User Reviews

Maybe not the best "Sherlock Holmes" story, this one: young girls are being found murdered with a thistle being left by their bodies. A bamboozled Scotland Yard seeks the assistance of "Holmes" (Ronald Howard) and "Dr. Watson" (H. Marion Crawford) to help flailing "Insp. Lestrade" (Archie Duncan) solve the mystery. I suppose my problems with this are the pretty wooden Howard and the shortness of the film not really allowing for any sense of suspense to build - indeed we know from the outset how the murders are being committed, and when the denouement arrives, it's all just a bit too sudden. The production - early British television was certainly technically competent - is just a bit too stage bound for me, and the (probably censorially necessary) efforts taken by director Steve Previn to photograph the more macabre scenes, or, indeed, to avoid photographing them, robs the production of any menace at all. Would have been great on the telly in 1955, no doubt, but is definitely no Rathbone/Bruce...