The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
Directed by Alfred L. Werker
Written by Edwin Blum and William A. Drake based on the play “Sherlock Holmes” by William Gillette
1939/USA
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp.
First viewing/Netflix rental

[box] Sherlock Holmes: You’ve a magnificent brain, Moriarty. I admire it. I admire it so much I’d like to present it pickled in alcohol to the London Medical Society.[/box]

This is the second in the Rathbone-Bruce series of Sherlock Holmes films and the last the two made before the franchise moved to Universal Pictures..  I liked it a bit more than The Hound of the Baskervilles, despite Watson’s increased dithering.

Criminal genius Professor Moriarty devises a plan to divert Holmes while he commits the Crime of the Century and almost succeeds.  With George Zucco as Moriarty, Ida Lupino as a damsel in distress, and Henry Stephenson as Chief Constable of the Tower of London.

Zucco and Lupino as well as snappier dialogue and suspenseful music help this mystery improve on the first in the series..  Watson is played as a buffoon, but for some reason I find Nigel Bruce so endearing I don’t care much.    And we get to hear Rathbone sing! Standard stuff but fairly entertaining.

Clip – opening scene – Holmes and Moriarty

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmJVXHLjVhk

Holmes disguised as a music hall entertainer singing “I Do Love to Be Beside the Seaside” (sorry about video quality)