Except for the link to Conan-Doyle, this could be listed among the B outputs of any poverty row studio. And, even with regard to Conan-Doyle, this is more of a pastiche than anything else.
Twenty years after the matter of the gigantic hound, Sir Henry Baskerville invites Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Wontner) and Dr. Watson (Ian Fleming) to his country estate for a visit. Watson is all for it. He's always prescribing vacations for the obsessive Holmes, even though they often wind up with Holmes glued to a local case of murder, as happened so often to Hercule Poirot.
Sir Henry has nothing really to do with this case. It's adapted from Conan-Doyle's "Silver Blaze", only with multiple changes, among which the introduction of Professor Moriarty and his sidekick Colonel Moran. I don't think I'll reveal much of the plot except to say that it's chiefly about the disappearance of a favorite horse before an important race, and the apparent murder of his young stable boy or whatever he's called.
My suggestion is to read the story. It's one of the better ones, and it has a classic exchange about "the curious incident of the dog in the night." "The dog did nothing in the night." "That is the curious incident." As Watsons go, Fleming is decent, not the buffoon of Nigel Bruce. As for Wontner, he resembles the Sidney Paget illustrations as closely as Basil Rathbone did, but he lacks Rathbone's darting glances and crisp, portentous comments. Wontner is more like the fond uncle you invite over for Christmas Eve because he has no place else to go. And, of course, he's not up to the standards set by Jeremy Brett in the Granada series. Nobody is.
This isn't an important enough movie to go on about at any length. Wontner manages to make some low brow observations, say "elementary, my dear Watson" (twice), smokes a non-canonical pipe. The problem is that this isn't really a story about Sherlock Holmes at all. You could dress all the characters in 1937 fashions, eliminate the familiar names of Holmes, Watson, Baskerville, and the rest -- and what you have is a cheap detective movie of no particular quality. A flabby Moriarty scowls and wobbles his jowls, like any Top Gangster. Colonel Moral is a big thug dressed in a black suit, the muscle of the team with no brains of consequence.
Really -- read the story.
Twenty years after the matter of the gigantic hound, Sir Henry Baskerville invites Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Wontner) and Dr. Watson (Ian Fleming) to his country estate for a visit. Watson is all for it. He's always prescribing vacations for the obsessive Holmes, even though they often wind up with Holmes glued to a local case of murder, as happened so often to Hercule Poirot.
Sir Henry has nothing really to do with this case. It's adapted from Conan-Doyle's "Silver Blaze", only with multiple changes, among which the introduction of Professor Moriarty and his sidekick Colonel Moran. I don't think I'll reveal much of the plot except to say that it's chiefly about the disappearance of a favorite horse before an important race, and the apparent murder of his young stable boy or whatever he's called.
My suggestion is to read the story. It's one of the better ones, and it has a classic exchange about "the curious incident of the dog in the night." "The dog did nothing in the night." "That is the curious incident." As Watsons go, Fleming is decent, not the buffoon of Nigel Bruce. As for Wontner, he resembles the Sidney Paget illustrations as closely as Basil Rathbone did, but he lacks Rathbone's darting glances and crisp, portentous comments. Wontner is more like the fond uncle you invite over for Christmas Eve because he has no place else to go. And, of course, he's not up to the standards set by Jeremy Brett in the Granada series. Nobody is.
This isn't an important enough movie to go on about at any length. Wontner manages to make some low brow observations, say "elementary, my dear Watson" (twice), smokes a non-canonical pipe. The problem is that this isn't really a story about Sherlock Holmes at all. You could dress all the characters in 1937 fashions, eliminate the familiar names of Holmes, Watson, Baskerville, and the rest -- and what you have is a cheap detective movie of no particular quality. A flabby Moriarty scowls and wobbles his jowls, like any Top Gangster. Colonel Moral is a big thug dressed in a black suit, the muscle of the team with no brains of consequence.
Really -- read the story.