Weird Woman

Another installment in the INNER SANCTUM series, WEIRD WOMAN once again stars Lon Chaney Jr. This time out, he plays Professor Norman Reed, whose wife, Paula (Anne Gwynne) just might be returning to her tribal ways. Cue backstory, complete with bongo drums and leopard skin-clad dancing girls. Indeed, Professor Reed fell in love with a "jungle woman" while on Safari in Africa. Now, after bringing her back to civilization and marrying her, bizarre hoodoo hijinks have ensued! Arguably, the best of the SANCTUM films, it features a bevy of horror movie queens, including Evelyn Ankers, Elizabeth Russell, and Lois Collier, in addition to the aforementioned Ms. Gwynne. Mr. Chaney Jr. Is his usual, remarkable self. This is enjoyable horror hokum for the whole family...

I have to say, I'm a big fan of these Inner Sanctum mysteries. For the most part, they are better than average--I would even say they are excellent little chillers & "Weird Woman" is one of the best. Lon Chaney--taking a respite from his monster roles--gets a rare opportunity at being a leading man. Some will debate whether Chaney had the looks or the ability to play such parts, but I think he did an excellent job with nearly all the Inner Sanctum roles he was given. Of course, I'm a big fan of Lon since my early childhood--so maybe my opinion is a little biased. Chaney seemed to want more of these leading man type roles during this point in his career, but seemed to get mostly typecast as a "horror man" which may have attributed to some of his personal demons--not to mention the shadow of his late father. Of course, those horror roles for which he was typed led to Lon becoming immortal for generations of fans--moreso than probably a lot of the guys who were playing romantic leads during Chaney's career. Getting back to "Weird Woman", Anne Gwynne was always one of my favorite 1940s beauties, Evelyn Ankers is as pretty as ever--not to mention diabolical--and the supporting cast for this picture may be the best assembled for any of the Inner Sanctum films (Strange Confession boasts a first rate cast as well). Overall--if you're a Lon Chaney fan or just a fan of the old Universal classics in general--then I would say all 6 of the Inner Sanctum mysteries are required viewing. 8.5 out of 10....

source: Weird Woman

After 40-odd years of watching horror films,I finally caught up with this one. My expectations were not high and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I found the opening satisfyingly creepy as the movie is liberally larded with all the necessary elements of the genre e.g. howling wind, "haunted house" organ music, Lon Chaney's thoughts vouchsafed to us in the form of voice-overs etc etc. I thought the tension was maintained throughout the film, with the exception of the jungle scenes which are dopey.The ending is fantastic but appropriate. The companion feature on the video, "The Frozen Ghost", I thought was dull.

Very loose adaptation of Fritz Leiber's classic horror novel CONJURE WIFE, with Lon Chaney as the irresistible lover-man professor who marries a woman on a tropical island (who clearly is meant to believe a kind of voodoo). He marries her, takes her home, and gets upset when he discovers she's still practicing magic. But she's convinced she needs to, and when a bunch of bad things start happening he almost becomes convinced himself. INNER SANCTUM installment is fun if you're in the right mood for it, with a lot of pleasant bitchiness from a mostly female cast and a very tight running time. Chaney is more a lovable galoot than a smooth talking loverman, but is game throughout. It doesn't follow the novel much at all, though, which is disappointing.

B-movie beauty Evelyn Ankers, so often the likeable heroine, plays the bad girl for a change, as a jealous ex-lover who doesn't take kindly to being rejected. When Professor Norman Reed (Lon Chaney Jr.) returns from a trip to the South Seas with island hottie Paula (Anne Gwynne) as his wife, college librarian Ilona Carr (Ankers) schemes to make the married couple's lives a misery, causing Norman to be blamed for the suicide of a colleague and for the accidental death of a hot-headed student. Wicked Illona also plots to scare superstitious Paula with menacing phone calls. Part of Universal's 'Inner Sanctum' series of thrillers based on a popular radio series, Weird Woman is a fatuous piece of melodramatic hokum -- dressed up with a little voodoo and jungle magic to try and appeal to the horror crowd -- that expects the viewer to believe that Lon Chaney Jr. Is a total fanny magnet, with hot women falling at his feet. I can barely accept Chaney as an actor, let alone as the object of desire for so many babes. Even more unbelievable than Chaney's sex appeal is the final act, in which Carr is tricked into believing that she is under a voodoo curse and will die if she doesn't confess her crimes. From cool and calculating to totally irrational and fear-stricken, it's all very silly, and ends with a fitting demise for the wicked woman that suggests that supernatural powers have been in play all along, despite Norman's affirmation that magic and voodoo are pure nonsense.

