Lively, entertaining reviews of, and essays on, old and newer films and everything relating to them, written by professional author William Schoell.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

A STUDY IN TERROR

A STUDY IN TERROR (1965). Director: James Hill. 

Sherlock Holmes (John Neville) and Watson (Donald Houston) get on the trail of the notorious Jack the Ripper when he begins slicing and dicing prostitutes in London. Among the suspects are a sinister tavern keeper named Max Steiner (Peter Carsten); Dr. Murray, who works with the poor (Anthony Quayle); the handsome Lord Carfax (John Fraser); his missing brother, Michael (John Cairney), and others. While one of the posters for this film [pictured] suggested that it was a camp exercise a la the Batman TV series, it is nothing of the kind and is played straight, although Robert Morley has an amusing appearance as Sherlock's brother, Mycroft. Neville and Houston are quite excellent as Holmes and Watson, and the film has some suspense and atmosphere as well. Georgia Brown does a couple of numbers as a pub singer, and Judi Dench ["M" in the James Bond films] has a supporting role as a woman who works with Dr. Murray. Neville has had a very long career with nearly 100 credits. 

Verdict: The game's afoot again. ***.

2 comments:

jasmine said...

A study in terror is a nice interesting kind of movie. mostly i like to watch Animated Movies but this movie was also interesting to watch.

Neil A Russell said...

I'll have to hunt this one down, any peformance by Neville is worth watching.
Sometimes I think I'm the only person that liked Baron Munchausen