{"id":25069,"date":"2012-04-05T09:19:05","date_gmt":"2012-04-05T16:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=25069"},"modified":"2021-01-26T14:51:26","modified_gmt":"2021-01-26T21:51:26","slug":"weird-woman-1944","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=25069","title":{"rendered":"Weird Woman (1944)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>&#8220;I&#8217;m a scientist, but I&#8217;m not immune &#8212; you can&#8217;t be surrounded by fear and not be infected.&#8221;<\/strong><\/p>\n<table>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Weird-Woman-Poster.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Weird-Woman-Poster-210x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"300\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-25070\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Weird-Woman-Poster-210x300.jpg 210w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Weird-Woman-Poster-89x128.jpg 89w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Weird-Woman-Poster.jpg 491w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 210px) 100vw, 210px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Synopsis:<\/strong><br \/>\nA highly rational professor (Lon Chaney, Jr.) marries a superstitious woman (Anne Gwynne) he meets while travelling in the South Seas. When they return to his college campus, his former flame (Evelyn Ankers) immediately becomes jealous of his new wife, and plots to make Chaney&#8217;s life miserable.\n<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>\n<p>\n<strong>Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Jealousy<\/li>\n<li>Lon Chaney, Jr. Films<\/li>\n<li>Professors<\/li>\n<li>South Seas Islands<\/li>\n<li>Voodoo and Black Magic<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Review: <\/strong><br \/>\nIn the 1940s, Universal Studios produced six low-budget horror films based on the popular <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Inner_Sanctum_Mystery\">&#8220;Inner Sanctum&#8221; radio series<\/a> (all starring Lon Chaney, Jr.); Peary lists two of these titles in his <em>GFTFF<\/em>: <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=25081\"><em>Calling Dr. Death<\/em> (1943)<\/a> and <em>Weird Woman<\/em>, an early adaptation of Fritz Leiber&#8217;s 1942 novel <em>Conjure Wife<\/em> (filmed again by Sidney Hayers in 1962 as <a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=22913\"><em>Burn, Witch, Burn!<\/em>)<\/a>. It strains credibility (to put it mildly) to imagine Chaney, Jr. as a man so brilliant and so appealing to women that elaborate plots of vengeance and backstabbing are concocted on his behalf &#8212; but once you accept this questionable bit of casting, it&#8217;s relatively easy to get caught up in this hour-long psychological horror flick, which features committed performances by both Ankers (deliciously vengeful) and Gwynne (perpetually fearful). Fans of <em>Burn, Witch, Burn!<\/em> will be especially interested to watch for parallels and differences between the two adaptations; while <em>BWB<\/em> remains a highly atmospheric cult classic (and is clearly the much better film), <em>WW<\/em> does a fine job within its limited budget and visionary scope. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Redeeming Qualities and Moments: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Game performances by the B-level cast<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Weird-Woman-Still.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Weird-Woman-Still.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"540\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-25072\" srcset=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Weird-Woman-Still.png 720w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Weird-Woman-Still-128x96.png 128w, https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/Weird-Woman-Still-300x225.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 720px) 100vw, 720px\" \/><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Must See? <\/strong><br \/>\nNo, though diehard fans of <em>Burn, Witch, Burn!<\/em> will certainly be curious to check it out. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Links: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0037453\/\">IMDb entry<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thespinningimage.co.uk\/cultfilms\/displaycultfilm.asp?reviewid=2263&#038;aff=13\">Spinning Image Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/fantasticmoviemusings.com\/2015\/02\/28\/weird-woman-1944\/\">SciFilm Review<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dvdtalk.com\/reviews\/23810\/inner-sanctum-mysteries-the-complete-movie-collection\/\">DVD Talk Review (scroll down)<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m a scientist, but I&#8217;m not immune &#8212; you can&#8217;t be surrounded by fear and not be infected.&#8221; Synopsis: A highly rational professor (Lon Chaney, Jr.) marries a superstitious woman (Anne Gwynne) he meets while travelling in the South Seas. When they return to his college campus, his former flame (Evelyn Ankers) immediately becomes jealous of his new wife, and plots to make Chaney&#8217;s life miserable. Genres, Themes, Actors, and Directors: Jealousy Lon Chaney, Jr. Films Professors South Seas Islands&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/?p=25069\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25069","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25069"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66162,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25069\/revisions\/66162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/filmfanatic.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}