If you ever want to drive somebody temporarily crazy, try speaking to them in the loudest or deepest voice whisper, that you can muster. It's especially effective if they have a slight hangover and is more effective than nails down a chalkboard. That's the effect of Lon Chaney Jr. in the series of psychological thrillers that Universal made six of in the mid 1940's. Back then, they were considered creative in the technical achievements they helped advance, practically film noir like, but the plots are over the top, melodramatic and often silly. This entry starts off with promise but then quickly becomes a twisted example of hatred and bigotry. One note Chaney is a college professor who marries the exotic Anne Gwynne much to the chagrin of the bitchy Evelyn Bankers. This could have been called "Voodoo Woman" (to play on a double bill with Monogram's "Voodoo Man", released the same year), for that is the subject of this entry. It's a fairly decent programmer featuring a great supporting cast (aming them Ralph Morgan, Elisabeth Risdon and Elizabeth Russell) as the uppity college faculty and their spouses who are polite on the surface towards Gwynne but consider her "weird". I find it funny that co-eds have crushes on Chaney, and some of the college kids look as if they should have graduated years before. As the intrigue grows over Gwynne's presence on campus (including a sudden death where another character starts repeating to Chaney and Gwynne over and over, "Murderer!"), the script just melts down into silly serial like antics. Chaney discovers Gwynne with her voodoo gadgets and this leads to an apparent subterfuge against the new bride. As Chaney continues to whisper (while hitting a punching bag and visualizes jungle drums), the plot takes wilder twists, with Elizabeth Russell (the nasty aged wife in "The Corpse Vanishes") ranting and raving at Gwynne and acting quite ridiculous. This just becomes laughable by the last two reels, and from there descends quickly down. The civilized women prove themselves to be far weirder than Gwynne, completely missing the point of the title.

"Weird Woman" is the second in the "Inner Sanctum" film series, an adaptation of the Fritz Leiber, Jr. story "Conjure Wife". It's good fun in the tradition of the Universal black & white thrillers, taking a psychological approach to its story of college campus politics. Lon Chaney, Jr. is likable as always in the role of Professor Norman Reed, who meets a lovely young woman, Paula (Anne Gwynne), in an exotic setting. The young woman is extremely superstitious, and it's suspected later that she could be using black magic to help Norman, whom she marries, to get ahead. It turns out that somebody else is scheming, and scheming, to make life Hell for both Norman and Paula. Now, anybody watching can easily figure out Whodunit, but as directed by Reginald Le Borg, this entertaining little movie moves right along, with some amusing plot twists and supporting characters. Evelyn Ankers, who'd been Chaney's co-star in the horror classic "The Wolf Man", does well here in a change of pace role as a colleague with whom Norman had been involved. It's particularly interesting to note all of the attention Chaney gets from the opposite sex here, as no less than three females, including Lois Collier as adoring student Margaret Mercer, fixate on him. The theme is a pretty good one, of superstition vs. reason; Paula takes the former so seriously that it's devastating for her when Norman forces her to destroy her totems. She and Norman eventually have to work to clear his good name when he's implicated in both a suicide and a murder. The movie overall is no great shakes, but it's still an agreeable diversion, and like many of the genre films of the era, it has a reasonably short running time, telling and wrapping up its story in a trim 64 minutes. The same story would again be filmed as "Burn, Witch, Burn" in the 1960s and "Witches' Brew" in the 1980s. Seven out of 10.

Reginald Le Borg directs this horror and mystery film from the Inner Sanctum franchise. Professor Norman Reed (Lon Chaney, Jr.) falls in love with a beautiful woman, he meets while on vacation in the South Seas. He returns to his college community to some excitement over his new book and mixed emotions about his exotic new wife Paula (Anne Gwynne). She is given a cool reception, especially from Ilona (Evelyn Ankers), who thought Reed was returning to her. Most of the town is thinking that Paula is a voodoo princess that can conjure supernatural phenomena. Jealousy, death and strange events lend to hardship for the island beauty to adjust to life among vicious suspicions. Is she actually a superstitious witch? A very strong cast also features: Ralph Morgan, Lois Collier, Phil Brown, Harry Hayden, Elisabeth Risdon and Gertrude Astor.

Weird Woman (1944) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Second in the Inner Sanctum series has a college professor (Lon Chaney, Jr.) marrying a former voodoo princess (Anne Gwynne) only to have his ex (Evelyn Ankers) seek revenge. This was certainly better than the previous film but like that film this one here leaves a lot to be desired. I'm a big fan of Ankers and it was nice seeing her play the bad girl instead of the girl always being saved by the hero. She does a very good job here as does Gwynne. The ending is very effective but can't overcome slowness in the first part of the film.