Curse of the Black Widow (1978)

We open in a seedy watering hole somewhere in the City of Angels, where private detective Mark Higbie is enjoying a second or third last call with his new found friend one bar-stool over. But these two are suddenly interrupted when a fashionable woman enters and asks for some assistance with a car that refuses to start. Much to Higbie’s dismay, this beautiful woman with the continental accent bypasses him and asks for his new friend, Frank Chatam, specifically, who reluctantly obliges.

She’s grateful, but once outside, the woman quickly puts the moves on the man, trying, rather clumsily, to seduce him. Here, Chatam quickly pushes her away; it seems he was waiting for his date to show up and doesn’t really appreciate this woman duping him. Then, as he moves to head back inside, his eyes suddenly go wide with fear, then terror, as the rebuked woman's own eyes starts glowing; and then she transforms into something ... else before ferociously attacking him – an attack that ends with a sickening, double-barreled *thwack*. 

Back inside, Higbie and the bartender hear the man screaming, investigate, and find Chatam, dead, with two huge puncture wounds in his chest -- but hardly any blood evidence when there should be a copious amount of the stuff splattered everywhere. And while Higbie (Franciosa) focuses on this puzzling crime scene, the bartender spies a large shadow scurrying up a steep hillside, which then disappears over the top before the other man can take a look. When the police arrive, Higbie is grilled by a Lt. Conti (Morrow) and a Sgt. Ragsdale (Gail), but it’s Higbie who winds up asking most of the questions; like, most specifically, Where did all the blood go?

Well, turns out this wasn’t the first person to fall victim to this killer’s grisly signature, as at least five other Los Angelenos have met the same gruesome fate. And while Higbie thinks that mystery woman was behind it, Conti has a couple of other prime suspects in mind, starting with Leigh Lockwood, who was that delinquent date Chatam was waiting for, and her (fraternal) twin sister, Laura Lockwood, but then refuses to reveal as to why he thinks they’re behind all of this nasty business. 

But as fate would have it, the very next morning, Higbie finds the lovely Leigh Lockwood (Mills) waiting in his office, who wants to hire the gumshoe to find the real killer so the police will leave her and her family alone. A totally smitten Higbie gets right on the case, with his ever faithful assistant, Flaps (Kelly), in tow; but they have to be careful while poking around lest they draw the wrath of Conti -- what with this still being an open police case and all.

Things immediately heat-up later that night when Higbie gets a call from the bartender, who says the mystery woman is back and wants to turn herself into the police. But the bartender, who, one, is still a little shook-up by what he thinks he saw scuttling over the hill last night, and two, who really doesn’t wanna get any further involved, will only agree to deliver this woman, who calls herself Valerie Steffan (Duke), to Higbie, who can take it from there.

Of course, this turns out to be another trap as, on the way to Higbie’s apartment, Steffan swipes the man’s keys, leaps out of the car, and lures the bartender into some kind of wild animal preserve, where she once more transmogrifies into something rather vicious. And judging from her point of view as she chases her latest victim down and kills him with what appears to be two huge fangs, whatever this woman has changed into also appears to have multiple eyes! And when this latest victim is found the following morning, a new twist to this mystery is added: the body has been cocooned in a web of silk. Now, I ask you: What creepy-crawly does that sound like to you? Are we actually dealing with a genuine were-spider here..? 

To answer that, well, we’ll need to start with a showbiz career that would eventually span over five decades, which began on August 12, 1927, in Bridgeport, Connecticut, when Dan Curtis was born. Curtis would later graduate from Syracuse University in 1950 and landed a job as a salesman with NBC before moving to MCA, where he brokered syndication packages to TV stations around the country. 

And after establishing his network bona fides with a highly successful professional golf program for CBS in 1963, with his own Dan Curtis Productions now firmly entrenched, Curtis pitched an idea to ABC's head programmer, Leonard Goldberg, about a Jane Eyre inspired, Gothic-flavored soap opera.

