The movie is good fun, even it does involve cold-blooded murder. The beautiful villainess Hilda Courtney (Patricia Morison) and Mr. Holmes (the smooth Basil Rathbone) meet each other trick-for-trick and the clues are hidden in a artful way. It's highly improbably that the code specified would really work, but we'll suspend our disbelief for this one. Nigel Bruce is his usual bumbling Dr. Watson, and the flow of the story is fast and sensible. The only flaw I would carp about is the rather easy escape that Sherlock Holmes effects at the end. It took him only two minutes to escape from his "dred predicament." Well, it's only a 72 minute movie! I guess they all had to hurry. They still had time to insert a cute busker's song, "You Never Know Who You'll Meet."
**Semi spoiler follows** The suspense of the film is not done with the usual slow pan and shock, but with clever sequencing. For instance, when Mrs. Courtney goes into a shop to locate a missing music box (there are three, and combined they contain the clues needed to retrieve a fortune in the form of the plates of the Bank of Englang's five pound note). It appears she has it, then not, then has it again, then not again. Well done! The direction by Roy William Neill (who directed most of the Sherlock Holmes films, if not all of them starring Rathbone) gets the credit here. Worth a rainy day rental.
**Semi spoiler follows** The suspense of the film is not done with the usual slow pan and shock, but with clever sequencing. For instance, when Mrs. Courtney goes into a shop to locate a missing music box (there are three, and combined they contain the clues needed to retrieve a fortune in the form of the plates of the Bank of Englang's five pound note). It appears she has it, then not, then has it again, then not again. Well done! The direction by Roy William Neill (who directed most of the Sherlock Holmes films, if not all of them starring Rathbone) gets the credit here. Worth a rainy day rental.