Belated Movie Reviews

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), surely one of the most poorly titled films in the series, this time includes Ida Lupino as the damsel in distress (one father, one brother murdered – as it turns out, purely as a diversion, which is adding a very salty insult to the rather ghastly emotional injury), as well as Rathbone and Bruce in their usual roles. Add in the subtle, disconcerting psychopath Professor Moriarty, who gets in a couple of snappy lines with Holmes (who returns fire with gusto), and the movie, despite its horrid audio qualities, becomes quite engaging. The mysterious death of the brother (although I guessed it immediately, my Arts Editor was mystified), the marvelous little picture designed to baffle Holmes, it all more or less comes together. I don’t recall this from the Doyle stories, nor does Wikipedia mention the literary source, so perhaps the screenwriter, Edwin Blum, came up with this nicely convoluted puzzler on his own. In any case, it can be recommended to those who do not mind stories not from the canon.