This was the first of the Universal Sherlock Holmes movies that returned the detective to traditional mystery plots, after three wartime anti-Nazi adventures. It's also one of the best... and in fact it was voted the 2nd-best Holmes movie of all time in one poll (after Rathbone's "Adventures" or "Hound," I forget which). The entertaining opening has Nigel Bruce's Dr. Watson, who has a bit more on the ball than usual, bringing Holmes into the case-which itself is a clever improvement on Conan Doyle's rather dull short story "The Musgrave Ritual." The cast features almost all of the usual stock company featured in this series (Dennis Hoey, Gerald Hamer, Vernon Dowling, Frederic Worlock, Gavin Muir), playing assorted cretins, rotters, weaklings, and twitching neurotics. Various sets from "Frankenstein" and "Dracula" turn up as well, and the plot abounds with bloodthirsty ravens, bolts of lightning, mysterious passageways, and a clock that strikes thirteen on the nights that evil is afoot. Rathbone strikes a nice balance between his earlier, more wired Sherlock and his later jaded style, but the excellent UCLA restoration also reveals him as a bit older and more ravaged than I recall. Maybe there's something to be said for a "soft" transfer after all.
Review of Sherlock Holmes Faces Death
