☆ ☆ ☆ The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) – A. Werker
We watched a
Sherlock Holmes double feature (well, across two nights), featuring, first, The
House of Fear (1945), the tenth film in the long-running series starring Basil
Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Watson, and then, The Adventures of
Sherlock Holmes (1939), the second in the series and one of only two (along
with The Hound of the Baskervilles, also 1939) produced by Fox with a
comparatively higher budget before the series moved to Universal. As readers
will remember, I used to watch these Holmes films on Saturday nights on Channel
38 with my Dad, so it is a pleasure to be able to watch them now with my own
sons. Moreover, The House of Fear is loosely based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s story
The Five Orange Pips, which I read to the boys when we were camping earlier
this year. That story turns out to feature the KKK as the villains, responsible
for sending orange pips to members of a family against whom they held a
vendetta and wanted to kill. In the movie, the orange pips feature in an
Agatha-Christie-styled plot where a group of retirees called the Good Comrades die
one-by-one after receiving the pips with suspicion falling on the survivors
until only one is left. Holmes steps in with his powers of deduction to solve
the mystery before it is too late (and Watson provides comic relief plus
discovers the final clue). It's a fast-paced and fun affair. Rewind to six years earlier and The
Adventures is considerably more staid (although we do get to see more of 221
Baker Street than ever) with Rathbone and Bruce slightly less settled in their
characters (it is jarring to see Holmes snap at Watson, even though this side
of his personality was evident in the stories). This film spotlights Holmes rivalry
with Professor Moriarty (George Zucco) who vows to commit the crime of the
century, challenging Holmes to stop him. Clever Moriarty devises a distraction
for Holmes – mysterious letters sent to Ida Lupino and her brother that suggest
they are to be murdered – even as he plots to steal the Crown Jewels from the
Tower of London. For most of the film,
Holmes is indeed distracted by the strange case and Moriarty very nearly gets
away with his caper, even as Lupino is only very nearly rescued. But the plot doesn’t completely make sense
(due to some scenes left on the cutting room floor, as the DVD booklet explains)
and Fox dropped the series when the film was poorly received. Fortunately,
Rathbone and Bruce were able to take their act to Universal where they managed
another 12 films of fun and mystery.
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