CinemaSerf

Another efficient outing for Arthur Wontner and Ian Fleming as "Holmes" and "Watson" sees the renowned detective teased from retirement to investigate the mysterious, and rather brutal, death of a country gent at the hands of an American gang ("The Scowlers"). To start with, no-one is quite sure why this fellow had been slaughtered in the first place, but we soon start to get an inkling of the backstory from his widow "Ettie" (Jane Carr) and are promptly, as ever, on the trail of their arch-enemy "Moriarty". As with his 1931 iteration "The Sleeping Cardinal", Wontner presents us with a more sophisticated, measured, performance as the sleuth (he spends much of the film in his chair!), and Fleming offers a much more focussed - and, frankly, useful assistant as they work with the frequently baffled "Lestrade" (Charles Mortimer) to get to the bottom of the scheming Professor's latest outrageous scheme. In the best traditions of armchair cinema - the story is tightly constructed and the dialogue requires us to keep paying attention if we want to stay with them! For 1935, though, the standard of the production is pretty poor - and though it helps a bit on the atmosphere front, both the lighting and the audio make it a bit of a struggle to follow at times. Perhaps not for purists of the Conan Doyle serialisations, as it deviates a bit from his "Valley of Fear" (1914) Strand Magazine story but the suspense builds well and there is plenty to keep it interesting.