Sherlock Holmes Faces Death

Another
Fine Chess

Sherlock Holmes
Faces Death
USA 1943
Directed by Roy William Neill
Universal Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Some spoilers.

Sherlock Holmes Faces Death, the sixth of the fourteen Sherlock Holmes films comprising the series of movies about the fictional detective -  continued by Universal after the initial two by Fox - was based loosely on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Adventure Of The Musgrave Ritual and, like the previous five in the series, features Basil Rathbone as Holmes, Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson and Mary Gordon as housekeeper Mrs. Hudson.

This one takes place in a manor house, Musgrave Hall, which has been turned into a convalescence home for patients suffering from mental afflictions, due to their experiences in World War Two. As such, we find Doctor Watson on the scene before the first crime is even committed, as he is a consulting physician who visits the home on his rounds. However, when one of the family members is wounded by a stab in the neck, he calls in Holmes and, when the two arrive at the place, before Holmes even gets through the door, the two of them discover a dead body (the first of a few corpses) under a pile of leaves. It isn’t long before Holmes, Watson and a returning Denis Hoey as the even more obstinate and bumble headed Inspector Lestrade, are trying to piece together the words of the traditionally recited family ritual... the Musgrave Ritual... and trying to follow the clues using such methods as a human chess board on the checkered floors of the house, to find out what is really behind the string of murders.

And, as usual, it’s a delightful romp with a few interesting things of note as the film wears on.

For example, in an early and mostly superfluous scene which is a bit of dramatic window dressing (or padding if you like), a man in one of two pub scenes accidentally puts his hand through some glass. For a black and white movie of the 1940s, I found it odd but refreshing that we were allowed to see a mass of blood covering his hand... not a phenomenon I would associate too much with pre-1960s, Hollywood movie making. Incidentally, the eagle eyed among you may notice that, in one of the two pub scenes, the young sailor saying “Blimey!” is none other than a very young Peter Lawford.

Dennis Hoey is great as yet another comic foil for Holmes and he actually says two ‘very Lestrade’ like things which would become almost an amalgamated catchphrase for him in the series, if memory serves. In this one he exclaims both “Why, if it ain’t Mr. ‘Olmes!” and also “Why, if it isn’t Dr. Watson!” literally within ten seconds of the first utterance. Which definitely brought a smile to my face. Also, when reconstructing the steps of an unconscious victim, Holmes pronounces... “We must search her mind!” which I thought was a pretty striking turn of phrase.

Another striking turn of phrase, for me at any rate, was Nigel Bruce’s wonderful delivery, dismissing various silly speculations about the various ghostly legends at Musgrave as an expression to rival one of my favourites, Shilly Shally, as... “Hokey Pokey Penny A Lump.” The complete meaning of the phrase is now, it would seem, lost to obscurity but certainly popped up in a song in the 1920s referring to the slogan shouted for the selling of honeycomb ice cream... perhaps meaning cheap. Although, how this becomes a derisory term for the naming of nonsense is beyond me. What isn’t beyond me is that I think this phrase should definitely be brought back into the common parlance and I shall try and sneak it into as many conversations as I can for now. It’s a good ‘un!

The acting in this one is superb, as usual and a special shout out to Halliwell Hobbes as the dipsomaniac butler Brunton. He has a lovely scene where Rathbone’s Holmes is trying to interrogate him and he’s convincingly blotto during the sequence. He does it so well and against Rathbone’s blank expression that I suspect that both the actors had real trouble keeping a straight face through the scene. I’m sure that when the director called “Cut” they must both have been in peels of laughter.

One last thing... when the first victim tells Dr. Watson of how he was stabbed in the neck by a perpetrator unknown, the camera eye flashes back to the scene and we see him attacked for the benefit of the audience. However, when he is later revealed himself as the murderer and his story of how the wound was inflicted proves to be fabricated to throw suspicion from himself, it becomes clear should any of the audience remember by this point, that the camera POV shot from earlier was certainly lying and showing the audience something that never happened. Certainly not the first or last time this trick has been invested in to divert attention but, I have to wonder if this was, indeed, one of the earliest?

And that’s me done with Sherlock Holmes Faces Death. Another brilliant and entertaining entry into the series from a franchise of films I’ll continue to watch into my old age. A wonderful sequence of films, for sure.