Weird Woman Shines Its Spotlight on Three Unsung Actresses

Lon Chaney, Jr. and Evelyn Ankers.

Fritz Leiber's 1943 supernatural novel Conjure Wife has been adapted for the screen three times. The best version is 1962's Burn, Witch, Burn (aka Night of the Eagle), an exceptionally chilling tale about academic ambition and witchcraft--real or imagined. It's one of the finest horror films of the 1960s. Witches' Brew (1980) takes a comedic approach with unimpressive results. That brings us to the first film version, the oddly-titled Weird Woman (1944), which was the second entry in Universal's Inner Sanctum series starring Lon Chaney, Jr.

Lon stars as Norman Reed, a professor at Monroe College who seems destined to become the new head of the sociology department. Norman's wife, Paula, struggles to fit in among the academic set. Of course, they don't know that she was raised on a South Seas island by a voodoo high priestess.

Anne Gwynne as Paula.

Sensing evil in her new surroundings, she has cast a spell of protection over her husband and herself. Norman, an adamant skeptic, finds her voodoo charms and burns them. With the spell broken, Norman's life falls apart: he loses the department chair, stands accused of inappropriate advances by a young female student, and gets arrested for murder. Could a spurned colleague be behind Norman's destruction?

The central theme in the later Burn, Witch, Burn is the rationalization of magic. Norman finds himself having to work harder, as his plight worsens, to explain events which his wife simply attributes to witchcraft. At the end, even he has to accept that some things cannot be easily reasoned away. Weird Woman takes a more conventional--but still interesting--approach. Once the culprit is identified, Norman and friends employ psychology to instill fear to the point of a confession.

Although Norman is the protagonist, strong female characters dominate Weird Woman--and they're played convincingly by Anne Gwynne, Evelyn Ankers, and Elizabeth Russell.

Gwynne spent most of her career saddled with insignificant parts. However, she personifies insecurity, vulnerability, and fear as Paula. By the way, Gwynne became one of the most popular pin-up girls for American servicemen during World War II.

The lovely Evelyn Ankers (shown on right) was the resident "scream queen" for Universal's 1940s horror films. She even co-starred with Chaney, Jr. in The Wolf Man and The Ghost of Frankenstein. In Weird Woman, she gets to play the villain--and she's fabulous. But Universal failed to take notice of her acting range and she left the studio in 1945. She retired from acting five years later at the age of 32. She was married to actor Richard Denning.

Elizabeth Russell.

The real cast stand-out, though, is Elizabeth Russell, who plays the widow of one of Norman's colleagues. She holds Norman and Paula responsible for her husband's suicide--and her caged fury is a sight to behold. My wife recognized Russell and her piercing eyes instantly from Val Lewton's marvelous The Curse of the Cat People, in which her character tries to murder a young girl. Russell appeared uncredited in several Lewton films. Like Gwynne and Ankers, it's hard to fathom why she wasn't groomed for more meaningful parts or at least more substantial supporting roles.

If you only see one version of Fritz Leiber's novel, then your choice must be Burn, Witch, Burn. But once you've seen it, I encourage you to seek out this lesser, but still worthwhile, version is that buoyed by three actresses who deserved better.

31 Days of Halloween: College Politics Take a Unexpected Turn in Burn, Witch, Burn

The film's alternate title is NIGHT OF THE EAGLE.

Richard Matheson and Charles Beaumont were frequent contributors to The Twilight Zone, being responsible for some of that series’ most memorable episodes. So, it should come as no surprise that their adaptation of Fritz Leiber’s novel Conjure Wife is a thoughtful, genuinely spooky excursion into the world of contemporary witchcraft.

Janet Blair as Tansy.

Peter Wyngarde plays Norman Taylor, an up-and-coming professor at Hempnell Medical College in a small English town. In fact, Norman appears to be the favorite to take over as chair of one of the most important academic departments. His male colleagues don’t seem to mind—they like Norman, some even admire him—but the wives of his peers are not pleased at all. They resent Norman and his attractive, intelligent wife Tansy, whom they dub “the newcomers.” Tansy (Janet Blair) is acutely aware of this resentment, noting that she doesn’t enjoy the weekly bridge night with “petty scholars and jealous bickering wives.”

But that’s the least of Tansy’s problems. You see, she dabbles in witchcraft—just a little here and there to protect Norman and bring him luck. Unfortunately, she has become aware of “other forces”—powerful, evil ones—intent on bringing harm to her husband. As for Norman, he is oblivious to all of this, having started his last lecture by scrawling on the blackboard: “I do not believe.”

For most of its running time, Burn, Witch, Burn (known as Night of the Eagle in Britain) places the viewer in the shoes of Norman: We start out as non-believers, but gradually encounter inexplicable events that compel us to re-evaluate whether or not we do believe. The only flaw in this otherwise intelligent exercise in suggestive horror is a climax that shows too much (and not in a convincing way as in Curse of the Demon).

Janet Blair, as the sympathetic heroine, anchors the film. She’s a marvel in my favorite scene, which takes place after the bridge party. As Norman plays frivolously with a deck of cards, Tansy senses the presence of evil in the room. She begins to search the den, slowly at first and then more frantically, explaining (badly) that she’s looking for a lost grocery list. When she finds a hidden evil charm, her subtle look of horror is perfectly realized.

The wonderful Kathleen Byron.

The rest of cast lends exceptional support, especially Margaret Johnson as a professor who is married to one of Norman’s colleagues. I only wish that Kathleen Byron, so brilliant as Sister Ruth in Black Narcissus, had more to do.

The academic setting, with the campus’s cold stone statues, contributes nicely to the atmosphere. One suspects, too, that Matheson and Beaumont were injecting some dark humor into the proceedings by suggesting that successful academic careers are a result of witchcraft.

Other versions of Conjure Wife pale beside this one. Lon Chaney, Jr. starred in Weird Woman (1944), an okay entry in the Inner Sanctum film series. Witches Brew (1980) was played for laughs, with Teri Garr as the bewitching spouse.

(Note: The U.S. version includes a prologue against a black screen in which Orson Welles discusses the history of witchcraft and casts a spell to protect the audience during its viewing of the film.)