THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK (1946)

Jean (Brenda Joyce) arrives in the small western town of Domingo to begin a new job as a companion to Zenobia Dollard (Gale Sondergaard), a blind, wealthy and seemingly mild-mannered woman who can't seem to keep good companions—her last one, Betty, left abruptly to go back east. Jean is surprised to find that her ex-boyfriend Hal (Kirby Grant) lives in town, and still has hopes that the two of them will get back together, even though he gets only surface friendliness and no encouragement out of her. Living at the Dollard mansion with only Zenobia and a hulking mute servant named Mario (Rondo Hatton) is a little unsettling to Jean, especially when Zenoiba keeps gently forcing her to drink her nightly milk. We soon discover that the milk has a sleeping drug in it, and in the middle of the night, Zenobia, who is not really blind, comes to Jean's room, draws some of her blood, and feeds it to some poisonous plants in her greenhouse. What's up with that? Could it have something to do with cattle in the area which are dying off mysteriously? When Jean tries to correspond with Betty but has her letters returned at undeliverable, she becomes suspicious. Sure enough, Zenobia's blood-drawing weakens her victims; she killed Betty and will certainly have to take care of Jean soon, unless poor, unloved Hal can save the day.

This is a fairly mild late entry in the Universal horror cycle of the 1940s. The title is a total fake-out; though there are spiders involved somehow in the poisoning, they aren't crucial to the plot, or I never figured out how. Rather, the title refers to the fact that, a few years before, Sondergaard played the title villain in a Sherlock Holmes movie called THE SPIDER WOMAN. But this has nothing to do with that movie, and darned little to do with spiders. I'm not even sure that it should be called a horror movie; it's more a variation on the mystery genre with a damsel in distress in a spooky house. Sondergaard does her best to bring some sense of mystery and menace to the movie, but the low budget and the other actors defeat her. Brenda Joyce (Jane in some of the late 1940s Tarzan movie) and Kirby Grant (better known to me as TV's Sky King) are fairly bland, and are kept apart for the most of the film by their uncomfortable relationship. Actually, more examination of the two of them might have added some interest. A so-so film at best, recommended mostly for fans of Sondergaard. [YouTube]