The Snake Woman (1961) concerns the unintended consequences of science. A herpetologist, located in rural Britain, has been controlling the insanity of his wife by giving her injections of snake venom (surely an off-label application), which brings her some lucidity. But now it’s time to give birth, and the child she dies giving life is ice cold – cold-blooded, one might say. The midwife runs to the village and incites a mob against the child, and they come and burn the place down.
Your music … it gives me … shivers … and that taste of venom in the back of my … throat …
But the child has already been sent away and survives.
Nineteen years later, a Scotland Yard inspector is sent to the village in response to a string of deaths by poisonous, foreign snakes. The midwife puts in an appearance and entices him into shooting a doll three times; the local doctor tells the inspector the story; and he meets the child, now a quiet woman who has never heard about not staring people in the eye, nor developed a respectable taste in music. Eventually we learn she can change shape from human to snake in the blink of an eye (the energy consumption! the energy consumption!), another corpse or three piles up, and the inspector decides to go rescue her from herself, but while she thinks about his proposal, he whips out his gun and shoots her dead.
Sounds silly? It is.
But it’s put on in the great British tradition of taking it all very seriously and straight. The actors are, for the most part, quite good (although we did catch the inspector with his mouth hanging open, as if he was waiting for his cue and couldn’t be bothered to shut it) in their roles, the B&W cinematography clear and compelling, and the sets are quite competent – indeed, the visit to the burned out research lab was quite interesting as the supporting timbers, blackened by the fire, are still in place, leading to quite the spooky effect.
But the story itself is not credible. I’ll pass on making fun of the science; the reactions and motivations of some of the characters, the inspector in particular, were such that I couldn’t quite give credence to them, unfortunately.
If you enjoy the classic British acting tradition, you may enjoy this. But it will take a bit of a stretch when it comes to the story.
