Dressed to Kill

Quite possibly the best of the Universal/Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies. The mystery is clever, the antagonists are formidable, and Holmes is at the top of his game, even if the villains temporarily get the best of him. In other developments, Watson remains something near a moron—how did such a creature ever get a medical license?—the anachronism is still a thing, though not particularly glaring in this outing, and Holmes doesn’t bother with any disguises (and is even taken in by the criminal lady’s outfit!). The movie moves swiftly, provides an entertaining tale, and comes to a satisfying conclusion, even if some of the hallmarks of the Holmes canon are still missing (mainly, the atmosphere of Victorian England, which is so integral to most of the stories on the page). It may be a bastardized version of the Conan Doyle character’s adventures, but this film still delivers enough of what you expect of the super sleuth to make it worth a look.

Terror by Night

Well, what do you know—this time, there’s an actual client who engages Holmes, though not to solve a mystery so much as to serve as a watchdog. No matter—the case still provides enough twists and turns to fill a mostly entertaining hour. Points of interest here include the fact that virtually the entire movie takes place on a train, which necessitated ample use of railway footage—a treat for train enthusiasts in the audience. This outing also shows perhaps the height of the series’ Watson abuse; the Nigel Bruce portrayal of Sherlock’s sidekick is vaguely insulting in most of these films, but here he is really treated as a total doofus. As usual, though, the reason this work works lays squarely with Rathbone's efforts as Holmes; he leaves the viewer supremely confident that, no matter how clever the villain may be, he’s no match for history’s most famous detective. A jolly good show.

The Woman in Green

There’s a series of murders going on in London—but then again, when aren’t there? Thankfully, Sherlock Holmes is around to piece together the details and bring the spree to an end. In other words, this flick is pretty much exactly what you’d expect from a circa 1945 Basil Rathbone vehicle. There are, of course, issues with the production vis-a-vis what we know of Conan Doyle’s canon. The setting is contemporary, thus stripping the tale of all of the usual late-empire trappings (the ‘40s setting is so out of step with what one would think of as the hero’s natural habitat that the erstwhile Victorian gentleman may as well be Sam Spade rather than Sherlock Holmes). There is a mystery, but no client; the consulting detective is merely invited into the case by the baffled police inspector (Gregson, in this instance; the client interview is a staple of Holmes stories, but is bafflingly absent in many of these movie adaptations), and the climax of the movie and the case is less a matter of the sleuth putting the puzzle together and more a matter of Holmes simply outfoxing the villains. So how, then , is this movie a good watch? Largely, it works on the strength of Rathbone's portrayal of the character; the more I see of him in the role, the more I judge him to be an exceptional fit for the Holmes persona. He may not match the great Jeremy Brett, but Rathbone is a physical match for the character, and he carries himself in the part much as a reader of the original tales would expect the man to be. It also helps that these entries in Universal’s Holmes series move briskly and come in at barely more than an hour. It takes little effort to watch and pays that small effort with a near iconic portrayal and an entertaining story. The success here is, dare I say it, just that elementary.

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon

It’s not exactly canon, as they say, but that’s hardly surprising when you lift Holmes out of Victorian times and place him in the midst of Britain’s World War II struggle. The story here is a bunch of humbug about trying to protect a scientist and the weapon he has developed—a storyline with particular contemporaneous interest, though one that does not entirely match the typical, unusual nature of the great man's preferred cases. The movie often fails to live up to the promise of an authentic Holmes experience; an early scene depicting a test of the doohickey shows a laughably obvious desert landscape supposedly substituting for England’s Salisbury plain, and there are other production stumbles. Nevertheless, the movie does move at a quick and entertaining pace, and there remains enough of the super sleuth's trademark traits in Basil Rathbone's version of the character—the deductive skill, the facility with disguises, the confidence bordering on arrogance—that fans can feel an affinity for the classic embodiment of one of fiction's greatest personas. The only real regret with this flick is a lack of essential Britishness; though everyone speaks with a British accent, the atmosphere of the story never really conveys that sense of Holmes’s home country, which is so very much a part of the appeal of Conan Doyle’s creation. Still, for a film that was made to be an almost throwaway, Saturday afternoon matinee feature—the best time to watch this one is either on a lazy weekend morning or late at night—it provides just enough entertainment value in its brief running time to work as a light and casual watch. It’s no mystery: if Sherlock Holmes is on the case, you’re going to have a pretty good time.

The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad

Watches like a longish episode of the old Wonderful World of Disney TV show…which makes sense, given I probably saw this very work on that very show back in my childhood days. There’s nothing particularly wrong with either of the vignettes presented herein, other than a little too much reliance on slapstick. That’s especially grievous in the case of the Toad piece, where all the sense of lyric beauty of Graham’s original writing is largely lost in the service of showcasing comedy. A full treatment of the Wind in the Willows, shifting back and forth between Toad's antics and the natural character of Rat's and Mole's lives on the river, could have been more interesting (though might not have produced the theme park’s "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride." I guess you have to prioritize ... As for the treatment of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, the mean, jockish guy gets the hot, blonde chick--but you already knew that. That's about the only takeaway from the second set piece. The animation in both sequences is impressive, while the songs are largely paint-(or, rather, sing-)by-numbers works, the kinds of tunes where the chorus just repeats the character’s name over and again. Narration by Basil Rathbone and Bing Crosby add a touch of class and star power to the proceedings. Otherwise, this flick overall is modestly above average, but hardly a masterpiece. Probably it's still good for today's kids, and nostalgic adults, but entertainment has moved so far on and away from the displayed world and culture and society that I suspect few ever watch movies like this anymore, outside of maybe a few quirks in smalltown Utah. I can’t quite decide if that’s a good development or not. I guess history will ultimately decide.

Captain Blood

You've got lots of plot getting in the way of the movie in the beginning, but once it gets rolling, man does it roll! This is Errol Flynn at his swashbuckling best, in what amounts to the definitive pirate movie. Truly a classic