THE WOMAN IN GREEN (1945)

Opening narration by Inspector Gregson lets us know that Scotland Yard is stumped by a series of murders, considered the worst since Jack the Ripper—young women are being killed and their right forefinger cut off. Gregson meets with Sherlock Holmes at a club called Pembroke House to discuss the murders. Holmes notices Sir George Fenwick at the club in the company of a beautiful blonde named Lydia. (When Gregson asks if the woman is his daughter, Holmes replies, "Don’t be so naive, Inspector"; when the two leave together and Holmes wonders where Lydia's taking Fenwick, the inspector replies, "Don’t be so naive, Holmes.") Back at her place, the two sit on a couch having a nightcap, staring into a water bowl with floating flowers as he seems to slip into a trance (pictured). The next morning, Fenwick wakes up disoriented, in a cheap boarding house. He sees headlines about another finger murder, then discovers a severed finger in his coat pocket. After Fenwick goes to see Lydia, Fenwick's daughter visits Holmes after she witnesses her father burying a human finger in the backyard. By the time they get to Fenwick's, he has shot himself in his study, a Pembroke House matchbook in his hand. At 221B Baker Street, Dr. Watson is called away and the evil genius Professor Moriarty, assumed to have died in Montevideo, shows up, perhaps holding Watson, to warn Holmes away from the finger murders. Later, Watson shows up unharmed, and Holmes figures out what Moriarty is up to: he and Lydia are working together to hypnotize rich men into thinking they have committed murders (by planting the fingers on them while drugged or in a trance), then blackmailing them. There is an attempt made on Holmes' life from across the street and Holmes and Watson go to a meeting of the Mesmer Club to bone up on hypnotism, which Watson is very skeptical of. In the end, Moriarty seems to have the advantage over a hypnotized Holmes who may well plummet to his death from a high building unless Watson and Gregson can stop him.

This ninth film in the present-day Holmes series has great potential but it falls short of its predecessor THE HOUSE OF FEAR. It's not as atmospheric and its script doesn't quite give it room to breathe, squandering to a degree the talents of Henry Daniell (as Moriarty) and B-femme fatale Hillary Brooke (as Lydia). Both show promise early on, the icy Lydia in her scene with Fenwick (Paul Cavanagh), the brusque Moriarty in his first scene with Holmes, but the 68-minute movie at various times both drags and feels rushed, making Brooke and Daniell (each making their third appearances in the series) less effective than they should be by the end. The plot, not based directly on Doyle, is solid, and draws on the plot of the earlier SPIDER WOMAN. Daniell is not quite as wicked as George Zucco was in ADVENTURES, but he's an improvement on Lionel Atwill in SECRET WEAPON. Nigel Bruce is fine as Watson, but Matthew Boulton is dreadfully plain as Gregson—I'm guessing Dennis Hoey was otherwise engaged and couldn't reprise his role as Lestrade. Certainly watchable, but a lesser effort with maybe a lower budget that previous films. [DVD]