Now, with his network always coming in a distant third in the ratings, Goldberg wasn't averse to this kind of ‘outside the box’ thinking. And so, Dark Shadows went into production and would premiere in late June of 1966. But the soap struggled in the ratings as the story-line hewed closer to The Turn of the Screw, plot wise, until Curtis salvaged it by introducing a new character, Barnabas Collins, a sympathetic (but still highly dangerous) vampire. 

From there, Dark Shadows added witches, werewolves, a Frankenstein monster, time travelers, demonic possessions, and a generous helping of ghosts to the plot cauldron and the resulting brew became a pop culture phenomenon and would run for 1,255 episodes before Curtis pulled the plug in 1971.

But Curtis wasn't quite done with Collinwood and its kooky denizens just yet, changing mediums with the feature film adaptation House of Dark Shadows (1970), which was followed by Night of Dark Shadows (1971). Alas, despite a staggering bodycount and the addition of gallons and gallons of blood, neither created enough box-office buzz for a third, so Curtis soon turned his attention back to the small screen with another vampire tale, teaming up with screenwriter Richard Matheson and director John Lewellyn-Moxey for the wildly successful The Night Stalker (1972), where crusading newspaper reporter, Carl Kolchak, riding a '68 Mustang, decked-out in armor of seer-sucker blue and a porkpie hat, battled a real-life blood-sucker in the modern neon-drenched streets of Las Vegas.

Now, it should be noted that The Night Stalker was not Curtis' first horror-themed Made for TV movie (MFTV), with his Emmy-nominated take on The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1968), featuring a stunning performance by Jack Palance as the title character(s), coming four years prior in 1968. 

But it was the 1970s where Curtis firmly established himself as the king of small-screen terrors, producing, directing, writing, or all of the above for The Night Stalker and its sequel, The Night Strangler (1973), The Norliss Tapes (1973), The Invasion of Carol Enders (1973), Scream of the Wolf (1974), the completely gonzoid Trilogy of Terror (1975), and Dead of Night (1977). He also adapted MFTV versions of The Picture of Dorian Gray (1973), The Turn of the Screw (1974), and Bram Stoker's Dracula (1974), where once more Palance surprises as an understated Count.

In 1976, Curtis took another shot at the big screen with the creepily effective Burnt Offerings before making his last TV fright-flick for nearly two decades, Curse of the Black Widow (1977). In the interim, Curtis would achieve critical success and rake in several awards with the monolithic mini-series adaptation of Herman Wouk's The Winds of War (1983) and War and Remembrance (1988) before returning one final time to the genre with Trilogy of Terror II (1996).

I remember catching at least part of Curse of the Black Widow when it premiered, as it followed the William Conrad narrated The Making of Star Wars (1977) on ABC's schedule back in the day; but I fear I did not make it to the end. I had the same problem with a lot of Kolchak: The Night Stalker episodes, too -- a spin-off series of The Night Stalker that ran from 1974-1975, where I was forced to go to bed before the mystery was resolved and the monster of the week vanquished, leaving me to try and sleep knowing all those creepy-crawlies were still out there on the loose in the living room. *yoinks*

Anyhoo, so I did not get to see all of Curse of the Black Widow until much later when it showed up on one of the SuperStations, back when the SuperStations didn't suck, in the wee hours of the morning. And while it didn’t make much of an initial impression back in ’77, it sure as hell did on the second, especially the climax, where the telefilm, already teetering on the brink, goes completely bonkers.

And though I enjoyed the efforts of all involved, to be honest, Curse of the Black Widow kinda comes off as an unused script for Kolchak – and probably would’ve come off better as one, too, as the film feels stretched pretty damned thin at 100-minutes. In stark contrast, The Night Stalker came in at a terse and snappy 74-minutes. Some condensing definitely would’ve helped, as several leads Higbie tracks down prove redundant. Thus, Matheson’s absence is sorely felt in this endeavor; but his replacements, Robert Blees and Earl Wallace, do well enough to make things work as things are stretched to fit the allotted time slot.

