THE HOUSE OF FEAR (1945). Director: Roy William Neill.
"No man goes whole to his grave."
Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) is called in when members of a club in Scotland called the Good Comrades are being murdered off one by one. The bodies are always found in a deplorable condition as the victims are crushed or burned and so on. Loosely based on Doyle's story The Adventure of the Five Orange Pips -- which was about the revenge of the Ku Klux Klan -- this is basically an original screenplay which is bizarre and intriguing [even if today it might not hold up forensically]. Paul Cavanagh may not have appeared in every Sherlock Holmes movie, but it certainly seems as if he did -- in this he's Dr. Simon Merrivale, who may have gotten away with murdering his wife. Sally Shepherd is creepy as the cook and housekeeper Mrs. Monteith. Rathbone and Bruce are as wonderful as ever.
Verdict: Eerie and quite entertaining. ***.
This is one of my favorite Holmes films, chiefly because of the weird mystery and the atmospheric locale. I caught up with it as an adult at a Sherlock Holmes all-night marathon at a local theater, but I may well have seen it as a kid on TV, too (the Rathbone films all kind of blended together in my early memory). Rathbone has always been my favorite Holmes, even if Jeremy Brett (I guess my 2nd favorite) was the most faithful, and Bruce's portrayal never bothered me like it did a lot of people--I found him comforting and enjoyable as good old bumbling Watson. Hoey as Inspector Lestrade was humorously dense (the way I liked him), although I thought he started out here as slightly more unpleasantly insulting than he needed to. The mutilated bodies seemed unusually gruesome, even if they were only talked about. I laughed at Watson shooting his gun off in the dark and frightening a cat (after it frightened him). Holmes coming in and yelling, "Watson! What the devil are you up to?" still cracks me up. I thought the denouement, with the suspects all standing in a row like a police lineup was pretty weird. Still, I think this film holds up very well. Like nearly all the Rathbone films, it's extremely rewatchable.
ReplyDeleteI liked this review!
--Mark
Yes, this is a good and atmospheric mystery and one I have to see again. I think many of the Rathbone/Holmes films have been colorized as well which may or may not work as they are "shadowy" in tone, but we'll see. I will probably get around to watching and reviewing all of the Holmes films again as my critiques of them tended to be too brief.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your comments!