BEFORE: Another day, another snowstorm that supposedly is going to be a terrible nor'easter that will cripple our metropolitan area, canceling schools and stranding people indoors, and the news tips off a blind panic so that everyone rushes to the stores and stocks up on milk and bread so they won't starve. And for the second time in a week, the storm amounted to nearly nothing, at least in our area of Queens, NY. Maybe things are different upstate or out on Long Island, but if I don't have to shovel the snow, if nothing accumulates on my sidewalk, and everything that falls is melted two days later, I can't understand the need for panic. Here's hoping that in two weeks, or by the time I'm done with these Sherlock Holmes movies, we'll have some nice spring weather and winter will be nothing more than a bad memory.
Basil Rathbone carries over from "The Hound of the Baskervilles", and suddenly I realize that I'll probably have a tie at the end of the year for most on-screen appearances, because Nigel Bruce, who plays Dr. Watson, is most likely in every film, too. And things are looking up for the actress who plays Mrs. Hudson, too.
THE PLOT: The master sleuth hunts his archenemy, Professor Moriarty, who is planning the crime of the century.
AFTER: This was apparently based not on the novels but on a staged version of Sherlock's story, from 1899. That play was a patchwork of story elements from "A Study in Scarlet", "The Final Problem" and "A Scandal in Bohemia", though there seem to be vast differences between those stories and the play, and then even more differences between the play and this film. I guess any time you move the stories from one medium to another, differences are going to ensue. (Then why call it an "adaptation" at all?)
The good news is that Professor Moriarty makes his first appearance in the film series here, though it's clear that he and Sherlock Holmes have a history, so it's not their first meeting. The film opens with Moriarty being acquitted of murder charges - Sherlock arrives with proof of his guilt, but he's just a little too late. So Moriarty's in the clear, and can't be tried twice for the same offense. We all know that Sherlock is usually the smartest person in the room, but for that to be effective, he's got to BE in the room, at the right time.
Once released, Moriarty starts putting his plan for the "Crime of the Century" in motion - and mostly this involves coming up with something that will distract Sherlock Holmes, because he believes that Sherlock can only focus on one thing at a time. If he can devise a tricky enough puzzle for Holmes to solve, then he can be on the other side of town, doing whatever he wants - or so the theory goes.
Unfortunately, this means that the entire case we see in the film has little relevance, because we know it's only there to keep Holmes away from the delivery of the Star of Delhi, a giant emerald, which is being brought to London to join the crown jewels in the Tower of London. Sure, because England takes whatever it wants from its colony in India, and brings the best stuff back home.
The distraction story involves a woman, Ann Brandon, whose brother receives a note with a drawing of a man with an albatross around his neck, a reference to the long poem "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner". Ten years prior, her father had received a similar drawing by mail, and was murdered shortly after that. So now she believes her brother's life is similarly in danger. What does this all have to do with some strange South American music and a man with a club foot? Again, it hardly matters here because this is all the secondary sub-plot, right?
NITPICK POINT: The killer's weapon is a bolas, a thrown weapon with balls connected by cords, used in South America to catch animals by tangling up their legs. But here it's thrown at people at head-height, which I suppose could be dangerous if the weighted balls hit someone in the head. But what's shown is the bolas hitting the neck of a statue and decapitating it. This is highly unlikely to happen, even if the cords were made of razor-wire, which they're not. How do these cords manage to go through marble, or perhaps concrete? Sure, it looks cool, but it's not feasible.
Also starring Nigel Bruce (carrying over), Ida Lupino (last seen in "High Sierra"), Alan Marshal (last seen in "After the Thin Man"), Terry Kilburn, George Zucco (last seen in "The Barkleys of Broadway"), Henry Stephenson (last seen in "Mutiny on the Bounty" (1935)), E.E. Clive (also carrying over from "The Hound of the Baskervilles", but in a different role), Peter Willes (ditto), Arthur Hohl, May Beatty, Mary Gordon (also carrying over), Holmes Herbert (last seen in "The Ghost of Frankenstein"), George Regas, Mary Forbes (last seen in "Roberta"), Frank Dawson (last seen in "A Day at the Races"), William Austin (last seen in "The Private Life of Henry VIII").
RATING: 5 out of 10 flies in a glass
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