Sherlock Holmes (1932)

Just perfect...

A Major Disappointment

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Am a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes and get a lot of enjoyment out of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. Also love Basil Rathbone's and especially Jeremy Brett's interpretations to death. So would naturally see any Sherlock Holmes adaptation that comes my way, regardless of its reception.Furthermore, interest in seeing early films based on Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories and wanting to see as many adaptations of any Sherlock Holmes stories as possible sparked my interest in seeing 'Sherlock Holmes', especially one with such a great idea. Anything with one of literature's most iconic arch-enemies Moriaty is always worth the watch.'Sherlock Holmes' is very problematic and not one of the best Sherlock Holmes adaptations certainly, the best of the Jeremy Brett adaptations and films of Basil Rathone fit under this category. It's also not among the very worst, although one of the lesser ones overall, being better than any of the Matt Frewer films (particularly 'The Sign of Four') and much better than the abominable Peter Cook 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'.Ernest Torrence is the best thing about 'Sherlock Holmes', being an effectively sinister Moriaty. Clive Brook is also pretty good and enigmatic as Holmes. There is a suitably spooky and creepy atmosphere in the film, and some scenes come off effectively. Especially the trial and the escape. There are some nice starkly beautifully and eerie shots and the direction has some inspired visual and atmosphere touches. However, the rest of the cast are not great, though Alan Mowbray is okay if not electric. Not just Miriam Jordan's dull Alice and Howard Leeds' grating Billy (who has too much screen time), but Reginald Owen is even stiffer as Watson than he was when he portrayed Holmes in 'A Study in Scarlet', Watson is very underused here which robs us of one of the most legendary partnerships to fully make impression and Owen does very little with what he has. Other than the visual and atmosphere touches, the direction struggles in some of the direction of the actors and giving the mystery consistent momentum. The script is talky and rambling, with some over-played and extraneous comedy that was merely padding. The pace tends to be on the dull side and the tension and suspense too often is lacking in the story, the mystery not fully coming to life and occasionally could have been clearer. Only Moriaty and Holmes are interesting of the characters.To conclude, alright but a long way from exceptional. 5/10 Bethany Cox

William K. Howard directed this at the top of his powers. Most sources claim he was influenced by Murnau. I think his stuff looks like Tod Browning, but it doesn't really matter where he got that fast-cutting-between-askew-images-from. It's compelling and exciting. On the other hand, the script is the least Sherlockian thing I have ever seen. It's a sequel to the Gillette play. Ernest Torrence, playing Moriarity with a gotch eye is to be hanged, so Holmes is set to retire, marry Miriam Jordan and live a life of riding to the hounds. But Moriarity escapes and begins to wreak a terrible vengeance.Clive Brooks makes an adequate Holmes, , since he lives in a world of morons. Watson disappears early on, which is a good thing, since the role is played by Reginald Owen.So, how do I rate this? It's a movie that is worth watching, because it is such a visual treat, with some wonderful ur-Noir cinematography by George Barnes, including a sequence that is mostly lit by arc welding light. However, pretend it's Bulldog Drummond and not Sherlock Holmes.

The film begins with Professor Moriarty, arch-criminal and personal arch-enemy of Sherlock Holmes, being sentenced to death for the many murders he committed - but he swears that before HE'll hang, the three people who helped arrest and convict him will die as well; including Sherlock Holmes, of course...In the meantime, we get to know an entirely 'different' Sherlock Holmes than the pedantic, snobby loner we knew from Conan Doyle's novels and would later find again in Basil Rathbone: Clive Brook (who played the role for the second time; his first appearance as Holmes was in a 1925 silent) is a cheerful, amiable chap - and what's more, he's in love, and he's about to give up sleuthing in order to marry and retire to the country!! But - Moriarty upsets his plans by breaking out of jail, and immediately beginning to take his revenge: he hangs the judge who convicted him in his own house; so, in alphabetical order, as Holmes deduces, the next one will be Colonel Gore-King, with whom Holmes isn't exactly on friendly terms... Moriarty plans to use that grudge for his own plans - while, criminal mastermind as he is, he's working at the same time with the help of Chicago gangsters on the 'reign' over all pubs, American style (protection or 'pineapples' = bombs, for Englishmen) - and on a big-scale robbery at the big bank that belongs to Holmes' future father-in-law... BUT - Holmes has got an equally brilliant mind, and develops his own plans...As we said, we see Sherlock Holmes in an ENTIRELY new light here - and the two most memorable scenes are the one where he disguises in drag, as his father-in-law's 'Aunt Matilda' (!); and the final scene, where we see the great sleuth for once KISS his girl (!!). But, of course, there's enough left of the Holmes we all know - for example, he can't avoid even here using that well-known term of his, 'Elementary!', all the time...For 'strict' Sherlock Holmes fanatics, this movie may be 'against the rules' set by Conan Doyle - but for all others, I believe, it's a wonderfully entertaining, excellently played and directed, enormously suspenseful and VERY clever classic detective movie; and with a good dose of British humor, too!

One of the earliest Sherlock Holmes films this is interesting if only for the fact that Holmes is about to get married as the film opens and even dons drag part way through. It may be best not to reflect too much on his relationship with Billy, the Canadian boy who Holmes is training in the arts of criminology. Dr Watson is relegated to an occasional appearance and the arch-villain Moriarty is played with a heavy leering menace that doesn't quite fit with the books. But there's not a lot here that does fit with the books although that does not necessarily detract. The impressive opening, with Moriarty cast in shadows as he proceeds to and from the courtroom for sentencing, sets an appropriate atmosphere which holds throughout. Not a great Sherlock Holmes by any stretch of the imagination, but an interesting example.