A Study in Scarlet (1933)

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

"A Study in Scarlet" was produced by the low-budget E. W. Hammons at the low-budget Tiffany Studios starring a former Watson (possibly cast because of his association with Holmes films), Reginald Owen, as Sherlock Holmes. The presence of Holmes and Watson is the only connection to the Arthur Conan Doyle story of the same name, and that, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. I have no problem with a Sherlock Holmes film straying from slavish fidelity to the creator of the character. However, this one seems to deviate from the original not as a result of the filmmakers' creativity being exercised in order to make something new, but often in ways that make Holmes into someone that resembles a generic detective protagonist more than the most recognizable of them all.It's a little odd to see a supposed Sherlock Holmes dart around wearing clothes clearly dated to the 1930s (the only appearance of the famous deerstalker is in cartoon form in the opening titles), but since the story doesn't depend on anything terribly time-period appropriate, the transposition to the contemporary setting doesn't have too much of an effect. A curiosity here is that we are repeated told that Sherlock Holmes lives at 221A Baker Street, not the traditional 221B, even though he still seems to be living upstairs. Whether that's a simple error on somebody's part or a nod to the liberties being taken with the original stories there is no way to tell.Owen, unfortunately, is rather stiff and unremarkable in is portrayal of Sherlock Holmes. Many point out that he doesn't look the part (and, traditionally, he doesn't) but that hasn't been a problem for countless other actors. If he had managed to make the role his own through his performance it wouldn't have been for him either. He has little presence and seems to think that if he bellows each line with enough conviction and self-satisfaction he'll sound as if he knows what he's talking about.Sadly the rest of the actors are rather wooden and unimpressive as well, including Anna May Wong. Warburton Gamble makes no impression as Watson, and some of the murder victims are laughably unconvincing in their hesitant screams for help at their dying moments. Everything is taken deadly seriously except for some overplayed comic relief involving characters at a pub, which only semi works.There is a good mystery story at the heart of this film about a circle of criminals whose members are being murdered one-by-one, but the execution (including the direction which, the exception of one clever shot inside Merrydew's office near the end, mainly doesn't go beyond static two- an three-shots) is too lackluster to serve it well. The scriptwriter deserves credit for a good concept and for a good method of developing the story through showing us going on in all quarters without completely explaining its significance, but nobody else seems to have been trying very hard.It's still entertaining most of the time, and fun for viewers who will eat up anything Holmesian, but it's far from the best executed film version of the detective's adventures.

***SPOLIERS*** Lackluster Sherlock Homles mystery that has Sherlock not only showing the audience how good he is in going undercover-in disguise-but also for what seems like the first and last time in his career, as a brainy and elementary thinking sleuth, uses a firearm in gunning down and killing one the bad guys.The movie "A Study in Scarlet" seems to be a precursor to the 1939 Agatha Christie murder mystery "Ten Little Indians" written some six years after the film was released in 1933 which is about the only reason for viewing it. The movie itself doesn't really hold its audience's attention with a number of unsavory characters lead by shyster London lawyer Thaddeus Merrydew, Alan Didehart. It's Merrydew & Co. who were all involved in smuggling a cache of jewels out of Pre-Communist China, circa the late 1920's, and are now dropping dead like flies on the streets of London because of it.After a Mr. Murphy was found dead on a London bound train his wife Mrs. Annabelle Murphy, Doris Llyod, hired detective Sherlock Holmes, Reginald Owen, to see if her husband in fact was murdered not that he committed suicide like the London Police reported. Holmes soon discovers, through a number of cryptic messages in the local newspapers, that there's this group of people involved in an illegal jewelry smuggling operation that started back in China some eight years ago. The ringleader of this gang of Jewel thieves is top London criminal lawyer Thaddeus Merrydew who represents them. There's also the totally innocent Elleen Forrester, June Clyde, who's only connection with the Jewel or diamond smugglers is that her late father Col. Frrester, a member of the smuggling ring, left her his share of the profits, some 200,000 in Pound Sterling, in his will.As the members of this jewel smuggling ring, called the "Scarlet Ring", start to be killed off it soon becomes apparent that Merrydew is somehow responsible for their deaths with the help one of the rings members! But the question is which one since almost all of the jewel smugglers end up dead by the time the movie is over. It's then that Merrydew and his partner, or partners, in crime screw up in them foolishly thinking that they pulled the wool over the great Sherlock Holmes eyes. Old Sherlock, we learn, had Merrydew and Co. pegged right from the start in not only deciphering the killer's secret coded messages in the newspapers but also, I kid you not, in Holmes uncovering his very unusual shoe size that the killer left at the scene of one of his murders!***SPOILERS***Slow moving and hard to follow Sherlock Holmes film with only the appearance of the femme fatal in the movie Mrs Pyke, Anna May Wong, adding some hot Chinese mustard in it to spice the movie up a few notches. There's also the mysterious and what looks like opium pipe smoking Ah Yet, Tetsu Komai, as both Mrs. Pyke's and lawyers Merrydew's hit-man. Always puffing on his pipe and looking stoned out of his head you wondered why the two master criminals, Mrs. Pyke & Thaddeus Marrydew, would have anything to do with a strung-out weirdo like Ah Yet in the first place? Unless they were as strung out and smashed as he was by taking turns shearing his pipe!

I had never seen Reginald Owen in anything but a somewhat weak Christmas Carol. He plays a larger, more imposing Sherlock Holmes. Holmes' appearance is usually rather striking, so actors play on his idiosyncrasies. In this movie, he sort of blends in. The story has nothing to do with the story. It will probably never be produced as written because of it's religious issues. This is an attempt to apprehend the big cheese in a series of murders involving the "Scarlet Circle." Men are dying according to the same poem used in Christie's Ten Little Indians (And Then There Were None). Holmes is aware of what is going on, but can't really strike quickly. This results in deaths not being prevented. While there is a seriousness to this film, there is a lot of humor as well. The characters are rich and interesting and the acting is pretty good. See it for another angle on the Holmes canon.

A secret London society agrees to disperse the assets of it's deceased members to the remainder of the group. It doesn't take long for the victims to start dropping off one by one. Enter Sherlock Holmes (Reginald Owen), brought into the case by the wife of victim number two, upset that there isn't even the hint of an inheritance coming her way. Adding to the mystery, the group communicates via cryptic ads placed in a London newspaper."A Study in Scarlet" is a credible mystery that gives the viewer a few false leads, but is ultimately solved by Holmes in uncanny style. The title of the film originates from the name of the clandestine group - the Scarlet Ring. There is a familiarity to the plot as each of the victims receives a poetic message referencing the number of members still left alive, as in the Agatha Christie based "And Then There Were None", even though that film came a dozen years later in 1945. I must say, after viewing Basil Rathbone in the title role as the Sherlock Holmes archetype, it takes a bit of getting used to Reginald Owen depicting the sleuth; he's got a little too much padding. Conversely, Warburton Gamble's Dr. Watson doesn't seem to have enough, a la Nigel Bruce's portrayal. That aside, "A Study in Scarlet" is worth the effort, particularly for it's dark and moody atmosphere, and Sherlock Holmes' deft use of the English language.