A pearl with a strange reputation is stolen from a secure museum due in no small thanks to Sherlock Holmes having a rare lapse in concentration. As he and his loyal companion Watson get stuck in to the case, it's evident that the perpetrator has brains to match his undoubted daring. Backed up by a menacing thug known only as the Creeper, this criminal may just have enough about him to evade capture by Holmes and his bag of wily tricks.
Very loosely based on the Arthur Conan Doyle short story, The Six Napoleans, it's probably best to just judge this delightful Holmes adventure as a standalone picture. All the usual ingredients that made this franchise so rewarding are here, mystery at every turn, a perpetual sense of adventure, and of course the quite wonderful chemistry between Basil Rathbone's Sherlock and Nigel Bruce's Dr Watson. Here the pair are backed up by Miles Mander, Evelyn Ankers, Ian Wolfe and the always enjoyable Dennis Hoey as Inspector Lestrade. But I promise that the most memorable performance you will come away with in this picture is that from Rondo Hatton as The Creeper, barely seen outside of a darkened moving shadow, once this hulking creeping menace is revealed it has quite an impact. Hatton is perfectly cast as he was always effective as the muscle character, check out In Old Chicago 1937 for another memorable little turn.
I always find with the Holmes series that the films are only as good if their villains are memorably bad, I like the villains here, and come the (obviously) inevitable finale I feel that you can't possibly feel let down. 70 minutes of entertainment just fly by, it may not be one for the Conan Doyle purists, but in the context of the franchise, it works rather well. 7.5/10
Very loosely based on the Arthur Conan Doyle short story, The Six Napoleans, it's probably best to just judge this delightful Holmes adventure as a standalone picture. All the usual ingredients that made this franchise so rewarding are here, mystery at every turn, a perpetual sense of adventure, and of course the quite wonderful chemistry between Basil Rathbone's Sherlock and Nigel Bruce's Dr Watson. Here the pair are backed up by Miles Mander, Evelyn Ankers, Ian Wolfe and the always enjoyable Dennis Hoey as Inspector Lestrade. But I promise that the most memorable performance you will come away with in this picture is that from Rondo Hatton as The Creeper, barely seen outside of a darkened moving shadow, once this hulking creeping menace is revealed it has quite an impact. Hatton is perfectly cast as he was always effective as the muscle character, check out In Old Chicago 1937 for another memorable little turn.
I always find with the Holmes series that the films are only as good if their villains are memorably bad, I like the villains here, and come the (obviously) inevitable finale I feel that you can't possibly feel let down. 70 minutes of entertainment just fly by, it may not be one for the Conan Doyle purists, but in the context of the franchise, it works rather well. 7.5/10