Nigel Bruce, Watson to Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes in the 1939 "Hound of the Baskervilles" and of the 1940s Holmes movies, was usually cast as a befuddled and kindly Englishman. The actual second son of a baronet, in this 1937 movie he portrays the English Duke who owns an African mine of useless metal no one knows anything about. Edward G. Robinson plays a brash American who gets involved in promoting the mineral. Ralph Richardson, later knighted by the Queen for theatrical excellence, makes an early film appearance. He later played Dr. Watson on British radio with Sir John Geilgud as Holmes. Arthur Wontner made 5 British Sherlock Holmes movies in the early to mid 1930s. Here he makes small but effective appearances as the English cousin of Robinson's returning American, the father of adult children and the owner of an enormous estate that Robinson gets lost in. This is not an exciting, complex movie, but serves a purpose in filmdom for bringing together Bruce, Richardson and Wonter in one story. I plan on winning some bets with other Sherlockians with this information. P.S. I liked the movie itself, it had all the content of an episode of "Friends".
Review of Thunder in the City
