The Spider Woman Strikes Back (1946) User Reviews

This movie gets a bum rap!

[scampello · 7/10 · 8 February 2013]

Having read the other reviews of this movie, I am struck with the idea that people must have been expecting another Dracula or Frankenstein or The Black Cat. This movie is emblematic of dozens of B horror films of the period that were fun to watch but were hardly great art. It adds the distinction of great atmospherics: the "old dark house", the fabulously creepy Rondo Hatton, the deliciously evil Gale Sondegaard and the handsome, wholesome hero, Kirby Grant. Citizen Kane it ain't, but in the context of films like "Fog Island", "The 13th Guest", or "a Shriek in the Night" it was certainly more enjoyable. Plot wise, it incorporates elements of vampire flicks (blood sucking), wolf man flicks (rare plant research), and the good versus evil conflict within Rondo Hatton's character. Oscar material? Hardly, but great fun. Lighten up people!

Hokey fun with the darkest of all dark ladies.

[mark.waltz · 5/10 · 6 September 2016]

A decade before this film, the exotically beautiful Gale Sondergaard had won an Oscar for being the not quite noble servant Faith in "Anthony Adverse", and followed this up with a decade of equally sinister characters. Her role as the villain in a Sherlock Holmes film was her most silky smooth spider woman to date, so Universal followed that up, giving her real spiders as co-stars as well as the deformed Rondo Hatton who speaks not a word but presents a gentle demeanor underneath his imposing figure.

The lovely heroine in danger at their hands as the newly hired secretary/companion to the allegedly blind Sondergaard who has a mysterious and evil agenda concerning each of her secretaries, becoming wonderfully evil in the scene where she reveals her plans. You can't take these B movies as anything but fun camp, and Sondergaard gives it her all. No matter her distaste for the story or quality considering her talent, she never lets it show. At only an hour, this is harmless, wonderful watchable fun, a perfect addition to any double bill.

Not great but watchable time killer

[utgard14 · 5/10 · 8 July 2022]

It's hard to hate anything with Gale Sondergaard in it. This subpar Universal thriller is light on thrills or chills. It's not much fun either. It does move quickly, however. As I realized the film was reaching its climax I was surprised as I thought it had only been on maybe half an hour. Outside of Sondergaard and (visually, at least) Rondo Hatton, the cast is pretty forgettable. The script is riddled with holes, too. When the villain reveals their big master plan I guarantee you'll say "Wait, what? Really? But what about..." It's that kind of movie. Still, it's watchable enough. Fans of Universal's horror classics from this period will enjoy it more than most.

Good but nothing special

[dbborroughs · 6/10 · 25 January 2009]

In name only sequel to the film Sherlock Holmes movie Sherlock Holmes and the Spider Woman. The plot here has a young woman staying at a house with a strange woman named Zenobia (played by Gale Sondergaard from the Holmes film)as a house keeper/companion. Unknown to the young woman is the fact that Zenobia is draining her of some blood every night to feed to her plants. Standard but somewhat awkward thriller isn't bad, but isn't anything special. The film feels like a program horror film where they just sort of threw elements together and hoped that they stuck. Is it a horror film or a pseudo-Holmes film? Its never really clear and the film suffers for it. The producers even went so far as to put another connection to the Holmes series by having Rondo Hatton as a mute Handyman, but he isn't given much to do other then look menacing.. Its good but nothing special.

Not what it appears to be.

[lugosi2002us · 6/10 · 22 April 2003]

This movie promises to be a sequel to the Sherlock Holmes movie, "The Spider Woman". It isn't. True, Gale Sondergard is the villainess and "Spider Woman" is in the title, but that's where any similarity ends. It's not a horrible film, but it's disappointing to tease the viewer with the promise of something that isn't there.

Rondo Hatton plays a mute, deformed servant. Too bad that he was so exploited.

I do wish Universal had made this a true sequel to the Holmes film. It would have been more interesting.

