Weird Woman (1944) is the second and most highly regarded film in Universal Pictures’ Inner Sanctum Mystery series (based on a radio program of the same name). The films in the franchise all star Lon Chaney Jr. and were each shot in a brisk two weeks on a rather low budget. Unlike the Universal Monster movies this series was meant to have a broader appeal by incorporating elements of melodrama and the whodunnit into macabre tales.
Weird Woman opens just like every Inner Sanctum Mystery with David Hoffman’s disembodied head floating in a crystal ball warning the audience that even they have the potential to commit murder. Next the narrative is introduced with the two leads: Prof. Reed (Lon Chaney Jr.) and Paula (Anne Gwynne), his “witch” wife from the South Seas. The film goes into a protracted flashback detailing how the couple met on a remote island where the indigenous people were performing their ritual “dance of death”. These flashback sequences detail the mysticism that will make Paula suspect in the future.
The flashbacks that ensue move ahead in time to the Reeds’ return to the United States. It is here that Paula befriends Ilona (Evelyn Ankers), her husband’s former lover. Ilona exploits the jingoism of the community to frame Paula for her self-serving crimes. It’s a familiar tale of jealousy run amok, but one rendered with all of the trappings of a nineteenth century penny dreadful. Voodoo objects litter the gothic ambience of Weird Woman, compensating for the flimsiness of the narrative.
Written by Brenda Weisberg, Weird Woman is rife with snappy repartee. Where this hinders Chaney it imbues the relationship between Ankers and Gwynne with charm and, later, a menacing depth. Weisberg had previously penned the screenplay for Chaney’s vehicle The Mummy’s Ghost (1944). Weird Woman also reunites Chaney with The Mummy’s Ghost‘s director Reginald Le Borg. Weird Woman utilizes many of the same rather dated genre tropes as Le Borg’s film Jungle Woman which was made the same year.
These Universal Studios contract players and crew functioned as a well oiled machine, enabling them to churn out quickies like Weird Woman at a rapid pace. That isn’t to say that Weird Woman is without its artistry. The scenes of Prof. Reed trailing Paula at night to a graveyard are drenched with shadowy atmosphere and suspense equal to anything in the classic Universal Monster Movie canon. Likewise, Ankers’ performance as she slowly loses her mind to paranoid delusions is among one of the best performances of any B-Movie.
