Year:
1946
Rating: 6.0After
this one the game was no longer afoot. The final pairing of Basil Rathbone
and Nigel Bruce as Holmes and Watson. 14 of them. They were a pleasure to
watch. Some good plots, a fine collection of character actors, but it is
the warmth and comradery between the pair that make the films so likable.
By no means are they great or innovative - very much comfort food - shot
as B films on small budgets yet they always looked good thanks to Roy William
Neill who directed 11 of the 14. How these films fare with a young audience
today, I can't say, but I would guess not very well. There is no action,
no sex, no violence - the Breen Office made sure of that. Just a lot of fog,
atmosphere and a tiny bit of suspense. Oh, and in black and white.
Rathbone had already announced that this
was his last Sherlock Holmes. At the same time, he ended his contract on
the Sherlock Holmes radio show that he and Bruce had done for seven years.
220 episodes. This was a blow to Bruce who was 52 at the time and certainly
not leading man material. Watson had made him known to all. Universal also
ended his contract, shitheads that they were. Apparently, this put a dent
in their long friendship. He was able to do one more season on radio when
they replaced Rathbone with Tom Conway, the Falcon, and Universal considered
signing him as Holmes but in the end that didn't happen. Director Neill was
trying to produce some Holmes films in England with both actors, but he suddenly
died. Oddly, a few years later Rathbone brought Holmes to the stage and asked
Bruce to join him, but Bruce was ill and in fact passed away before it opened.
The play only lasted a few performances.
Thankfully, the final film is a solid one
with a clever script and a cleverer Holmes. Watson of course bumbles along.
He does accidentally solve two clues, but he is generally hopeless. On one
occasion he is warned by Scotland Yard not to say anything and he takes umbrage,
"Do you think I am a gossip?" to which Holmes gives him a look and says,
"We will talk about that later". And later when the Yard asks Holmes if something
is safe, he assures them that it is because Watson is protecting it. You
know how that went.
Interestingly, this is the first time I
recall in which Watson is mentioned as the author of the Holmes stories,
in this case The Scandal of Bohemia. That has always been my bug-a-boo about
how Watson is portrayed. How could this kind but foolish Watson write the
brilliant stories. It is a friend of Watson who kicks off the plot. His friend
Stinky (Edmund Breon) has just had a cheap music box stolen from his home
while the expensive ones were left. This intrigues Holmes who clearly has
nothing going on. Soon murder and the Bank of England are part of it. A coded
message that Holmes has to figure out. There is a fine femme fatale here,
the equal of Irene Adler or the Spider Woman. Her two male partners are terrified
of her. Played by Patricia Morison, a dark haired beauty who every time I
come across her in a B movie, I wonder why she didn't make it in film. Turns
out her real talent was theater and singing and she became a star on the
stage doing Kiss Me Kate and The King and I on Broadway. And so these films
end. I could easily have done with a dozen more.
