CinemaSerf

What's more interesting about this early "Sherlock Holmes" outing is the approach Clive Brook takes to the character. About to marry his fiancée "Alice" (Miriam Jordan) he is called out of retirement after the evil "Moriarty" (Ernest Torrance) escapes from the gallows and vows revenge on him and his Scotland Yard associate "Col. Gore King" (Alan Mowbray). This is very much a solo effort. Reginald Owen is "Dr. Watson", but unlike in almost every other iteration of this fictional sleuth, he plays little more than a bit part as "Holmes" engages in a life or death struggle with his foe. Howard Leeds is, frankly, quite annoying as his more useful bell-boy helper "Billy" but there is quite a fun exchange with Herbert Mundin and Frank Atkinson after "Moriarty" starts to implement his plan to import Chicago-style racketeering to a London where the police were armed with little more than whistles and truncheons. The story is too far-fetched, for me. I found Brooks a little too sterile (despite his brief foray into aged drag) and the writing is all just a bit flat, but it's an interesting take to the character than wasn't replicated ever again.