Weird Woman

Dir. Reginald Le Borg

63 Minutes

USA

1944

Starring: Lon Chaney Jr., Anne Gwynne, Evelyn Ankers, Ralph Morgan, Elisabeth Risdon

***/*****

Second film in the set of six in Universal's "Inner Sanctum" mystery series, all starring Lon Chaney Jr. Interestingly, these feel like they pre-date what would eventually become anthologized horror, even including an Twilight Zone-type opening of a disembodied head floating in space with the same lines entering the viewer into the Inner Sanctum.

Weird Woman! What a strange, bizarre, unabashedly misogynist, and extremely male-fantasy driven picture! The narrative itself is insane in the sheer ridiculousness of its situation, but its portrayal of female characters alongside the noble and "prestigious" figure played by Chaney would be hilarious if it were not so insistent on his "greatness" (a problem with the first film in the series Calling Dr. Death, but is elevated to eleven in this installment).

Chaney plays college professor Norman Reed who, while on a trip in the South Seas, meets the exotic native Paula Reed (Anne Gwynne), but on bringing her to America to be his wife is unaware of her predisposition to believing herself a supernatural being based on the superstitions of her island family. Only adding to his troubles is an ex-fling (Evelyn Ankers), displeased with her fella bringing back another woman from a research trip, a love-lorn college girl with a crush (because it is realistic for Chaney to be the object of this many affections), and her jealous boyfriend. And, eventually, someone in the mix is murdered, with all signs pointing towards Chaney.

While the Inner Sanctum films (based upon viewing three of them as of this writing) are certainly consistently gross in their gender politics (with heightened themes of masculine possessiveness of their often unabashedly "evil" female characters (even the poster for the mostly awful following film Dead Man's Eyes refers to Acquanetta as the 'sister of Satan'), Weird Woman is so luridly insane in its melodramatic plot line that it is almost impossible to not enjoy the sheer lunacy of what it packs into its sixty minutes. Between the male-fantasy of Chaney's character, the murder mystery, the island Othering of Paula and her family, it is just a film so chock fun of issues that it almost must be seen strictly to see how it manages to wrangle even more issues out of its subject matter.

Much like Calling Dr. Death, director Reginald Le Borg keeps things moving at a clip, but there is certainly more energy than the previous film in the way that he seems to be basking in the ridiculousness of the whole affair. And while it is worth noting the unusual usage of Chaney regular Evelyn Ankers (his Wolf Man girlfriend) as a villain, it does quell any surprise at the conclusion of the piece. In the first half the Inner Sanctum series, Weird Woman

is certainly a highlight if completely misguided and troubling on its politics.

October 28th, 2019