THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK (1946) was made toward the end of what is called Universal's "Silver Age" of thrillers and chillers. The movie is not a sequel to the studio's Sherlock Holmes entry THE SPIDER WOMAN, despite having the same star, Gale Sondergaard.
A young woman named Jean (Brenda Joyce) returns to her small home town to take a job as a caretaker to a wealthy blind woman with the spectacular name of Zenobia Dollard (Gale Sondergaard). Jean starts to experience weird events at Zenobia's creepy old house, and the intimidating-looking servant (Rondo Hatton) doesn't help matters. Jean learns that Zenobia is conducting bizarre experiments in order to get revenge on the local townsfolk.
I had never seen THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK, and I must admit that it is a lackluster affair. The production feels like a throwaway--it is only an hour long--and it does not have the usual elements that are beloved by Universal classic horror fans. Brenda Joyce (who was also at the time playing Jane in the Tarzan movie series) isn't very charismatic, and while Gale Sondergaard is fine as always, her character is underwhelming. Rondo Hatton has very little to do, other than just appear and look like....Rondo Hatton. (During one scene it seems that Hatton has feelings for Jean, but this never goes anywhere.) Unlike most of his other Universal appearances there is no attempt here to bulk up Hatton or make him look bigger than he was, which negates his supposedly fearsome presence.
The director of this film, Arthur Lubin had only a few years ago helmed Universal's splashy color remake of THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA. He probably wasn't too happy to get a low-budget flick with an unexciting screenplay.
The folks at Kino must have realized that a Blu-ray of a mediocre hour-long black & white movie needed some juice. They actually provide a "making-of" featurette on this disc, entitled MISTRESS OF MENACE AND MURDER: MAKING THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK, which has genre experts such as C. Courtney Joyner, Bob Burns, and others. Joyner comes right out and calls STRIKES BACK a "bad movie". There's also a discussion of the life of Rondo Hatton. The featurette runs about ten minutes.
Classic Universal expert Tom Weaver does the new audio commentary on this Blu-ray. He doesn't like STRIKES BACK either, and he gets plenty of opportunity to make sarcastic comments, but with a movie like this you can't blame him. Weaver does give out plenty of relevant info, such as there was labor unrest in Hollywood during the film's shoot, and he allows David Schecter to talk about the complicated music score. The trailer for THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK is also here, which has footage that is not in the actual film. This Blu-ray is coded Region A, and the sound and picture quality is okay.
THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK is definitely for hard-core classic Universal fans. Kino should get credit for providing some interesting extras for it. If the movie had been made by Monogram or PRC, and starred Bela Lugosi, it might have been even sillier.....but it also would have been more entertaining.
Another bad movie that I've managed to miss all these years! I want to get a copy of this just for the pleasure of hearing Tom Weaver getting sarcastic. Looks like I need to pay another visit to the Kino website. Yikes...there goes the bank balance!
ReplyDelete