The Pearl of Death (1944) - film review

Sherlock Holmes makes the blunder of his career when he unwittingly allows master criminal Giles Conover to steal a priceless pearl which is on display at a London museum.  Conover is caught a short while later but in the brief time when he was being pursued by the police he managed to dispose of the pearl.  A few days later, Holmes’ attention is drawn to a seemingly motiveless murder.  A retired colonel has been found dead at his home – his back was broken and the area of floor around his body was strewn with broken china.  Holmes deduces that this is the work of a dangerous criminal known as the Creeper, who happens to be one of Giles Conover’s henchmen.  Not long after this, there is another killing.  This time the victim is a young woman, but the pattern is the same – broken back and smashed china.  Holmes discovers that, before he was captured, Conover managed to conceal the valuable pearl in one of six plaster busts of Napoleon Bonaparte.  The crook is now attempting to recover the pearl by breaking into the homes of the people who bought the busts, assisted by his henchman, the Creeper.  Unless Holmes acts fast, there will be further killings...

One of the most highly regarded and popular of Universal’s Sherlock Holmes adventures, The Pearl of Death is also the one that is closest to the original Arthur Conan Doyle story on which it is based, here The Adventure of the Six Napoleons.  As a consequence, this is one of the few films in the series that feels like it might have been penned by Conan Doyle, having many of the ingredients of the original Sherlock Holmes stories – an ingenious, well-constructed mystery, Holmes pitted against a cunning adversary and, most crucially, the London setting, complete with 221B Baker Street and the indispensible Mrs Hudson.

The film is best remembered for introducing Rondo Hatton as the Creeper, by far the most frightening character to appear in the series.  Hatton’s distinctive appearance was the result of acromegaly, a progressive deformation of the bones, which was caused by his exposure to poison gas whilst serving in France during the First World War.  Although he earned his living mainly as a journalist, Hatton found work as an actor on account of his disfigurement.  His success in The Pearl of Death led Universal to cast him in the same role in two subsequent films, House of Horrors (1946)  and The Brute Man (1946).  Hatton died in 1946 from a heart attack caused by his worsening condition.

Although there is fair amount of knockabout comedy in the film (Dr Watson and Inspector Lestrade are now clearly competing for the Idiot of the Century award), The Pearl of Death is a surprisingly dark work and contains some of the most chilling scenes in the series.   There are plenty of nods to German expressionism, with liberal use of shadows and high contrast black and white photography to create a palpable sense of menace.  This is most apparent in the masterfully realised set piece confrontation between Holmes and his enemy, Conover, at the end of the film.  What makes this scene so frightening is the way in which Conover’s hired help, the Creeper, is revealed to us.  We glimpse his disfigured, apelike face fleetingly, in one or two brief shots (just enough to give you nightmares for a month or two).  For the most part, all we see is a grotesque silhouette or shadow, a haunting presence that has a sense of death about it and which, for a few delicious moments, makes Holmes appear utterly helpless.  How the great detective managed to survive this adventure when pitted against such a terrifying and seemingly invincible opponent is a mystery worthy of Conan Doyle himself.  Utterly creepy.

© James Travers 2009

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