I quite enjoy watching the old Sherlock Holmes films starring
Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Holmes and Watson. I cannot admit
to being a Sherlock Holmes fan in general but I think that their portrayal
of the characters have drawn me more and more towards the stories
of Conan-Doyles famous London detective. Every time I watch the films
it is as if I am watching it for the first time, there is always my
anticpation of there being a new twist to the tale.
"Rathbone in particular has become the Sherlock Holmes, with his
piercing eyes, knife-sharpened features and finely-played trademark habits (the violin, the
relentless drive and enthusiasm, the never-ending desire for knowledge). Bruce's Watson is also the stuff of movie legend, and
he plays the character as a perfect humourous foil to Rathbone's intense
seriousness - although Holmes himself is not averse to the odd witty quip. In
short, these two actors made the roles their own, and it will take a very
convincing and impressive performance to ever dislodge them".
The following are a synopsis of all the Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone and
Nigel Bruce together with my own personal rating for each film out of a possible 10.
- FILM TITLE: The Hound Of the Baskervilles (1939)
- FILM BACKGROUND/DESCRIPTION: For the first time a Holmes
film was being set in the proper Victorian
period. Rathbone and Bruce were not the stars
of the film, though - that was a young English actor called Richard Greene
(later to be known on television as Robin Hood, along with the sheriff
played by Alan Wheatly, who was one of the first TV Holmes to appear in
Britain.) However, when the film came out it was not Greene that the public
wanted to see more of, but Rathbone-Bruce. It also had the first appearance
of Mrs Hudson, played by Mary Gordon, who continued in the role in the
Universal series of the forties.
- My personal rating 9/10
- FILM TITLE: The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes (1939)
- FILM BACKGROUND/DESCRIPTION:The film involves a pitched battle of wits between Holmes and Moriarty. Moriarty
sends Holmes a bizarre problem, or to quote from the film, "...I'll give
him a toy to delight his heart..." It’s a drawing of a man with a
strange bird hanging around his neck. The sister of the man that
the note is sent to goes to see Holmes. Soon her brother is dead, and Holmes
becomes so involved in her case that forgets to be on hand to see the 'The
Star of Delhi' arriving at the Tower of London. Which is the way Moriarty
wanted it, in his plan to steal the crown jewels. By the end of the film
though Holmes has saved the sister from being murdered like her brother
and rushes off to the Tower, knowing now it was Moriarty who had been behind
it all. Finally as the two battle their way upwards to the Tower, Moriarty
falls to his death.
- My personal rating 9/10
- FILM TITLE: Sherlock Holmes and The Voice Of Terror (1942)
- FILM BACKGROUND/DESCRIPTION:The film has Holmes pitted
against a German spy for the Nazis, who calls himself ‘The 'Voice of Terror'
for broadcasting in Britain acts of terror such as train crashes and fires.
Holmes is called in by the inner council of the War Office. Soon he finds
'The Voice of Terror’ is actually a member of the inner council itself,
a peer named Sir Evan Barham. Barham is not in fact Barham, though, but
the German spy Von Bork. At the end of the film, Holmes has saved Britain
from a German invasion. The story is loosely based on 'His Last Bow’.
- My personal rating 8/10
- FILM TITLE: Sherlock Holmes and The Secret Weapon (1942)
- FILM BACKGROUND/DESCRIPTION:This story is loosely based on the 'The
Dancing Men', but only in the use of the drawings themselves. The plot
of the film centres around stopping the Nazis getting their hands on a
new bomb sight, wrapped in a code of dancing men, which then leads Holmes
towards the capture of Moritary. We are introduced to Holmes’ use of diguises, as he poses as a Swiss inventor,
the criminal Lascar and an old German bookseller.
- My personal rating 7/10
- FILM TITLE: Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943)
- FILM BACKGROUND/DESCRIPTION:Holmes is up against a German spy ring. The group
are after some secret documents, whose use in the wrong hands would be disastrous
for Britain. The agent carrying them disappears after destroying them,
having first made a microfilm copy and placed it in a American match folder.
This leads Holmes and Watson across the Atlantic to find the vital microfilm
and do battle with the spies.
- My personal rating 7/10
- FILM TITLE: Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943)
- FILM BACKGROUND/DESCRIPTION: Holmes and Watson arrive at Musgrave Manor
to find Inspector Lestrade waiting for them, at the first of a series of
deaths. During the course of the film the ritual is read (This has also
been changed from the ritual from the original story), and no one but Holmes
can work out its meaning. In one of the more interesting scenes of the
film, the ritual turns out to be describing moves in a chess game. Holmes
arranges the members of the manor to play the pieces on a checked floor
to find the secret of the murders, and arrest the murderer. No one in the
film shines except Rathbone, Bruce, and of course Hoey as Lestrade.
