Watched: 08/19/2022
Format: Amazon Watch Party
Viewing: First
Decade: 1930's
Director: Alfred Werker
Well. What's not to like, really?
If you like Holmes books, this is... close-ish. Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce are kind of the model for on-screen Holmes and Watson. There's a great villain in Moriarty. And a young Ida Lupino is charming as hell at the center of it all.
What's amazing is how undated the film feels some 80 years later. You can imagine all of this as the plot and performances in a modern Sherlock retelling, And maybe that's because they made 14 of these movies in the span of less than a decade - not quite a serial, but certainly a series that left enough of an impact that this was how it was done until the 21st Century decided "what if Holmes was not at all like Holmes?" in two separate series of movies and a TV show.
I won't say the movie was flawless, but it was very, very *fun*, which is what I'm looking for in my Holmes reading or adaptations. Give me a Holmes and Watson on the case, and a mystery I can't solve on my own, and I'll come back for more.
It will *surely* annoy Jamie that now that I know there are 13 more of these, I'm gonna watch them. But she knew what I was about when she married me, so.
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