Rondo Hatton, a poor guy suffering from acromegaly, which you get when your pituitary loses its governor, is the creepiest of creepers in "The Pearl of Death." We don't even see him for most of the movie, derived roughly from Conan-Doyle's story about busts of Napoleon. And when the camera does glide over to him in the shadows, we see only his hands, glowing slightly because of the tight, white surgical gloves. Man, did this make my hair stand on end when I was a kid.
The mastermind here is Giles Conover. He controls The Creeper and uses Evelyn Ankers as a pretty accomplice. Conover has stolen the Borgia Pearl ("the blood of twenty men on it over the centuries") and has had to hastily hide it in some half-dried busts of Napoleon. But he doesn't know which of six busts the pearl is in, so he sends The Creeper out to kill each of the owners (he breaks their backs) and smash the crockery. Lestrade is a buffoon, wrong about everything, and Watson is dumber than usual, which is saying a lot. The BBC story with Jeremy Brett hews more closely to the original but lacks The Creeper's eerie menace.
But -- you know, I think it's time that Mary Gordon as Mrs. Hudson, the housekeeper and landlady at 221b Baker Street, came in for a little applause. She's clearly a member of that household. She never plays a major role and doesn't even appear in some of the entries, but she's sweet and nurturing, like no landlady you ever had. If she complains about Holmes shooting bullet holes in her wall, well, who can blame her? A kind, matronly figure with gray hair, shuffling around, bringing her tenants tea and scones. (Sob.) If the Conovers and Moriartys of the world would disappear, Holmes could sit back and play his fiddle, and Watson could read the newspapers and rub his wound. We wouldn't need them. But the world NEEDS Mrs. Hudsons -- now more than ever.
Three of the Universal episodes stand out from the rest, in my uninformed but unimpeachable impression: "The House of Fear," "The Scarlet Claw," and this one.
The mastermind here is Giles Conover. He controls The Creeper and uses Evelyn Ankers as a pretty accomplice. Conover has stolen the Borgia Pearl ("the blood of twenty men on it over the centuries") and has had to hastily hide it in some half-dried busts of Napoleon. But he doesn't know which of six busts the pearl is in, so he sends The Creeper out to kill each of the owners (he breaks their backs) and smash the crockery. Lestrade is a buffoon, wrong about everything, and Watson is dumber than usual, which is saying a lot. The BBC story with Jeremy Brett hews more closely to the original but lacks The Creeper's eerie menace.
But -- you know, I think it's time that Mary Gordon as Mrs. Hudson, the housekeeper and landlady at 221b Baker Street, came in for a little applause. She's clearly a member of that household. She never plays a major role and doesn't even appear in some of the entries, but she's sweet and nurturing, like no landlady you ever had. If she complains about Holmes shooting bullet holes in her wall, well, who can blame her? A kind, matronly figure with gray hair, shuffling around, bringing her tenants tea and scones. (Sob.) If the Conovers and Moriartys of the world would disappear, Holmes could sit back and play his fiddle, and Watson could read the newspapers and rub his wound. We wouldn't need them. But the world NEEDS Mrs. Hudsons -- now more than ever.
Three of the Universal episodes stand out from the rest, in my uninformed but unimpeachable impression: "The House of Fear," "The Scarlet Claw," and this one.