- My personal rating 9/10
- FILM TITLE:The Spider Woman (1944)
- FILM BACKGROUND/DESCRIPTION: The basis of the film concerns a series of deaths of men who are well-to-do
and fond of the gambling tables, and who kill themselves in their pyjamas
in what becomes known as the "Pyjama Suicides". The film opens to Holmes
and Watson on holidays, with Holmes then faking his own death in order
to investigate the sucides (which are fact are murders). Rathbone disguses
himself as Rahjhi Singh, an Indian officer who is fond of the tables. Before
long he meets the murderer, a female Moriarty, Andrea Spedding alias "The
Spider Woman". As Holmes discovers, she selects her victims as those who
need money and persuades them to pawn their life insurance to one of her
accomplices, before killing them.This she does by placing a giant spider in their bedroom as they lie
sleeping. Once the venom gets into its victim’s bloodstream, the excruciating
agony drives the victim with to self destruction.The question remains how
the spider gets into the rooms. By a pygmy, in fact, who can slip himself
through small doorways. Ultimately the spider woman and her gang is rounded
up.
- My personal rating 7/10
- FILM TITLE:The Scarlet Claw (1944)
- FILM BACKGROUND/DESCRIPTION:For the second time,
Holmes and Watson are taken out of London, this time into the Canadian
backwoods. It’s a very dark film, filled with murder, mystery and a streak
of revenge. Some strange apparition appearing in the village, La Morte Rouge (The Red death), kills Lady Penrose. Holmes goes to the village to
investigate the murder but encounters hostillity among the people. Soon,
more murders take place, and the villagers place their blame on the monster
of the village. However Holmes soon places the pieces together, surmising
the murderer is an actor called Ramson, who killed another actor in a jealous
rage over an actress, the actress having later married Lord Penrose. Holmes
discovers the monster is Ramson himself in disguise as other inhabitants
of the village.
- My personal rating 10/10 This one is by far my favourite.
- FILM TITLE:The Pearl Of Death (1944)
- FILM BACKGROUND/DESCRIPTION:Conover,the villain,
has stolen the Black Pearl of the Borgias and hidden it in a bust of Napoleon. Holmes sets out to find it, during
which time there is series of break-ins in which only busts of Napoleons
are broken over the floor, and victims have their backs broken, a method
used by the Hoxton Creeper. Soon Holmes learns that six busts were made, and finding the name of
the last person to have bought a bust he sets a trap for Conover and the
Creeper. However when the Creeper overpowers him, the only thing that can
save Holmes is the chance to talk his way out quickly, telling the Creeper
that Conover will doublecross him and persuading him to kill Conover as
he did the other victims.
- My personal rating 8/10
- FILM TITLE:The House Of Fear (1945)
- FILM BACKGROUND/DESCRIPTION:The story begins with an insurance
agent visting Holmes and asking him to investigate strange happenings at
Drearcliff, a seaside manor house, where a group of men has entered a life
insurance policy, naming one another the beneficiaries. It seems two of
the men had died six months earlier, murdered horribly after receiving
an envelope in the mail an containing an orange pip. Holmes begins his
investigation and finds things going increasingly wrong. During his stay
at Drearcliff, four more die, leaving the seventh as the fall guy. Again
Hoey appears as Lestrade, which is a delight.
- My personal rating 9/10
- FILM TITLE:The Woman In Green (1945)
- FILM BACKGROUND/DESCRIPTION:The plot
of the film is that young woman are murdered and found with their right
index fingers cut off, and so Holmes is asked by Scotland Yard to help out. Holmes
soon discovers that the evil Moriarty is behind it all, that it is a vehicle
of blackmail, and that rich victims are chosen, hypnotised and drugged
to wake up the next day to find a severed thumb inside their pocket, following
which money is demanded of them. However Holmes stops Moriarty, and Moriarty
falls to his death rather than face a hanging.
- My personal rating 9/10
- FILM TITLE:Pursuit To Algiers (1945)
- FILM BACKGROUND/DESCRIPTION:The majority of the film is set on an ocean liner, within which
Holmes is entrusted with protecting the heir to the mythical kingdom of
Ravenia, east of Algiers, from assassins hired by his enemies. Holmes plans
to fool the assassins by passing Watson's nephew off as the prince, while
the real prince is the steward. The assassins kidnap the wrong man and
are arrested.
- My personal rating 8/10
- FILM TITLE:Terror By Night (1946)
- FILM BACKGROUND/DESCRIPTION:The events take place on a train. Holmes with Watson
are on board to see that the diamond, the Star of Rhodesia, returns safely
to Scotland from London. But there is a murder and the diamond is stolen.
Along on the trip is Lestrade. As Holmes begins his investigation he finds that
the star has been taken by Moriarty's second in command, Colonel Moran,
and that the colonel is behind the murder.
- My personal rating 7/10
- FILM TITLE:Dressed To Kill (1946)
- FILM BACKGROUND/DESCRIPTION:This film is all about stolen music boxes and a criminal who has stolen the plates
of the Bank of England, who in prison makes music boxes, and within the
music boxes leaves clues as to where he had hidden them. Holmes works out
the mystery of the boxes, where the plates are and the identity of the
outside gang.
- My personal rating 7/10
Gregory Goldsmith
Bringing you Basil as Sherlock since 25th September 1997
Preston, England
Please
me g_goldsmith@yahoo.com with any comments or suggestions
you may have for my page. It would be nice to hear from you whether you are a fan of Basil Rathbone or not.
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