Toads in the Tea

Burn, Witch, Burn (American-International) confirms some horrible undergraduate suspicions about faculty wives. It seems they really do put toads in the tea.

For instance: the heroine of this picture (Janet Blair), wife of a sociology professor in a small English college, is a witch. Having learned black magic from a sorcerer in Jamaica, she comes back to Britain laden with abracadebris (dead spiders, pickled fingers, esoteric herbs) and secretly begins to bewitch her husband. Her motives are wifely in the best bourgeois tradition: she only wants to keep her husband safe from other witches, and to make sure he does well in his job. He does very well indeed. Before the first reel runs out, he seems certain to become chairman of the sociology department. At that point, unfortunately for him, the scientific snob discovers what his wife has been up to, and with self-righteous rationality he destroys her "protections." They burn with a sinister light.

Next morning, the professor is called to answer a charge of rape made by one of his students. Later the same day her boy friend comes after him with a gun. That evening something enormous that grunts like a hog and walks with a limp attempts to break down his front door. Next day his car skids into a ditch. That night his wife falls into a trance and walks into the sea. After he rescues her, she tries to murder him, and less than an hour later his house catches fire while he is being attacked by a--well, it's either a small airplane or an awful big eagle.

What causes all these unfortunate incidents? Just one of the other faculty wives, who also happens to be a witch and who wants her own husband to get that nice cushy job as head of the sociology department. Not much of a movie, but it goes to show what can happen in a community that fails to pay its teachers a living wage.

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