WEIRD WOMAN (1944)

 

THE CREEPING BRIDE: Monroe College sociology professor Norman Reed (Lon Chaney, Jr.) is jinxed. A "mental giant" and a rising star, Reed has just returned from a jaunt somewhere in the tropical isles of the South Seas; he has brought back with him new research for a groundbreaking study on religion called Superstition vs. Science and Fact and a new wife, a lovely woman-child native priestess named Paula (Anne Gwynne). He seemed to be on the fast-track to becoming department chair, but that's when things spiraled out of control: his colleague Professor Millard Sawtelle (Ralph Morgan) shot himself to avoid a possible plagiarism scandal; Sawtelle's Lady Macbethian wife Evelyn (Elizabeth Russell) accuses Reed and his "witch" of engineering the scandal; and nasty rumors that Reed "has taken advantage of" his pretty undergraduate research assistant (Lois Collier, who may have been recognized by some SHOCK! viewers for her recurring appearances between 1951 and 1953 on Ziv's "Boston Blackie" TV show) dog him all over campus-- in fact, Reed is said to have beaten up his assistant's boyfriend when the latter tried to defend her honor. Then, while Paula continues to be the target of terrorizing harassment by Reed's bitter ex-lover Ilona (Evelyn Ankers), there is shooting on campus and the blame falls on Reed.

Ad for KUTV-Channel 2's "Shock Theater" with horror-host Roderick in Salt Lake [UT] Tribune, February 27, 1960. COUNTER-ESPIONAGE (1942) was one of the "Lone Wolf" mystery-thrillers

As I've said previously when I've written about the Inner Sanctum series in the SHOCK! collection, these were popular with audiences when they were first released and when theatrically re-released (WEIRD WOMAN made the rounds again starting in 1952). I've also seen a few of them turn up as special midnight spook shows, so Screen Gems' inclusion of these titles in SHOCK! was probably viewed as a selling point for the package.

San Antonio [TX] Light, June 6, 1957. What a Universal horror drive-in line-up! WEIRD WOMAN (the typo that pluralizes the title is actually more accurate considering what happens in the movie) is shown here on Monday night with NIGHT MONSTER.

The Daily Republic, Mitchell, SD, February 24, 1961

Many fans seem to like WEIRD WOMAN best; I prefer it because there is at least a not-easily-explained-away supernatural thread that runs through this picture that you don't find in the other five films of the series. But I also like it because of the almost campy level of neurotic hysteria that energizes everything here, particularly Paula, Ilona, and Evelyn (when all is said and done, who is the titular weird woman, anyway?).

Ordinarily, watching WEIRD WOMAN elicits a few harsh hoots of derisive laughter from me, but I made a very conscientious effort to watch it in good faith this time for the SHOCK! Viewing Project. Lon Chaney, Jr. still seems miscast as the brilliant and desirable intellectual, and his acting cannot keep up with the work done here by Gwynne, Ankers, and Russell, but I wanted to avoid thinking about that and just try to focus on the persistence of supernatural elements in an effort to recreate the horror-movie-on-TV experience as best as I could. And I feel that I largely succeeded-- I think that I could see WEIRD WOMAN's horror movie appeal for the first time.

A big stumbling block for me, though, was the handling of the dance and prayer ceremony on Paula's island. In Drums o' Terror: Voodoo in the Cinema (1998), Bryan Senn describes this more as "a genteel luau" than a "frenzied rite": "Though Paula ominously labels it the 'Dance of Death,' sarong-wearing native girls pathetically stomp their feet and clap and wave their hands in an innocuously choreographed motion, making this weird pagan ritual look like low-rent nightclub filler." I have to wonder if the ceremony could have had a more disturbing edge in the hands of a director other than Reginald LeBorg (John Fulton's shooting star that crosses the sky at the climax of the Dance of Death looked good, though).

The Dunkirk Evening Observer, Dunkirk-Fredonia, NY, January 14, 1958

I enjoy seeing some of the names that television stations used for their late-night movies-on-TV showcases. "Operation: Swing Shift" on WGR-Channel 2 in Buffalo, NY is one of the most unusual names. "Operation: Swing Shift" featured a variety of film genres in their offerings and very few of them seemed to have been horror films.

 

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 Trailer:

Newspaper Ads:

Palladium Item, May 5, 1944

The Courier Sun, April 28, 1946

CHINATOWN SQUAD (1935)

THE CREEPING BRIDE: Shady importer/exporter and "high-class con man" Albert Raybold is stabbed in the heart with a fork (!!) one night in a private booth at the Peking Café in San Francisco's Chinatown. A number of the restaurant patrons are suspects: Raybold's secretary George Mason (Andy Devine), international tea dealer William Ward, businessman Claude Palmer, restaurant manager Quong Su, and restaurant owner (and presumably tong elder) John Yee. Details surrounding Raybold's dirty dealings complicate things as it is learned that he was in the midst of a transaction to sell fighter planes to Communist rebels in Fuzhou at the time of his death-- $70,000 of the rebels' money held by Raybold has gone missing, as has a packet of incriminating letters written to him by a mysterious Woman in Black (Valerie Hobson) and a valuable jade ring.

(Whoever wrote up the synopsis for this movie on TCM's website describes "a mystical jade ring" which "gives its wearer the power to do irreparable harm to his enemies," but this makes it sound like a prequel to THE LORD OF THE RINGS or something. Actually, the ring is like a letter of introduction or a password or a secret handshake that can give its enterprising wearer entry into the darkest and most lucrative corners of the Chinese criminal and political underworlds. After all, if the ring was so powerful, how come it didn't protect Raybold from being forked to death?)

