SHERLOCK HOLMES FACES DEATH (1943)

Musgrave Manor, in rural Northumberland, is being used as a center for recovering shell-shocked soldiers, and Sherlock Holmes' sidekick Dr. Watson is temporarily serving as a supervisor. The situation at the manor: the Musgrave brothers, Geoffrey and Phillip, disapprove of their sister Sally getting serious about dating the American Captain Vickery. At a local pub called The Rat and the Raven (which has a real raven as a mascot), we hear talk of mysterious doings on the moors where ghosts can be heard wailing, and at the manor where the clock occasionally strikes 13, presaging a death. One night at the manor, Dr. Sexton is attacked with a knife near the greenhouse. He survives, but Watson goes to London to consult with Holmes who agrees to visit the manor. By the time they arrive, however, Geoffrey is found dead outside, his body buried in a pile of leaves. With Phillip now the next in line as heir, Sally must be initiated into the Musgrave Ritual, the recital of a mysterious and seemingly nonsensical poem. On the stormy night of her recital, lightning strikes through the window, hitting a suit of armor and scaring the bejesus out of everyone. Brunton, the butler, is a drunkard who knows more than he is telling about the family history. Three of the recuperating soldiers are built up to be suspects, (one of them frequently breaks into a rictus smile for no reason), but they seem more eccentric than dangerous. When Phillip is found dead in the trunk of a car that Sally was driving (the raven from the pub finding the body), Holmes gets serious, examines the text of the mysterious ritual, and realizes the odd lines about a bishop and a king refer to chess, and Holmes instigates a human chess game played on the black and white tiled floor of the main room in the manor, discovering a clue to a buried treasure in the basement. Not everyone will live to see the treasure unearthed and explained.

This, the fourth (after IN WASHINGTON) in the Universal series of Holmes movies, marks a major change in content and atmosphere. It's still set during World War II, but there are no spies, no documents involving national security, and the shell-shocked soldiers are the only real reminders of the war. Instead, this is at heart a Gothic old dark house mystery, complete with shadowy rooms, secret passages, rumors of ghosts, and red herring suspects. I'm not sure if it's the best of the Rathbone films, but it's certainly fun. This is the first Holmes film I saw, back in the mid-60s; I vividly remember the human chess board scene (pictured above), a standout moment in the series. Years later, I remembered the scene but not what movie it came from, and when I saw this film in my forties, I yelped out loud in excitement at my discovery of the scene. There is no need to comment on Basil Rathbone or Nigel Bruce—they are encased comfortably in their roles as they would be for the rest of the series.

The supporting cast is adequate if not exceptional. Hillary Brooke (Sally), a frequent B-lead, is fine. Dennis Hoey is brought back from SECRET WEAPON to play Lestrade, largely as comic relief. Halliwell Hobbes is good as Brunton who, though often drunk and pissed off, becomes surprisingly important to the mystery. Milburn Stone is the American soldier, Gavin Muir is Phillip, and Vernon Downing (pictured with Rathbone) is a standout among the patients as the involuntary smiler. Sets, cinematography and atmosphere are all first-rate. The closing bits of dialogue, as in the earlier films, are used, if not for patriotism, for uplift, as Holmes muses, "The old days of grab and greed are on their way out" (pretty to think so!). Best line: as Watson has to identify himself to a policeman, he says, "I’m Dr. Watson" in an overly proud way, and the cop replies, "Well, I'm Mrs. Miniver!" It's notable that, though Watson and Lestrade do some of their usual bumbling, they are both actually helpful at the climax. [DVD]