Meet Sexton Blake! (1945) User Reviews

"But all night long I was lying awake expecting a call to go out and indemnify you both at the mortararium"

[hwg1957-102-265704 · 6/10 · 12 June 2022]

A rather confusing mystery story concerning photographs of film stars, arms dealing, undercover spies, a new alloy, a ring and a severed hand. Incident follows incident but I found it difficult to follow the plot and who was who. Also the print I watched wasn't in a good condition so it was difficult to see what was what. Acting wise it is fine. David Farrar makes a convincing Sexton Blake, a man of action but also intelligence and John Varley plays the helpful Tinker well. Also entertaining were Betty Huntley-Wright as Nobby Clark, Cyril Smith as the dim policeman Belford and of course the great Kathleen Harrison as the mispronouncing Mrs Bardell. Not a great film but beguiling enough.

Apart from Tinker and Mrs Bardell the fictional Sexton Blake had a bloodhound called Pedro in his entourage but sadly he doesn't appear though he is mentioned twice.

Awful, simply awful.

[jadflack-22130 · 1/10 · 29 July 2017]

This , despite the title wasn't the first film about Sexton Blake, a cut price Sherlock Holmes.i'd never heard of this film and after watching it i realise why,it's an extremely hokey and hoary and outdated atrocity.There are many scenes supposedly set at night, so dark you can hardly see what's going on, there are in fairness a couple of intentional smiles but it's mostly embarrassing in it's ineptness. Plays like an old radio programme episode transferred to film.Terrible, avoid.

Saving the British Way of life

[boblipton · 7/10 · 27 April 2008]

That old hero of the Penny Dreadfuls and Boys' Papers, Sexton Blake, the Poor Man's Sherlock Holmes, joins the effort to save the British way of life in this entertaining potboiler. We start out with a hair-raising murder of a man with a cut off hand and head on from there in a wonderful little murder drama, full of quickly made deductions.

This looks a lot like those old Sherlock Holmes movies made by Roy Williams Neill starring Rathbone and Bruce. There is some fine cinematography by Geoffrey Faithful and the acting is certainly adequate to the job. Keep a look out for a very young Jean Simmons in her second year of film acting.