Reginald Le Borg directs this horror and mystery film from the Inner Sanctum franchise. Professor Norman Reed (Lon Chaney, Jr.) falls in love with a beautiful woman, he meets while on vacation in the South Seas. He returns to his college community to some excitement over his new book and mixed emotions about his exotic new wife Paula (Anne Gwynne). She is given a cool reception, especially from Ilona (Evelyn Ankers), who thought Reed was returning to her. Most of the town is thinking that Paula is a voodoo princess that can conjure supernatural phenomena. Jealousy, death and strange events lend to hardship for the island beauty to adjust to life among vicious suspicions. Is she actually a superstitious witch? A very strong cast also features: Ralph Morgan, Lois Collier, Phil Brown, Harry Hayden, Elisabeth Risdon and Gertrude Astor.

If you ever want to drive somebody temporarily crazy, try speaking to them in the loudest or deepest voice whisper, that you can muster. It's especially effective if they have a slight hangover and is more effective than nails down a chalkboard. That's the effect of Lon Chaney Jr. in the series of psychological thrillers that Universal made six of in the mid 1940's. Back then, they were considered creative in the technical achievements they helped advance, practically film noir like, but the plots are over the top, melodramatic and often silly. This entry starts off with promise but then quickly becomes a twisted example of hatred and bigotry. One note Chaney is a college professor who marries the exotic Anne Gwynne much to the chagrin of the bitchy Evelyn Bankers. This could have been called "Voodoo Woman" (to play on a double bill with Monogram's "Voodoo Man", released the same year), for that is the subject of this entry. It's a fairly decent programmer featuring a great supporting cast (aming them Ralph Morgan, Elisabeth Risdon and Elizabeth Russell) as the uppity college faculty and their spouses who are polite on the surface towards Gwynne but consider her "weird". I find it funny that co-eds have crushes on Chaney, and some of the college kids look as if they should have graduated years before.As the intrigue grows over Gwynne's presence on campus (including a sudden death where another character starts repeating to Chaney and Gwynne over and over, "Murderer!"), the script just melts down into silly serial like antics. Chaney discovers Gwynne with her voodoo gadgets and this leads to an apparent subterfuge against the new bride. As Chaney continues to whisper (while hitting a punching bag and visualizes jungle drums), the plot takes wilder twists, with Elizabeth Russell (the nasty aged wife in "The Corpse Vanishes") ranting and raving at Gwynne and acting quite ridiculous. This just becomes laughable by the last two reels, and from there descends quickly down. The civilized women prove themselves to be far weirder than Gwynne, completely missing the point of the title.

***SPOILERS**** Where introduced to this weird movie by what looks like a talking head-David Hoffman-trapped inside a fishbowl that tells us to expect the worst in human depravity as well as murder in the tale that he, or it, is about to tell us. This has to do with Monroe Collage sociology professor "Handsome Norman" Reed, Lon Chaney Jr., who's wife Paula, Anne Gwynne, that he met married and brought back to the states from a far off south sea island has been acting strange lately on her midnight excursions in the wilds. It turns out that Paula has been practicing voodoo that if found out can have her committed as well as cost him his job.It turns out that and old flame of Reed's his secretary Ilona Karr, Evelyn Ankers, is out to expose Paula's strange behavior to the collage board and have Reed canned from his job as an act of revenge in him dropping her for the younger and far more prettier Paula. Ilona goes so far as getting 18 year old student Margaret Murcer, Louis Collier, who's got a crush on Reed to work as his new secretary. Ilona knowing that the love sick Margaret will end up making a pass at him and by the straight as an arrow Reed not responding to it will get a heart broken Margaret to charged him with sexual harassment for turning her down. To make things even worse for Prof. Reed Ilona spreads a rumor that he planted the story that his fellow professor Millard Sawtelle, Ralph Morgan, plagiarized his PHD thesis causing him to flip out and end up killing himself.***SPOILERS**** The last straw in this weird tale of the unhinged is Margaret's jealous boyfriend collage student David Jennings, Phil Brown, trying to get even with Reeed for stealing, and later kicking out of his office, his girlfriend who in a life and death struggle with Reed ends up getting shot and killed by his own hand with Reed, who was just defending himself, charged with David's murder! It was the supernatural that evened things out here with Ilona who felt that she was in control being cursed through Paula's voodoo rituals that ended with her not only being exposed in all the crazy things that happened in the movie but also paying for what she did with her life.

This had always been the one "Inner Sanctum" I was most interested in because it was an adaptation of Fritz Leiber's "Conjure Wife", later filmed as a superior British horror film, NIGHT OF THE EAGLE aka BURN, WITCH, BURN! (1962). This version is highly enjoyable, even if some of the fun to be had is the result of its unexpected goofiness and campiness (at least when compared to the deadly serious 'remake'). The would-be sinister native rituals consist of nothing more than harmless Tahitian dancing and risible mumbo-jumbo! Lon Chaney's irresistibility to the female sex is unconvincingly stretched to no fewer than 3 women in the film when, ultimately, he is no more than an amiable beefcake of a leading man! Still, the female roles here are surprisingly strong: Anne Gwynne (as Chaney's superstitious native wife), Elizabeth Risdon (as the acid-tongued Dean), Elizabeth Russell (as the ambitious wife of Chaney's senior colleague) and especially Evelyn Ankers (relishing a rare villainous role as Chaney's vengeful ex). Ralph Morgan (as Russell's ill-fated husband and Chaney's direct competitor) also makes a good impression. While the film is occasionally atmospheric, it suffers in comparison with NIGHT OF THE EAGLE and that film's memorable climax is sorely missed (especially since the supernatural element is heavily toned down here). A highlight of the film is Ankers' nightmarish vision as she is haunted by her victims into confessing her crimes.P.S. As with the previous entry in the series, CALLING DR. DEATH (1943), the Ygor theme from THE GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN (1942) is incorporated into the music score! By the way, am I the only one bothered by the fact that Chaney is billed merely as "Lon Chaney" rather than "Lon Chaney Jr." - or, for that matter, the fact that the credits merely state that the film is based on a story by Fritz Leiber without mentioning its actual title?