SHERLOCK HOLMES in
THE PEARL OF DEATH
(1944)With Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Dennis Hoey, Evelyn Ankers, Miles Mander, Rondo Hatton
Directed by Roy William Neill
Black and White
Reviewed by JB
Based on Conan Doyle's clever story "The Six
Napoleans, THE
PEARL OF DEATH feels like the moment in time when everything in the
Universal Holmes series juct clicked in. I can't be sure,
since I
am watching them in order, but if I had to guess, I would say that THE
PEARL OF DEATH, along with its predeccessor THE SCARLET CLAW, is the
peak of the series. The chemistry amongst
Basil Rathbone (Holmes), Nigel Bruce (Watson) and Dennis Hoey
(Lestrade) is as good as it has ever been, and the always reliable
Evelyn Ankers makes another appearance as a femme fetale.
The
brute-faced Rondo Hatton, who owed his acting career to a pituitary
disorder and would be dead within a year, is on hand to play
the
back-breaking Creeper. The only minor problem the
film has is Miles Mander, who does not have the gravitas to
play a
Moriarty-type criminal mastermind.
THE PEARL OF DEATH features a couple of
novelties,
including a story that is driven by a rare boneheaded mistake by Holmes
himself, who is directly responsible for the titular pearl being
"pearl-loined". There is also a marvelous solo scene
featuring
Nigel Bruce using deductive reasoning to find out where a missing
newspaper article for his scrapbook went. What makes this
film
work more than anything else, however, are the sharp characterizations
of Rathbone, Bruce and Hoey as our three central heroes. 
- JB
http://thestuffyougottawatch.com
Copyright © 2008 John V. Brennan, John Larrabee