First seen on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater in 1965

[kevinolzak · 4/10 · 10 December 2013]

1946's "The Spider Woman Strikes Back" has no connection to the 1943 Sherlock Holmes feature "The Spider Woman" (a series was intended then wisely dropped). Gale Sondergaard is back of course, this time as Miss Zenobia Dollard, faking blindness as she milks her varied nurses of blood on a nightly basis (food for her poison-producing plants), making any number of excuses to explain away their absences. Brenda Joyce ("Strange Confession," "Pillow of Death," "Danger Woman"), best remembered as a very chaste Jane in five Sol Lesser Tarzan entries, makes for a dull heroine indeed, slow to catch on as to why she's developed a habit of sleeping in late, with former Creeper Rondo Hatton reduced in stature as mute manservant Mario, billed on the posters as 'The Monster Man,' doing little except skulk around in the dark, plus a bit of sign language (there is an indication that he may have some interest in this current nurse, but nothing comes of it). Kirby Grant is a colorless hero, and dependable Milburn Stone is wasted as an agricultural expert. Gale Sondergaard later acknowledged this film's reputation as a campy cult classic, but it never lives up to such high ideals; watchable, but far too slack in its pacing. Either overrated or underrated, this SHOCK! title made an astounding 8 appearances on Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater (only the fourth Universal to debut in the fall of 1965, last appearing in 1983).

Decent

[Michael_Elliott · 28 February 2008]

Spider Woman Strikes Back, The (1946)

** (out of 4)

Rare and forgotten Universal horror film has a nurse going to a creepy house to take care of a blind woman. The blind woman actually has her sight and is poisoning cows so that she can run the farmers off. Sound dumb? It's actually very dumb and the title is quite misleading, although I guess they were trying to cash in on the Sherlock Holmes film. This is the type of film where you keep waiting for something to happen but it never does. The performances are all rather dry as is the direction but it does move at a nice pace making the 57-minutes go by very fast. Jack Pierce is credited as the makeup artist yet there's no makeup in the film!

Rondo Hatton's final movie

[Stevieboy666 · 6/10 · 26 September 2021]

Despite the title and the fact that Gale Sondegaard stars in both films this is not a sequel to the Sherlock Holmes movie "The Spider Woman". Brenda Joyce plays Jean Kinsley, a young woman who gains employment as a companion to the apparently blind Zenobia Dollard (Sondegaard). However Zenobia is a cunning mad scientist, who with the help of her creepy butler/assistant Mario (Rondo Hatton) is cultivating carnivorous plants in order to drive away the farmers off land that her family once owned. The film is well filmed, fast paced and has an eerie feel to it, helped by the musical score, however the plot is pretty daft and the fiery finale is a bit weak. But the most appealing thing for me is Rondo Hatton, one of the most recognisable classic horror stars. He suffered with a growth defect called acromegaly which resulted in enlargement of the facial bones, hands etc, and unlike Lon Chaney, Boris Karloff, and so on he requited no make up to turn him into a "brute". Strikes Back was released after his tragic death.

The Spider Woman strikes back...in a film that has nothing to do with the first Spider Woman film.

[The_Void · 5/10 · 17 June 2009]

This film is not as well known as the earlier Universal flick The Spider Woman; and that's because this one isn't a part of the Sherlock Holmes series, isn't nearly as good, and actually has nothing at all to do with spiders. The plot focuses on a young girl that goes to become a nurse in a blind woman's house. However, it turns out that the woman is not really blind and is actually taking blood from the girl in order to feed it to her plant, which ties in with some plot about murdering cows. Aside from the fact that this film features Gale Sondergaard, I really don't see any similarity to The Spider Woman at all - she doesn't even reprise her role! The name, therefore, is just a cash-in on the success of the original. It's the sort of trick I'd expect from Italian films of the seventies and eighties, but not something often done by Universal studios! You can't blame them, though, as the film really does have no other selling points. It's a poor and rather dull tale. Nothing of interest happens for the entire duration, and I'm not surprised that it only runs for about fifty eight minutes. Overall, there's really no reason to track this film down - Sherlock Holmes fans will not be impressed!

Three Strikes and She's Out

[snicewanger · 5/10 · 20 July 2015]

Gale Sondergaard was terribly misused by Universal Studio's. She had a great talent but was wasted in grade Z film's such as this tripe. Two years before she had made a big impression as one Sherlock Holmes most diabolical and resourceful adversaries in "The Spider Woman" 1944. She and Basil Rathbone were wonderful as they tried to one up each other right to the end. This movie promised to be a return of that original character. But that wasn't the case.It's a mystery with more plot holes the you could imagine with a story line that makes very little sense.

Brenda Joyce is the damsel in distress, and Kirby Grant is her rescuer and hero of the story. Grant went on to play Sky King a decade later. Rondo Hatton is around to be sinister but is just sort of "there".

