The Rathbone Sherlock Holmes series were very violent – this one is about a serial killer bumping off young women a la Jack the Ripper and severing their finger. It starts with a more downbeat, film noir tone, with narration from a police inspector (not Lestrade – some other guy, Gregson, Matthew Boulton, not comic but he seems to be no more competent) – and there is lots of smoking.
This one has the benefit of Henry Daniell as Moriarty – after appearing in the series as a henchman and a red herring, it’s great to see him centre stage. Unfortunately after a great beginning, this doesn’t quite hit the top mark. There’s not enough duelling between Holmes and Moriarty (there’s only one scene together); indeed there’s not enough Moriarty full stop. Also, after they set up this killer plot it then gets bogged down into all this stuff about blackmail and hypnotism (there are two long hypnotism scenes). It’s awfully complicated of Moriarty to go around killing people in order to blackmail them – couldn’t he do something less violent? The finale isn’t that exciting because it’s obvious Holmes would never be hypnotised. With the benefit of hindsight, this can perhaps be seen to be the start of the series’ decline.
The support cast isn’t bad, with an okay femme fetale (Hillary Brooke) and an excellent creepy sidekick of Holmes who is the one who cuts off fingers. Moriarty plunges to his death for the fourth time in the series – I’m not kidding, the fourth time!
There’s a touching moment where Moriarty tells Holmes he’s kidnapped Watson and Holmes gets worried. Holmes aficionados will also love the bit where a woman offers to inject Holmes with a drug to help him sleep and he reacts badly to the idea of drugs.
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