Beware the Black Widow

When the movie starts the titles are run with a cheesy song written by the writer/director Crane, called "Beware the Black Widow." I swear I thought I was about to watch a comedy. This thought was compounded by the opening scene of a woman at a bar talking to a guy only she's not looking at him. She's looking in the distance like she's reading off cue cards. It's real weird. For a movie that has allegedly been "lost," the print is like new. Pristine with no cuts, scratches or any blemishes. So where was it lost? It's an oddball movie that could only be made back in the day. Is it good? Not really, but it's an interesting time capsule.

This is another lost film that was recently unearthed and released by Vinegar Syndrome. It features some grimy, wrong side of the track vibes that feel noir adjacent as we watch a pair of intrepid reporters try to find the delicate balance of doing the right thing and potentially ending up dead as they try to unravel the mystery of the black widow killer. They sort of feel like an echo of the cops from Blood Feast as they don't seem terribly smart but mostly make up for it with determination and a consistent habit of restating plot points for the benefit of the audience. Additionally there are even some fun characters and quite a few amusing moments of cinematic blunder as shots are poorly framed and audio clips are obviously reused. The film unfortunately slows down in the middle and drops virtually all of the high points described above so that we can get some more exposition. If you feel like watching some extremely inept that also feels noir adjacent than this might work for you but it is definitely going to appeal only to fairly niche tastes.

I have to admit that when I sat down to watch the 1968 movie "Beware the Black Widow" that I thought I was in for a crime horror movie, as it was listed as such. The storyline in "Beware the Black Widow", written by Walter M. Berger, was a somewhat dull script and storyline. It was a storyline that was told in a manner where the narrative jumps back and forth, and thus forces the audience to keep focusing on what is going on. It was jumping back and forth between journalists talking and a burlesque bar and the events taking place there. Be prepared for a fair amount of singing and dancing during the burlesque bar scenes. Personally, it was not something I cared a whole lot for, and thus I found those scenes to be somewhat annoying, especially since the added-in audience sounds were lifeless and laughable to listen to. Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress in "Beware the Black Widow". Some of the acting performances were actually good, when you get acting performances in between the singing and dancing. The music in the movie was really bad and didn't really belong in that kind of movie. It was more like something you would expect from the circus or from a silent movie. I found the movie to be too bland and uneventful. And the storyline just never really managed to sink its hook in me. My rating of director Larry Crane's 1968 movie "Beware the Black Widow" lands on a three out of ten stars.