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Weird Woman

1944

WEAVING HER WEIRD DEAD SPELL OF VOODOO!

After bringing his beautiful new wife Paula home to America from a remote island on which she was raised, Professor Norman Reed begins to feel the clash between his world of rational science and hers of bizarre dancing and freaky voodoo rituals. Norman's stuck-up friends also sense Paula's strangeness, and soon their meddling gossip and suspicious scheming push the poor woman to use her magic to defend herself and her husband – and maybe even to kill! Or is it just the power of suggestion...?

Lon Chaney Jr. Anne Gwynne Evelyn Ankers Ralph Morgan Elisabeth Risdon Lois Collier Harry Hayden Elizabeth Russell Phil Brown Kay Harding Gertrude Astor Edmund Mortimer Larry Steers Chuck Hamilton David Hoffman William Hudson Milburn Stone

Alternative Titles

Inner Sanctum #2: Weird Woman, Feitiço, Le Suicide du Professeur X, 奇异的女人

Genres

Mystery Horror

Themes

Horror, the undead and monster classics Creepy, chilling, and terrifying horror Terrifying, haunted, and supernatural horror Chilling experiments and classic monster horror Show All…

Theatrical

01 Mar 1944

USANR

USA

01 Mar 1944

TheatricalNR

64 mins More at IMDb TMDb Report this page

Popular reviews

Review by Mandrakegray ★★★

One of the finer entries in Universal's run of "Inner Sanctum" mysteries, with a solid turn from Lon Chaney Jr., and featuring a smorgasbord of classic era actresses that are favorites to genre fans.
This 63 minute offering really started off well. Director Reginald Le Borg's nighttime settings and thick atmosphere (I loved the fallen star moment) promised a better than expected B-level romp...and that's pretty much what I got, though unfortunately it loses some steam before its conclusion.
My ongoing crush on Anne Gwynne isn't just based on her adorable looks and glowing screen presence...she also managed one of the cooler swath of credits among actresses of her day (due in large part to being mostly relegated to low-budget…
Review by 💀EmperorCupcake🧁 ★★★½ 1

October Horror 2020, Day 12, challenge #13 - Lon Chaney Jr.
Wall Head: Hey, can I bum a smoke?
How could I not watch something called Weird Woman? Hey, there's nothing weird about sneaking out to the graveyard in the middle of the night, I do that all the - oh. This is based on the same story as Burn Witch Burn, a film I absolutely loved, and this one's good too! I'll give this the nod acting-wise, everyone really gives it their all. Chaney is great and special shout outs to Elizabeth Russell as Evelyn, who is somehow the human embodiment of a hatchet, and Elisabeth Risdon as Dean Grace. What a QUEEN, loved her!!
So what's the story?…
Review by Matt Winfield ★★★

🍬Daily Horror Hunt #28 (Oct. 2020)🍬
Man, you can really detect that Val Lewton influence seeping into Universal's horror offerings right around this time, and Weird Woman is no exception. I had to double check that this wasn't one of his screenplays, it just had that certain ambiance, that certain hook, I dunno. The mysterious woman from the depths of the jungle, ancient tribal death rituals, dances of the dead, strange “coincidences” running rampant, and superstitious “she's a witch!” vibes abound. I swear, you hold one late night voodoo ceremony at the graveyard and EVERYBODY insists on calling you Weird...
But still, I can think of worse ways to kill an hour. Bit dull for the first half, but really picks up to provide an awesome ending that ties all the superstitious themes of the story into one neat package. My first Inner Sanctum Mysteries flick, but it definitely won't be my last. Good wholesome voodoo fun!
Review by Ian West ★★★

Solid second Inner Sanctum mystery jam features Chaney Jr., thick atmosphere, a 63 minute runtime, and more whispering! Not a terrible way to spend a quick hour.
Review by comrade_yui ★★★

wish this leaned a lot more into the witchcraft vs. science angle instead of the odd academia drama, but universal has such a lock on the horror-tinged atmosphere that it's still an interesting time, and like night of the demon, it's one of the few non-sensationalist and accurate depictions of occultism in hollywood, and how its practitioners are easily persecuted by those who are tortured by synchronicities they do not have the mystical wisdom to comprehend.
Review by Dr. Ethan Lyon ★★½