There’s an unsubstantiated rumor that Curtis approached Harlan Ellison to write the screenplay for Curse of the Black Widow but, if he did, it was rejected. However, Blees was no stranger to this kind of monster fracas, having penned The Black Scorpion (1957) and Frogs (1972), but that might’ve been part of the problem as this telefilm really does struggles with the clash of those 1950s rampaging giant-bug sci-fi trappings failing to mesh properly with the gothic lycanthropic horror of the 1940s. Throw in a Rockford Files chaser to frame the whole thing and this movie should really be an intractable mess. But, it works, sort of, as it takes a fanciful long walk off a very short credulity pier.

To be fair, the mind-boggling cast shores things up considerably. Kudos to Tony Franciosa as the anchor, Higbie, who finds the right balance between smarm and charm and really sells the cock-eyed plot he's plugged into; a man who cannot believe the answer to the puzzle he’s slowly piecing together but is still smart enough to take these same clues seriously. Clues that include dubiously obtained autopsy results that show the victims were not only completely drained of blood but also pumped full of industrial quantities of spider venom; a shaky eye-witness with a pickled liver who swears he saw a giant spider flee the scene of one of the attacks; a crash-course on the legends and folklore of women turning into choose-your-own-monster when the moon is full, who then feast on their (mostly) male victims; and deducing all those victims, thus far, had dated or slept with Leigh Lockwood before they were killed; and shaking several more skeletons loose from the Lockwood’s closet, whose family history is filled with nothing but tragedy.

Seems their father died when his plane crashed in the high Sierras, but their pregnant mother survived and gave birth to their twin daughters in the wreckage; one of whom almost died after being stung multiple times by a disturbed nest of Black Widow spiders, which links to a curse in one of those Native American legends, where a victim of such an attack gained the ability to “transform” under times of stress or *ahem* sexual arousal. Unfortunately, the mother later died under dubious circumstances and all records of which daughter was bitten have been lost.

Helping Higbie piece all of this together is Flaps, his secretary and Girl Friday. Roz Kelly is an absolute hoot as his beleaguered assistant and has pretty good chemistry with Franciosa. Unlike most Curtis productions, I don’t think Curse of the Black Widow was intended as a backdoor series pilot but I for one would’ve loved to see the further supernatural adventures of Higbie and Flaps. Also lending a hand are Vic Morrow’s Conti and his much friendlier partner, “Rags” Ragsdale, played by Max Gail, who makes Higbie work for those clues but always steers him in the right direction to, hopefully, come to the same conclusion that, as improbable as it sounds, there’s a giant were-spider running loose in Los Angeles, which is killing people connected to the Lockwood women.

As to who that might be, well, if Curtis was the King of Made for TV movies of the 1970s, then Donna Mills was the undisputed Queen, having appeared in dozens of them -- Night of Terror (1972), Beyond the Bermuda Triangle (1975), and Superdome (1978) among many others. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have a whole lot to do as Leigh except look pretty and be menaced -- and as the heroine, she’s a bit of a turd, having slept with Lora’s fiance, which torpedoed her wedding; and this wasn’t the first time she’d done that to her sister nor would it be the last.

Patty Duke, on the other hand, gets to stretch quite a bit with her dual role as the buttoned-down Lockwood sister, Lora, and her alter-ego, the femme fatale, Valerie Steffan, who is another prime suspect in these murders as she’s been connected to several of the victims as the last person to be seen with. A little payback, perhaps? Sleeping or trying to sleep with her sister’s beaus, who are all turning up dead under dubious circumstances at an alarming rate.

I’m pretty sure the viewer was not supposed to realize that Lora and Valerie were the same person at first but I’m afraid it’ll take a lot more than a wig and a Boris Badenov accent to pull that off. And that’s why when Higbie calls Lora to see which daughter was bitten, we aren’t all that surprised when she puts the finger on Leigh.

