Terror By Night

Murder On The
Scottish Express

Terror By Night
USA 1946 Directed by Roy William Neill
Universal Blu Ray Zone B

Warning: Some obvious spoilers here.

Terror By Night, the penultimate entry of Universal’s ongoing Sherlock Holmes series featuring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson, was also the last of the series to feature Dennis Hoey’s brilliant performance as the long suffering Inspector Lestrade and, he does seem to have more to do in this one in terms of the story. However, because almost the entirety of the story is set on a train, as it makes it’s long overnight journey from London to Scotland, Mary Gordon has no opportunity to make an appearance as Mrs. Hudson... although I believe she was back for the very last of the series.

This one concerns a jewel called The Star Of Rhodesia which, according to the narrator at the start, actually detailing its history direct to the audience for once (rather than being a surrogate section for something being explained to Holmes), has a violent history. But not much of one, really... it’s just an attention grabbing statement because the real violence surrounding the star happens over the course of the train journey, which comprises the running time of the movie here.

So, yeah, we have an undercover Inspector Lestrade (who isn’t undercover for long as Holmes and the audience are obviously onto his game right from the outset) plus Holmes and Watson escorting the current ‘old lady’ owner of the star back to Scotland as they expect another attempt will be made by thieves to abscond with it before the train reaches its destination. So it’s actually pretty similar in some ways to the setting of the last movie on board a moving vehicle... only this time the cruise ship is substituted for model railway stock shots of the train on its journey and the musical sections have been quickly abandoned.

Quite honestly, it’s not the best in the series and it goes through all the Agatha Christie style ‘questioning all the people aboard the carriage’ shenanigans you would expect, while the villain (the right hand man of the deceased Professor Moriarty), and his henchmen murder various people and make attempts on various other people’s lives in order to acquire the jewel, which Holmes has already switched with a fake version in an early part of the movie. It’s entertaining enough, though and does have some points of interest.

For instance, there’s a scene when Holmes and Lestrade are discussing the many suspects and, as they do so, a series of wipes catches up to each of the characters and what they are doing at this time (mostly sitting around in train compartments looking vaguely mysterious). Which is not in itself an unusual thing to do in a mystery movie but I believe it’s the first time that Roy William Neill has employed this technique in one of his Sherlock Holmes movies.

Another thing is that Lestrade does see some action himself, when a very sinister looking assassin knocks him unconscious and is then himself killed by his boss with a poison dart gun, his dead body slumped and left against Lestrade’s. However, when Lestrade is brought back to consciousness, he very quickly falls in with Holmes elabourate plan regarding a, not necessarily so surprising plot twist, towards the end of the movie and helps turn the tables on the main culprit and his gang of accomplices.

Thirdly, there’s actually a genuine action sequence in this movie, where Holmes is trying to fight off an assassin and finds himself locked out on the exterior of the train for a bit before he manages to smash his way back to safety... again, not what I’d expect to see in one of the movies in this series.

I’ve not much more to say on this one other than the story is, well, okay hardly original but it’s not a specific Arthur Conan Doyle story, although Terror By Night apparently has elements of The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, The Adventure of the Empty House, The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax  and The Sign of Four added into the mix. All in all though, while not a high point of the series, it’s all very entertaining and fast paced and Rathbone, Holmes and Hoey all do a wonderful job playing the roles we’ve come to love. Looking forward to revisiting the last in the series, which also bears the name of a later and, perhaps, much more famous Brian De Palma movie... at some point soon.