The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes

 

Ida Good Clue

The Adventures
Of Sherlock Holmes
USA 1939 Directed by Sidney Lanfield
20th Century Fox Blu Ray Zone B

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was the second and final of the 20th Century Fox produced Sherlock Holmes pictures starring Basil Rathbone in the titular role and Nigel Bruce as his faithful Dr. Watson (but certainly not their last film playing these two), following on from The Hound Of The Baskervilles (reviewed here). This would be the same year that Rathbone and Bruce would commence a long running radio show playing the characters also.

This movie’s plot is credited to being based on a 19th Century stage play of Sherlock Holmes and not one of Sir Arthur Conan Doyles original stories, although it would appear that there was very little of the stage play that made it into the final screenplay either.

Joining Rathbone and Bruce for this one were series regular Mary Gordon as housekeeper Mrs. Hudson, Professor Moriarty (Holmes famous Nemesis) as played by George Zucco and Ida Lupino as the woman whose life and, those of her family, are threatened by Moriarty in a murderous scheme used to distract Holmes while the master criminal, in a quite clever two part heist, attempts to steal the Crown Jewels from the Tower Of London. Ida Lupino was a really interesting actress but also, bucking convention a little for the time, a very well respected director too (her uncle was the famous English music hall actor Lupino Lane). Moriarty, of course, only ever appears in one of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes adventures (although he is certainly mentioned a few times), in a story where he and Holmes fall to their death (Holmes was resurrected by the writer a number of years later as he was just too popular a character to remain dead). In terms of the fourteen Rathbone and Bruce pictures, Moriarty would appear three times, each time played by different actors... and in each one, apparently, he would fall to his death.

The story in this one is pretty much as I summed it up above and there’s not much to elaborate on. However, this is a really interesting movie and the main characters are certainly developing... or should I say evolving. Holmes has already gotten a little more eccentric, plucking his violin to a bunch of houseflies trapped in a glass to try and find the exact note that would affect their behaviour. And, sadly, although Nigel Bruce’s performance as Watson is absolutely brilliant and the reason I always loved these movies, his character has already become somewhat more buffoonish in this one. He doesn’t really make any contribution to solving either of the two parallel Moriarty problems at hand and, indeed, even helps Moriarty gain access to the Crown Jewels as part of the villain’s plan falls into place.

The film also establishes the kind of mutual admiration that the two arch rivals Holmes and Moriarty have for each other. They both find the other one smart and stimulating company and this is certainly how the relationship has been best portrayed on screen over the years. I’m not saying it started here but it would certainly have been popularised by the way it was portrayed in these films.

Other things of interest in the movie are a genuine scene where Holmes, clad in his deerstalker hat and cape for what would be the last time in this series of films, actually conducts a thorough crime scene investigation for five to ten minutes. This one also shows off the versatility of Rathbone in the part when, once again, he wears a disguise and adopts a different personae for one scene, where he plays an entertainer singing ‘Beside the seaside, beside the sea’ at a party. His looks, gait and manner make him absolutely undetectable as Holmes until he reveals himself to Ida Lupino shortly after. It never fails to amaze me just how good the Rathbone disguises are in these movies. If you don’t know the reveals are coming, I’m pretty sure you will be easily fooled on the first watch.

One other interesting thing is the use of music in this film. There’s an evil melody associated with a character Moriarty uses to perform his murders. First we hear it in the underscore as non-diegetic music before we hear it played on the flute by the murderer as diegetic music, where the source of the sound is apparent on screen. The film then continues to use this music in both modes throughout the picture.... which is pretty interesting already for a 1939 film, I think. The score on this one was credited to a number of composers so perhaps a lot of recycling was done for it but... somebody must have written something specifically to go with the source music at some point, I would think.

The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes is abolutely brilliant but, was surprisingly unsuccessful at the time of its initial release and it’s generally believed this was due to the way 20th Century Fox marketed it. So their planned film series of Sherlock Holmes films came to an end with this one. But, the films were obviously well liked by somebody and presumably the radio show was popular enough. So, after a three year period, Basil Rathbone along with Nigel Bruce and Mary Gordon jumped ship, so to speak, finding themselves picked up by Universal for a continuation of the films in thier original roles, for a further 12 movies. There was something a little different about these next ones though which was... oh, wait, I’ll get to that in my next Holmes review.