Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943) - film review

During WWII, Musgrave Manor serves as a convalescent home for officers wounded in the war.  When one of his colleagues is attacked by an unknown assailant one evening, Dr Watson invites his friend Sherlock Holmes to the house to investigate.  Shortly after his arrival, Holmes discovers the dead body of the house’s owner, Geoffrey Musgrave.  The man suspected of his murder is the fiancé of Musgrave’s sister, Sally, but not long after he is arrested, Sally’s other brother, Phillip is killed.   Holmes deduces that the murders are linked to an ancient ritual, in which a mysterious rhyme is recited after the death of each member of the household.   Holmes manages to crack the mystery and makes an incredible discovery.  It’s a shame that he may not live to tell the tale...

After three epic adventures, in which England’s most famous sleuth used his deductive powers to thwart various dastardly schemes by Nazi agents, Sherlock Holmes (in the guise of Basil Rathbone) returns to more familiar territory and tackles a mystery which is much closer in spirit to the ones conceived by his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Although the film was inspired by an original Conan Doyle story, it actually has more in common with an Agatha Christie murder mystery, with Holmes looking remarkably like a stand-in for Hercule Poirot.

There is a widely held view that the Sherlock Holmes films made by Universal Pictures were somewhat inferior to the two made by Twentieth Century-Fox in 1939 – The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.  Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (along with one or two of the subsequent films in the series) challenges this assertion and, although made on a lower budget than the Fox films, has production values that are comparable, if not better.  Indeed, the stunning artistic design and photography are on a par with the better films noirs of the era, lending a darkly oppressive mood that makes this one of most atmospheric films in the series. 

The screenplay and performances are also pretty good, and Rathbone, as Holmes, shows no sign of tiring of the part that he made his own in the 1940s.  The only let down is some unnecessary silliness from messieurs Watson and Lestrade, whose only real function now appears to be to provide comic relief, in the best (or worst) tradition of vauderville.  Poor Holmes.  Not only does he have to solve mysteries and defeat cunning malefactors, but he also has to prevent his two associates from tripping over their own shoe laces.  Miss Marple never had this problem.

© James Travers 2009

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