Format: Amazon Watch Party
Viewing: First
Decade: 1940's
Director: Roy William Neill
I wasn't expecting much, and this movie delivered not much!
Nah, it was... fine. Especially as it was only 66 minutes. You're in, you're out.
Once again Basil Rathbone plays Holmes to perfection, and once again Nigel Bruce is playing Watson as a complete weirdo boob, setting the stage for a thousand imitators after.
I wish I'd noticed this was a wartime film, because it would have explained why the men in this movie, minus Rathbone, are all at least sexagenarians or older.
Women are turning up around London - murdered! And missing a finger! Is a new Jack the Ripper on the loose? One with penchant for ladyfingers?
Holmes is brought in, and suspects (as always) Moriarty. Anyway - it's a kind of clever Moriarty ruse. He's having the frankly pretty good looking Hillary Brooke lure rich, society men to her flat where she hypnotizes them. Moriarty slips a finger into their pocket and when they wake up, they think maybe they murdered someone and fall for a blackmail scheme. It's... woefully overly complex and there's a bodycount that was always going to draw too much attention.
Anyway - it's pretty okay! But I will say - it takes a long, long time to get to the usual Holmes sleuthing, really to the point where I wondered aloud "this is the weirdest structure for a Holmes mystery". But once it kicks into gear, there you are.
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