French Canada always seems to have this glamour lacking in English-speaking Canada, and it provides a wonderfully spooky setting for this gruesome Holmes tale. A lady has been killed – her throat was ripped out, just like recent killings of sheep. Rumours blame it on a local legend, a la Hound of the Baskervilles (which Watson refers to) but when Holmes receives a letter from the deceased asking to help, he investigates.
There’s mysterious inn keepers, not one but two beautiful tormented girls, lots of lurking around the moors, a bit of special effects (a glowing creature running loose – which Holmes shoots at without first saying “stop” or anything), a scared judge in a wheelchair, a cosy pub where the fifty worders sing songs.
The story is very strong, one of the best in the series. Holmes has to work really hard to figure out what’s going on. The villain is strong, a crazy actor who is a master of disguise and very smart. He’s a different sort of villain to the normal Moriarty’s because we never know who he is… yet we’re aware of his presence for the last half hour (we see him in shadows, using false voices, etc). In one scary scene he kills a judge by taking over the judge’s maid’s identity (it’s a big shock – like Anthony Perkins in a dress in Psycho) – then basically ripping the judge’s throat out with a trowel!
So you can forgive the fact that there’s a monologing confession scene where he’s pointing a gun at Holmes and says to him “I can see no reason why I shouldn’t tell you” and delivers a batch of exposition. This is a lazy moment in an otherwise first-rate script.
There’s also a full on scene where they discover a young girl has been killed – this has special impact because Holmes is really affected by it, by more than any death in the series to date. (Watson takes it in stride.) The Spider Woman is more fun, but this is the darkest of the Rathbone Holmes – with Holmes quite happily letting the murdered be killed. It gets better and better as it goes on, although to be honest you can pick the main disguise the killer uses because the moustache is a bit too obvious. Miles Matheson is excellent as a paranoid judge,
There is no war stuff except for Holmes quoting Churchill on Canada at the end – maybe because to compensate for it not being a particularly positive depiction of that country (with moors and killers).
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