Hot Picks
|
|
|
A Study in Scarlet
USA 1933
produced by KBS Productions/World Wide Pictures
directed by Edward L. Marin
starring Reginald Owen, Warburton Gamble, Anna May Wong, Allan Dinehart, June Clyde, John Warburton, Alan Mowbray, J.M. Kerrigan, Doris Lloyd, Wyndham Standing, Billy Bevan, Hobart Cavanaugh, Leila Bennett, Cecil Reynolds, Tetsu Komai, Tempe Pigott
screenplay by Robert Florey, dialogue by Reginald Owen, based on characters by Arthur Conan Doyle
Sherlock Holmes
review by Mike Haberfelner
|
|
|
|
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
Related stuff you might want!!!(commissions earned) |
|
|
|
The members of a secret society, the Scarlet Ring, die in mysterious ways,
that are supposed to look like suicide, but quite clearly are not.
Fortunately Mrs Murphy (Doris Lloyd), wife of one of the deceased, has a
clear enopugh mind to ask Sherlock Holmes (Reginald Owen) for help, & he
soon finds his first clues connecting the case to the Scarlet Ring, & that
lead him to shady lawyer Merridew (Allan Dinehart), who does some blackmailing
on the sidebut who until now has proved to slick for Holmes to pin something on
him. A second clue leads Holmes to Mrs Pyke (Anna May Wong), wife of captain
Pyke (William Standing), another deceased member of the Scarlet Ring & a
client of Merridew.
At Mrs Pyke's country estate, that Holmes checks out in disguise in her
absence, he finds more & more clues that Mrs Pyke might be involved in the
killings in some way or another. She meanwhile is busy back in London luring
both Wilson (J.M.Kerrigan), one of the last members still alive, & Eileen
Forrester (June Clyde), the good-girl daughter of a deceased member who seems
to have gotten in the way, to the estate.
Fortunately though, Wolmes, Watson (Warburton Gamble) Eileen's fiancé
Stanford (John Warburton) and inspector Lestrade (Alan Mowbray) lie in the
waiting outside the house to catch the killer - who turns out to be ... captain
Pyke, still very much alive, who has been in cahoots with Merridew to get their
hands on a fabulous treasure from China the Scarlet Ring has once stolen, &
now they wanted to optimize their share ...
Despite the fact that the film has nothing to do with Arthur Conan Doyle's
novel it is supposed to be based on, and Reginald Owen & Warburton Gamble
look nothing like what you would come to expect from Holmes & Watson, this
movie sticks to the main characters & overall atmosphere of Doyle's story
pretty closely (Owen in fact looked so little like Holmes that he played of all
roles Doctor Watson in Sherlock Holmes from just the previous year).
& despite the fact that the real killer cabn be guessed pretty early in the
movie, this is a lively, interesting murder mystery.
|