The Scarlet Claw **** (1944, Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Miles Mander, Arthur Hohl, Gerald Hamer, Ian Wolfe, Paul Cavanagh, Kay Harding) – Classic Movie Review 1,026

Director Roy William Neill’s dastardly 1944 whodunit mystery thriller film The Scarlet Claw is the sixth and arguably the finest of Basil Rathbone’s 12 Sherlock Holmes updated films at Universal Pictures studios.

Rathbone and Nigel Bruce show they are still the definitive Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson in this free, modernised remake of The Hound of the Baskervilles in all but name, a highspot for a superlative series. The unnecessarily reworked plot leaves Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fine original in the dim distance and is based on a credited story by Paul Gangelin, Brenda Weisberg, but, still, it’s most ingenious and satisfying.

Of course, Rathbone and Bruce had already filmed The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1939 in proper Victorian setting before this World War Two-set series started.

All the while director Neill and his director of photography George Robinson conjure up an exciting atmosphere of eerie mystery from the fog, marshes and lonely houses of the unusual World War Two French-Canadian setting of bleak marshlands. Robinson’s remarkable deep-frame photography is a major asset.

Rathbone and Bruce are on impeccable sleuthing form and there’s the usual fine support cast, headed by Miles Mander, Arthur Hohl, Gerald Hamer, Ian Wolfe, Paul Cavanagh, Kay Harding, David Clyde, Victoria Horne, George Kirby, Frank O’Connor, Harry Allen, Olaf Hytten and Gertrude Astor.

Rathbone’s last words, overwhelmed by music, appear to be ‘God bless him’, referring to Winston Churchill.

It’s also known as Sherlock Holmes and the Scarlet Claw.

Release date: May 26, 1944.

Running time: 74 minutes.

The cast are Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, Nigel Bruce as Dr John Watson, Gerald Hamer as Alistair Ramson, Paul Cavanagh as William, Lord Penrose, Arthur Hohl as Emile Journet, Kay Harding as Marie Journet, Miles Mander as Judge Brisson, David Clyde as Sergeant Thompson, Ian Wolfe as Drake Victoria Horne as Nora, Gertrude Astor as Lady Lillian Gentry Penrose, Victoria Horne, George Kirby, Frank O’Connor, Harry Allen, and Olaf Hytten.

Ian Wolfe, the American actor with about 400 film and TV roles, who plays Drake, died on January 23 1992, aged 95.

The Rathbone–Bruce series consists of: 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).

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Film Review 1,026 derekwinnert.com