Sherlock Holmes Faces Death ***½ (1943, Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Dennis Hoey, Arthur Margetson, Hillary Brooke) – Classic Film Review 1020

The satisfying and atmospheric 1943 mystery thriller film Sherlock Holmes Faces Death is securely based on Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1893 short story The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual. It is a welcome return to the pure mystery film genre.

Director Roy William Neill’s satisfying and atmospheric 1943 mystery thriller film Sherlock Holmes Faces Death is securely based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1893 short story The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual, though it is a loose adaptation.

It is a welcome return to the pure mystery film genre. Though again it is updated to World War Two, thankfully references to the war and the Nazis are vague and there are no intrusive patriotic speeches.

Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce and Dennis Hoey are all present and correct, and on good form too, as Holmes, Watson and Inspector Lestrade in the fourth Universal Pictures studios episode of the 12-part series that follows the two 20th Century Fox films, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939).

Bertram Millhauser adapts the original in his taut, expert screenplay in which Dr Watson summons Holmes for help when several murders occur in Musgrave Manor, a convalescent home where he is working as resident physician up in Northumberland in North East England. There is a long list of suspects, including the owners of the home, the staff and the shell-shocked war veteran patients. And there is a chilling mood as the patients stagger about, the clock strikes 13 and death hides in a pile of leaves.

Hillary Brooke (as Sally Musgrave), Milburn Stone, Halliwell Hobbes, Arthur Margetson, Gavin Muir, Olaf Hytten, Frederick Worlock, Mary Gordon (as Mrs Hudson), Holmes Herbert co-star, while Minna Phillips as Mrs Howells, Gerald Hamer as Major Langford, Peter Lawford (the future star as Customer in Public House, uncredited), Norma Varden as Gracie the barmaid (uncredited) and Ian Wolfe also appear.

This is the first film in the Universal Pictures series to abandon the idea of Holmes as a spy-hunter, battling Nazi agents and keeping Britain safe from the Axis powers. The bizarre idea ended when Sherlock Holmes in Washington flopped and the series changed for the better from this point.

It is Hillary Brooke’s second of three Holmes films, following Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) and preceding The Woman in Green (1945).

The 5′6″ blonde American film actress Hillary Brooke (September 8, 1914 – May 25, 1999) was born Beatrice Sofia Mathilda Peterson of Swedish ancestry in the Astoria neighbourhood of New York City’s borough of Queens. Blonde she may have been, but she refused to play dumb blondes: ‘Vacuity will never substitute for a glint of intelligence.’

British actor Gerald Hamer (16 November 1886 – 6 July 1972), who previously appeared in Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943), plays Langford here in Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943), and is in three more of Rathbone’s Holmes movies.

It is now digitally restored in 35mm.

Followed by The Spider Woman (1943).

The American 1943 cinema poster.

The cast are Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, Nigel Bruce as Dr John Watson, Dennis Hoey as Inspector Lestrade, Arthur Margetson as Dr Bob Sexton, Hillary Brooke as Sally Musgrave, Halliwell Hobbes as Alfred Brunton, Minna Phillips as Mrs. Howells, Milburn Stone as Captain Vickery, Frederick Worlock as Geoffrey Musgrave, Gavin Muir as Phillip Musgrave, Gerald Hamer as Major Langford, Vernon Downing as Lt Clavering, Olaf Hytten as Captain MacIntosh, Charles Coleman as Constable Kray, Dick Rush as Constable, Mary Gordon as Mrs Hudson, Peter Lawford as Customer in Public House, Norma Varden as Gracie the barmaid, Holmes Herbert, and Ian Wolfe.

Sherlock Holmes Faces Death runs 68 minutes, is made and distributed by Universal Pictures, is written by Bertram Millhauser, is shot by Charles Van Enger, and is scored by H. J. Salter.

Release date: September 17, 1943.

The films of Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Doctor Watson: The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942), Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942), Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943), Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943), The Spider Woman  (1943), The Scarlet Claw (1944), The Pearl of Death (1944), The House of Fear (1945), The Woman in Green (1945), Pursuit to Algiers (1945), Terror by Night (1946), and Dressed to Kill (1946).

The 1893 short story The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual, collected in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, is unusal in that the main narrator is Sherlock Holmes not Doctor Watson.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 1,020 derekwkinnert.com