Starring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Dennis Hoey, Arthur Margetson, Hillary Brooke
Directed by Roy William Neill
(actor & director credits courtesy IMDB.com)
Violence at the spooky Musgrave Manor leads Doctor Watson to bring Holmes in to investigate, who finds the Musgrave family are being targeted by a killer with motives connected to an ancient ritual.
Loosely based on a short story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, this adventure in the Universal Holmes series was per film historian Troy Howarth, the first of the series to dismiss the wartime propaganda plots of its predecessors and focus on atmospheric tales of mystery. The filmmakers certainly lay on the atmosphere in the opening minutes with a bloodthirsty raven introducing us to a tracking shot of the windswept manor, an old dark house, with warring kin inside, along with possibly unstable convalescing soldiers. Several past and future guest stars in the series are to be found in this installment including Hillary Brooke, Gavin Muir, Gerald Hamer, and Frederick Worlock. IMDB also credits a young Peter Lawford as appearing in a brief role as a sailor at the community tavern. I thought the film was a good effort, although it could have used more music throughout, and agree with Troy the lack of a more dynamic villain is unfortunate. Rathbone and Bruce nevertheless still entertain, and more solid followups would be forthcoming from director Neill and his crew.
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