Sherlock movies, Sondergaard would play the sinister Spider Woman again in an unrelated sequel. In the first movie, she was known as Adrea Spedding but now she's the wealthy, blind and mysterious Zenobia Dollard. Jean (Brenda Joyce, who played Jane in several Tarzan films) is hired as Zenobia's caretaker, a job with a definite shelf life as all of the previous caretakers have vanished. Perhaps that's because at night, Zeonbia's severant (yep, Rondo Hatton) harvests her blood while she sleeps a drugged sleep, mixing her plasma with that of her ancestors and a little bit of spider venom - sounds like one of my cocktails - to make a death serum. Oh yeah - he has blood drinking plants to help him with his experiment! At just 59 minutes and with direction by non-horror fan Arthur Lubin, this film couldn't catch on the same way Universal's past horror successes did. Yet it's still astounding that they attempted to start a new series, much less one with a female antaognist. That said, this did run quite often on TV, as it was part of the original Universal Shock Theater package.