This was a lie, of course, which is confirmed when Lora suffers another psychotic break, strips, and starts to dress up as Valerie -- a manifestation that asserts itself whenever her feelings of inadequacy when compared to Leigh overwhelm her, and then the camera zooms in to reveal a tell-tale red-tinged hourglass blemish on her abdomen, signifying – [OrganSting/] the cursed mark of the deadly black widow [/OrganSting]!

And as we reach the climax, Lora lures Leigh to the secluded ancestral Lockwood mansion, where Leigh discovers that their mother (Lockhart) wasn’t as dead as everyone thought. No, see, she just went insane after watching Lora's initial transformation into a giant spider and the subsequent murder of Leigh’s fiance several years prior, who was then hidden away in the guest house by Olga (Allyson), the Lockwood’s governess, who has been covering-up Lora’s heinous crimes ever since.

Here, Lora ties up several loose-threads as she takes one massive plot-dump, revealing Olga’s granddaughter was really Lora’s own daughter, and then confesses to being the one who murdered all of Leigh’s lovers as revenge for sleeping with her fiance (-- the father of her daughter). She then starts to transform; and after their terrified mother throws herself out of a window to her death (-- the obvious stuntman is kinda hilarious), the were-spider attacks Leigh and starts to web her up. 

When Olga leaves the main house to investigate the ruckus next door, she orders Jennifer, (Locke), the granddaughter/daughter, to wait there, enters the other abode, and meets the same gruesome fate.

Meantime, Higbie and Flaps, hot on Leigh's trail, arrive and are told by the girl where everyone else is. Leaving Flaps to safeguard Jennifer, Higbie, still thinking Leigh is the killer, heads over to the guest house, where he finds several corpses webbed-up, including Olga’s (-- a pretty great shock moment). 

A few more suspenseful turns later, Higbie finds Leigh, who is still breathing, realizes he’s been duped, and cuts her loose. But once she’s free, the were-spider attacks -- represented by a giant rubberized prop, whose roaring screech is pilfered from Rodan the Flying Monster (1956). No, I am not making any of that up.

Here, Higbie empties his revolver but the bullets have no effect. Luckily, he remembers the sage advice of the old Indian (Corey) he tracked down, who had rescued the Lockwoods off the mountain those many moons ago, that the only way to kill a cursed were-spider is with a cleansing fire.

Thus and so, he chucks a lit Coleman lantern at it, which explodes, covering the thrashing monster with liquid flame. And soon, the whole house is a raging inferno as Higbie and Leigh barely make their escape before it explodes, taking Lora and all of her evil with it. Well, not quite, as we have one final hereditary twist to go before the end credits roll.

Like I said: bonkers, but the pure bedlam of Curse of the Black Widow is executed rather effectively. Again, kudos to Franciosa and Mills for selling the hell out of that climax. And major props to cinematographer Paul Lohmann and film editor Leon Carrere, too, whose efforts during the pants-on-fire final attack and the earlier stalk 'n' kill scenes really help kick things up a few cinematic notches. And longtime Curtis collaborator Bob Cobert’s score really helped to web it all together and managed to ground something that’s so nucking futz you probably won’t believe it even when you do see it – which I suggest you all do as soon as possible.

But, that won’t be easy, which is why I’ll wrap this up with another desperate plea to the Big Three Networks for someone, anyone, to make the digital leap on these old MFTV movies and release them on DVD or some streaming service.  

Curse of the Black Widow was one of the lucky ones to garner at least a VHS release back in the day thanks to Anchor Bay -- currently going for an obscene amount of money on eBay. Thankfully, several rips of it can be found online, but I still hold out hopes of a legitimate release for this and many others of its hare-brained ilk.

Originally posted on Sunday, September 27, 2015

Curse of the Black Widow (1977) American Broadcasting Company (ABC) / EP: Dan Curtis / P: Steven North / AP: Steven P. Reicher / D: Dan Curtis / W: Robert Blees, Earl W. Wallace / C: Paul Lohmann / E: Leon Carrere / M: Bob Cobert / S: Anthony Franciosa, Donna Mills, Patty Duke, Roz Kelly, Vic Morrow, Max Gail, June Allyson, June Lockhart