Main Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Ida Lupino, Alan Marshal, E.E. Clive, Terry Kilburn
Release Year: 1939
Country: US
Run Time: 83 minutes
Plot
Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce make their second screen appearances as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Ostensibly based on the stage play by William Gillette, the film owes nothing to the play beyond the characters of Holmes, Watson, Billy the page boy and Professor Moriarty. Played with relish (and a bit of pickle) by George Zucco, Moriarty plots to steal the Crown Jewels, and also to confound Holmes by obliging the Great Detective to be in two places at once. Ida Lupino costars as an imperiled young woman who is seemingly plagued by an ancient family curse--a plot development that has been carefully stage-managed by the malevolent Moriarty. Basil Rathbone is excellent not only as Holmes but also in the guise of a cockney music-hall entertainer (if indeed that is Rathbone performing a buck-and-wing in longshot). The second of Twentieth Century-Fox's Holmes films (Hound of the Baskervilles was the first), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was the last in which Rathbone and Bruce were seen in a 19th century setting. In the subsquent Sherlock Holmes series at Universal, the exploits of Holmes and Watson were updated to the World War II years. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes may owe nothing to Arthur Conan Doyle (or the William Gillette play upon which it is ostensibly based) other than a handful of characters, but that's enough. While some of the plotting and dialogue is not strictly according to Doyle -- Moriarty would never reveal his secrets to his butler in such a blatantly expository manner;Holmes would never be as dismissive of the threat posed by Moriarty nor as easily fooled by the double blind that the villain uses to distract him; the boyfriend's motives would be better explained -- things are kept close enough to the spirit of the book (and characters) that the violations of the letter don't matter too much. Most importantly, the film has in Basil Rathbone an actor that is imminently suited to the role of the world's greatest sleuths. While others have matched (or even perhaps surpassed) his interpretation, it is still the benchmark by which all other Holmes are measured, and he is in superb form here. Nigel Bruce's Watson has here started to develop a bit more of the obtuseness that would become more pronounced as the series progresses, but the actors play it to good comic effect. George Zucco's Moriarty is appropriately evil, and Ida Lupino plays the damsel in distress role with a winning combination of restraint and resilience. Weighing all the evidence, it's clear that Adventures is an engaging detective thriller. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Richard Day - Art Director, Hans Peters - Art Director, Gene Markey - Associate Producer, Gwen Wakeling - Costume Designer, Alfred L. Werker - Director, Robert Bischoff - Editor, Cyril Mockridge - Composer (Music Score), David Raksin - Composer (Music Score), Cyril Mockridge - Musical Direction/Supervision, Leon Shamroy - Cinematographer, Darryl F. Zanuck - Producer, Thomas K. Little - Set Designer, W.D. Flick - Sound/Sound Designer, Roger Heman - Sound/Sound Designer, Edwin Blum - Screenwriter, William A. Drake - Screenwriter, William Gillette - Play Author
The film was ostensibly based on the stage play by William Gillette, though little of the play's original plot remains aside from the Holmes/Moriarty conflict. The play famously featured a very young Charlie Chaplin in one of his very first acting roles during its first London production, playing the character of Billy, who, in this movie, is played by Terry Kilburn.
Plot
The film begins with Moriarty and Holmes verbally sparring on the steps outside the Old Bailey where Moriarty has just been acquitted on a charge of murder due to lack of evidence. Holmes remarks, "You've a magnificent brain, Moriarty. I admire it. I admire it so much I'd like to present it, pickled in alcohol, to the London Medical Society". "It would make an impressive exhibit" sneers Moriarty.
Later Holmes and Watson are visited at 221b Baker Street by Ann Brandon (Ida Lupino). She tells him that her brother Lloyd has received a strange note - a drawing of a man with an albatross hanging around his neck - identical to one received by her father just before his brutal murder ten years before. Holmes deduces that the note is a warning and rushes to find Lloyd Brandon. However he is too late, as Lloyd has been murdered by being strangled and having his skull crushed.
Holmes investigates and attends a garden party, disguised as a music-hall entertainer, where he correctly believes an attempt will be made on Ann's life. Hearing her cries from a nearby park he captures her assailant, who turns out to be Gabriel Mateo, out for revenge on the Brandons for the murder of his father, by Ann's father in a dispute over ownership of their South American mine. His murder weapon was a bolas. Mateo also reveals that it was Moriarty who urged him to seek revenge. Holmes realises that Moriarty is using the case as a distraction from his real crime, a crime that will stir the British Empire - an attempt to steal the Crown Jewels. Holmes rushes to the Tower of London to prevent the crime, and during a struggle Moriarty falls, presumably to his death. In the end, Ann is married and Holmes tries to shoo a fly by playing his violin, only to have Watson swap it with his newspaper remarking, "Elementary, My Dear Holmes, Elementary."[1]
Influence
The quote "Elementary, my dear Watson" was made popular by this film. Although it was spoken in a 1929 talkieThe Return of Sherlock Holmes, starring Clive Brook, it was never featured in a canonical Arthur Conan Doyle story, although once Holmes said, in "The Adventure of the Crooked Man", "Elementary". The quote "Elementary, my dear Watson" was ranked No. 65 in the AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes poll.
In the scene where Holmes gatecrashes the garden party dressed as a music hall performer, he sings "I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside". This is an anachronism, since the film is set in 1894, but the song was written in 1907.