1st Reginald LeBorg
A pedestrian adaptation of Fritz Leiber's 'Conjure Wife', cut down to little over sixty minutes, Weird Woman is one of the Inner Sanctum films made in the mid 40s, largely to capitalise on the success of Cat People and the revival of the B-Movie horror film it sparked. All films in the series star Lon Chaney Jr. in a leading role. Here, he's a college professor who brings a young woman experienced in witchcraft back to his college campus. If the plot sounds familiar, it's because Conjure Wife was made into 1961's 'Night of the Eagle', a film I'm not entirely a fan of, but is streets ahead of this adaptation.
There are a number of reasons…
Review by Joe ★★★ 2

She's a weird girl /
But I'm living with a weird girl
Step down from Inner Sanctum uno, but still fun, and Lon Chaney's whispering internal monologue makes a return engagement (I find out now that this is a motif throughout the Inner Sanctum series, good to know) (parentheses mean I'm whispering now).
Review by sarah

She isn't even that weird, Lon Chaney is just racist and hates women 😒
Review by Scrambled Face ★★★

Universal's second Inner Sanctum-branded thriller (after Calling Dr. Death) sees Lon Chaney, Jr. playing a star sociologist(!), whose rising stature among his academic peers might be due to the occult designs of his conspicuously younger wife (House of Frankenstein's Anne Gwynne). He met her on a trip to a Polynesian island, and as his jealous former flame (Captive Wild Woman's Evelyn Ankers) is happy to tell everyone at the college, she holds fast to her upbringing's heathen beliefs and practices. Despite knowing exactly who he married, enlightened intellectual Chaney arrogantly shits on her non-scientific worldview every chance he gets, even forcing her to burn all her sacred items, including a necklace that's her only memento of the woman who raised…
Review by Nuno Costa ★★★½

Viewed on DVD
Hoop-Tober X #94
Criteria:
- Country: USA
- Decade: 1940's
According to IMDB: Second of the six features in Universal's INNER SANCTUM series, which began December 6, 1943, and was released March 31, 1944.
Weird Woman (1944) has Lon Chaney playing a college professor who marries a "native girl" from the South Seas, and her superstitious believes and witchy practises, makes her and her new husband, very suspicious in the eyes of the other professors wives.
Weird Woman (1944) makes the fourth Inner Sanctum films I've seen, and one of the better ones in the series.
Review by mariocki ★★★★

This second Inner Sanctum Mystery is very nearly as charming as the first, with Lon Chaney Jr. - the Big Wet Cat of American horror cinema, all mournful eyes and hunched shoulders - once again at the mercy of his most dreadful foe: women. It's undeniably a silly little film, a weird blend of 'primitive' religious magic and academic-set intrigues, but it somehow absolutely works.
Lon is Lon, having an appropriately miserable time and all the more entertaining for it. Performances err on the side of large, approaching histrionic (particularly the young student who develops a crush on Chaney, and spends the film sighing dreamily and fluttering her eyelashes around him) but the runaway star here is Evelyn Ankers in…
Review by Headhunter666 ★★★

Inner Sanctum Mysteries #2
Professor Norman Reed verknallt sich in eine junge Frau namens Paula und heiratet sie noch während seines Urlaubs in der Südsee.
Voller Stolz kehr das Traute Glück in Norman´s Gemeinde zurück. Da dauert es nicht lange und dessen Freunde und Bekannte treten der jungen Dame äußerst misstrausch Gegenüber... Zu Recht?
Aberglaube, Voodoo, Geheimnisse, Verbrechen.
All diese Zutaten werden in einer sehr stimmungsvollen Inner Sanctum-Episode aus dem Hut gezaubert.
Die dekadente Gesellschaft gibt sich Fremden gegenüber nicht so offenherzig wie meist vorgeheuchelt und spindelt zeitnah deftige Intrigen.
Während die junge Paula nicht weiß wie ihr geschieht und sich in der neuen Lebenssituation erstmal zurecht finden muss, wird hinter ihrem Rücken schon fetzig gelästert und vor Mord wird auch nicht zurück geschreckt.
Schöne knackige und kurzweilige Unterhaltung mit famoser Atmosphäre. Zudem geht es auch recht twistig zur Sache.
Für eine Stunde Laufzeit wird viel reingepresst, sodass dieses leckere Betthupferl schon fast zu platzen droht...

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Weird Woman

Synopsis

WEAVING HER WEIRD DEAD SPELL OF VOODOO!

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Theatrical

01 Mar 1944

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USA

01 Mar 1944

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Weird Woman

Synopsis

WEAVING HER WEIRD DEAD SPELL OF VOODOO!

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Original Writer Original Writer

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Assistant Director Asst. Director

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01 Mar 1944

USA

01 Mar 1944

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