You can figure out what's going on fairly quickly. The question becomes WHY is it going on. When that WHY is reveled at the end of the film it's totally unsatisfying. If you are are a Sondergaard fan you will like the way she gives it her all to keep things going. She's the only reason to watch this picture. Beyond that there really isn't anything to recommend The Spider Woman Strikes Back.

Under appreciated Rondo gem!

[CathodeRayTerrors · 10/10 · 29 April 2022]

Thanks to Kino Lorber we are able to enjoy what is the best quality sound and picture Spider Woman has ever had. Fingers crossed they also release The Brute Man, House of Horrors and The Basil Rathbone Pearl film that's name escapes me right now.

I'm sure someone wonder why I scored this film so high considering the average is much lower. I am a long time fan of Rondo Hatton and Universal Horror films in general. Perhaps I'm a bit biased but when you watch these films now you have to watch them through a certain lens. You're not gonna get slick productions or special effects but you don't need them.

Spider Woman Strikes Back was an attempt to cash in on Gaye Sondergaard's previous Sherlock Holmes film but that doesn't mean this film isn't beautifully filmed or well written, because it is.

The only thing I would've done different is have the reveal of the green room lab more dramatic and the other reveal, which I'm not going to spoil, done differently where the Jean character entraps the Spider Woman. But these are minor things. If you enjoy classic Universal films you'll appreciate this one.

A weak Universal potboiler.

[BA_Harrison · 3/10 · 19 March 2023]

Gale Sondergaard and Rondo Hatton, both of whom played villains in the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films, join forces in this creaky Z-grade thriller that, despite the title, has zero connection with the 1943 Holmes adventure The Spider Woman.

Sondergaard plays supposedly blind woman Zenobia Dollard who hires pretty young Jean Kingsley (Brenda Joyce) to be her assistant. Rondo Hatton is Mario, Zenobia's disfigured, dumb henchman, who aids in drugging Jean so that they can extract her blood, using it do nourish the carnivorous plants growing in the basement. Zenobia's plan is to use the plants' petals to poison local livestock and buy back the farmland that once belonged to her family, paying rock-bottom prices.

This weak plot struggles to sustain the incredibly slight runtime of 59 minutes, the action padded out with pointless scenes at the local store, of farmers struggling to understand what is happening to their cattle, and Jean wandering around the house at night. Sondergaard makes for a great villainess, and Hatton is suitably creepy, so it's a shame that the film is so mundane, the mystery not worthy of either performer.

The ending is extremely abrupt, director Arthur Lubin seemingly in a hurry to wrap things up (and not a moment too soon): one second, Jean is making her way to her bedroom, the next she is in the clutches of Zenobia and Mario, having their nefarious scheme explained to her (for the benefit of any viewer still awake by this point). Jean's romantic interest, local farmer Hal (Kirby Grant), suspects that something is wrong and so Zenobia orders Mario to burn the evidence, the blaze claiming the lives of both villains. Jean is rescued from the inferno by Hal, who makes a gag about warm milk. The end.

3/10.

Come into my parlour!

[seance-64749 · 4/10 · 14 December 2018]

The Spider woman strikes back, 1946 with Gale Sondergaard is a tad better than you might suppose. Old dark house, a mystery to solve re previous female companion to Zenobia. New female being doped up, cattle which are falling prey to a strange malady! Creepy goings on in house like nocturnal sounds coming somewhere adjacent to step in closet of bedroom. Sondergaard is fine in her part and film moves along at a steady pace!

Unworthy follow-up

[gridoon2024 · 4/10 · 31 December 2020]

Cheaply made and slow moving; promoted as a follow-up to the Sherlock Holmes adventure "The Spider Woman", but has little to do with it (there is only one small scene even featuring spiders!). Brenda Joyce is beautiful but bland in the lead; Gale Sondergaard is fine but not particularly well-served by the script. Unlike Leonard Maltin, I didn't find this film all that campy - just dull. *1/2 out of 4, mainly for the fire at the end which is not badly done considering the budget.

THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK (Arthur Lubin, 1946) *1/2

[Bunuel1976 · 2/10 · 28 April 2006]

Despite the title and the presence of two of Sherlock Holmes' most formidable nemesis (Gale Sondergaard and Rondo Hatton - hilariously named Zenobia and Mario respectively!), this is one lame film which has nothing whatsoever to do with one of the better Universal Sherlock Holmes entries. As a matter of fact, the story is weak, the premise far-fetched, the resolution predictable and the treatment uninspired! Besides, the fiery climax is clumsily executed and Hatton's fidgeting...er...sign language eventually gets on one's nerves! It's fair to say, then, that director Lubin fared much better with the other two 'horror' films he made for the studio - BLACK Friday (1940) and PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1943), even if these weren't completely satisfying either...

Kinda sequel

[BandSAboutMovies · 5/10 · 4 November 2021]

There was a second Universal horror cycle after the Karloff and Lugosi monsters, even if they never get discussed any longer. And so much of it was based around one man, Rondo Hatton.

Well, Sherlock Holmes too. We'll get to that.

Hatton was once a sportswriter for The Tampa Tribune and a World War I veteran, but then cromegaly distorted the shape of his head, face and extremities, giving him a unique look that made him a livings special effect. In fact, the studio system tried to play his looks up as an even worse defomity, sating that he'd received elephantiasisafter xposure German mustard gas attack during the war.

After playing the Hoxton Creeper in the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes film The Pearl of Death, a series of Creeper films was planned. Sadly, House of Horrors and The Brute Man were released after his death, the result of shis acromegalic condition.

Back to the master detective.

The second character spun off from a Holmes film was The Spider Woman, who originally appeared in Sherlock Holmes and the Spider Woman. Again, like Hatton, Gale Sondergaard didn't need much makeup to achieve her fame as a dangerous and evil woman.

In fact, after the success of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, MGM considered having the Wicked Witch of the West in The Wizard of Oz played as a glamorous villainess, much like Snow White's evil stepmother. They did two screentests with Sondergaard in the traditional witch look and the more out there sexy style. After the decision was made to go with the ugly wicked witch, Sondergaard was reluctant to wear the disfiguring makeup, so she stepped away from the role which went to Margaret Hamilton.

Sondergaard also played the evi humanized cat Tylette in The Blue Bird - 20th Century Fox's answer to Oz - as well as the sinister wife in The Letter.

So yes, back once again to Holmes. After playing the villain in one of the long series of Sherlock movies, Sondergaard would play the sinister Spider Woman again in an unrelated sequel. In the first movie, she was known as Adrea Spedding but now she's the wealthy, blind and mysterious Zenobia Dollard.

Jean (Brenda Joyce, who played Jane in several Tarzan films) is hired as Zenobia's caretaker, a job with a definite shelf life as all of the previous caretakers have vanished. Perhaps that's because at night, Zeonbia's severant (yep, Rondo Hatton) harvests her blood while she sleeps a drugged sleep, mixing her plasma with that of her ancestors and a little bit of spider venom - sounds like one of my cocktails - to make a death serum. Oh yeah - he has blood drinking plants to help him with his experiment!

At just 59 minutes and with direction by non-horror fan Arthur Lubin, this film couldn't catch on the same way Universal's past horror successes did. Yet it's still astounding that they attempted to start a new series, much less one with a female antaognist. That said, this did run quite often on TV, as it was part of the original Universal Shock Theater package.

Needs more legs.

[bombersflyup · 2/10 · 8 May 2023]

The Spider Woman Strikes Back doesn't engage in its short run-time, yet still has filler.

As soon as Jean arrives, she's drugged and drained of blood, leaving almost no intrigue. When she begins to question things, feel in danger and sneak around, you wonder why she doesn't just try to leave. The viewer waits for something to happen, which never does. The plot's somewhat grand, but the execution thin and dull. The dialogue's weak, for what little there is and none of the roles are well performed or characters memorable. The joke in the final moment is just weird too. Nothing about this film really works, though it's not horrible or anything.

Spider woman again but not really a sequel

[searchanddestroy-1 · 17 January 2024]

I think I prefer this one to the Sherlock Holmes' adventuure yarn starring the same Gale Sondergard in the lead evil role. This very movie directed by Arthur Lubin may remind you some Jacques Tourneur's gems for RKO and produced by Val Lewton on the stories, mystery and horror mix-up, but certainly not on the atmosphere, so typical in Lewton's productions, Tourneur, Wise, Robson.... This one starring Brenda Joyce and Gale Sondergard is worth mostly because of both of them. For the story.... That's not the most exciting but I still prefer this one to the SH movie, which already was the least I liked in the series. Good little Universal horror flick anyway. No reason to miss it.