Sherlock Holmes *** (1932, Clive Brook, Reginald Owen) – Classic Movie Review 1280

Director William K Howard’s 1932 thriller updates Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s stories to the 1930s, in a screenplay by Bertram Milhauser based on the hit stage play Sherlock Holmes by William Gillette.

Clive Brook stars as a smoulderingly grave and quietly useful Holmes and the movie’s stolen by Ernest Torrence’s stupendous, sinister nemesis and arch-rival Professor Moriarty, who imports American mobsters to operate a protection racket in England.

Also giving fine performances are Reginald Owen as an excellent Dr Watson and Alan Mowbray as the Scotland Yard copper, Colonel Gore-King. Miriam Jordan (as Alice Faulkner), Herbert Mundin, Howard Leeds, Montague Shaw, Arnold Lucy, Lucien Paval, Roy D’Arcy, Eddie Dillon and Brandon Hurst co-star.

It’s a short feature at 68 minutes and low budget, but the actors keep it involving and cinematographer George Barnes provides some striking black and white images. In the story, Moriarty is sentenced to death by hanging, while Sherlock Holmes prepares to retire to the country and marry his fiancée. But Moriarty escapes from prison and swears to exact vengeance on Holmes, Gore-King and his trial judge. His evil plan is that they are all be hanged instead.

Brook also played Holmes in the 1929 film The Return of Sherlock Holmes. Owen played Sherlock Holmes the following year in A Study in Scarlet, making him the only actor to play both Holmes and Watson in cinema feature films and one of only four actors to play both Holmes and Watson. Jeremy Brett played Holmes on British TV and Watson on stage in the US, Carleton Hobbs played both roles in British radio adaptations, while Patrick Macnee played both roles in US TV movies.

(C) Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1280

Link to Derek Winnert’s home page for more film reviews: http://derekwinnert.com/

Reginald Owen as Sherlock Holmes in A Study in Scarlet (1933).