Another diner at the Peking Café at the time of Raybold's murder is ex-cop Ted Lacey (Lyle Talbot), formerly of the SFPD's elite Chinatown Squad but presently a neighborhood tour-bus guide (Jake Gittes, he ain't). Lacey's accidental involvement in the Raybold case reminds him of how much he enjoyed being part of the Chinatown Squad despite his conflicts with his sergeant, McLeash. Before long, Lacey joins forces with the Woman in Black and works with the squad to put all the clues together to solve Raybold's killing; he also squeezes a confession out of the killer and personally drives him to SFPD headquarters in a stolen police patrol van where the chief offers him his old job back with a promotion.

CHINATOWN SQUAD is one of those utterly monster-less, non-horror movies that Screen Gems tucked into the SHOCK! bundle. It's a fast-paced B-movie whodunit (written by Dore Schary) brimming with light banter and humorous touches (a reviewer on IMDb likened it to a "Thin Man" movie, but that's going way too far). Lyle Talbot's Lacey spends much of his time making wisecracks, needling Sgt. McLeash, and chuckling and grinning... in the still shown below, he has just slammed the door of the Chinatown Squad office and shattered the glass; he smiles and makes some dumb joke before running off and leaving McLeash impotently fuming. Such jackassery is typical of Lacey in this movie and it gets tedious quickly.

The Chinatown Squad was a special unit of the San Francisco police organized in the late 1870s that was re-activated in 1921 in the midst of concern with the alarming number of homicides in that neighborhood linked to tong control of prostitution, narcotics, smuggling, gambling, illegal immigration, extortion, and municipal political corruption. But in this movie the squad comes across like a bunch of inept clowns, a day late and a dollar short for whatever is going on. McLeash's mugging is especially grating; at one point, he takes a pratfall off of the Sausalito ferry pier while tailing Lacey and Yee. A darker murder-mystery melodrama about Chinatown's crime world would've been a better fit for SHOCK!-- CHINATOWN SQUAD is very light-weight.

(Oddly, the publicity photo of Talbot that Screen Gems uses for CHINATOWN SQUAD in the SHOCK! booklet is older, heavier, and has grayer hair than the guy in this movie. Actually, it looks more like the Talbot of GLEN OR GLENDA? [1953] and JAIL BAIT [1954].

January 7th EDIT: Thanks to doctor kiss for emailing me the following shots of Lyle Talbot from JAIL BAIT, confirming for me that this was the source for Screen Gems publicity photo.)

Lyle Talbot as Inspector Johns in Ed Wood, Jr.'s JAIL BAIT (1954)

Probably the only saving grace here for Universal horror-movie lovers is Valerie Hobson as Janet Baker, the black-clad mystery woman. Hobson was supposed to be all of 18 years-old in 1935; immediately previous to CHINATOWN SQUAD, Hobson had appeared in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN and WEREWOLF OF LONDON.

She's cool and lovely in this movie; surprisingly, she spends the last reel in a yellowface disguise meant to elude the Chinatown Squad (Lacey jokingly calls her "Ming Toy," a reference to Lupe Velez's character in Universal's EAST IS WEST [1930]). There are supposed to be romantic sparks between Hobson's character and Talbot's in this movie, but I didn't see them. Still, this film is worth watching just to see Hobson-- she's simply radiant (as usual) here.

Daily Review, Hayward, CA, March 11, 1960

After its syndicated release through SHOCK! and right up until 1979, CHINATOWN SQUAD appeared on television mostly in the morning and late afternoon time-slots. When it did show up at night, it was often as just a late show movie rather than part of a named "Shock Theater" or "Creature Feature" program. But it did make it into those showcases every once in a while. In an essay called "'Shock Theater' Memories," writer Rich Scrivani (I recommend his 2006 book Goodnight, Whatever You Are! My Journey with Zacherley, the Cool Ghoul) recalls: "Occasionally the supernatural aura of 1958 would be dispelled when some questionable entries would run. Titles like CHINATOWN SQUAD […] padded out the series. While we can enjoy them for their place in Universal history now, they were unwanted intruders at the time, tepid 'B' mysteries, holding no interest whatsoever for kids who wanted monsters."

 

For fans of zippy B-movie mysteries of the 1930s, there are worse ways to spend an hour than CHINATOWN SQUAD. But, as Scrivani says, for monster-crazy kids who waited all week to stay up late for SHOCK!, this movie must have been an aggravating and unsatisfactory viewing experience.

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Added Commentary, Newspaper Ads, etc.

MIREK: I enjoyed this film a bit more than CREEPING BRIDE regarding the constant ribbing and puns of the Talbot character. (Interesting last name, too!) But I was also interested in a minor player who doesn't get mentioned in the credits: Toshia Mori, who worked in smaller roles, but managed to take over the legendary Anna May Wong in THE BITTER TEA OF GENERAL YEN. She had already worked on two films with Wong, though in minor roles. Since she was born in Japan, one wonders if the Pearl Harbor attack and subsequent war with Japan had any negative repercussions for her. In CHINATOWN SQUAD she plays a telephone operator in Chinatown who has several speaking lines to Talbot and is one of the more memorable people in this film. Also on hand is James B. Leong, an actor who has a very lengthy list of very small parts in Hollywood. This after trying to get a Chinese-American production company started on the West Coast.

Spokane Chronicle, Jun 7, 1935

Honolulu Star Bulletin, Oct 19, 1935

Honolulu Star Bulletin, Oct 19, 1935

Original SHOCK Photo

Here an original unretouched SHOCK photo. These type of photos were given to television stations to promote their showing of a SHOCK picture, in this case THE CAT CREEPS.

At the bottom is an explanation of what is pictured, and below a copyright notice, 1958, and that the photo is the property of Screen Gems. Note that the umbrella show is just SHOCK, not SHOCK THEATRE.