Pun Salad

This is number 6 in the series of fourteen Sherlock Holmes movies starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes, and Nigel Bruce as his faithful sidekick, Dr. Watson. I wanted and expected to like it a bunch more than I did.

It's (very) loosely based on "The Musgrave Ritual." Watson is working at a spooky old manor, which has been thrown open as a convalescent center for the military. The owners are the Musgraves, and they are a contentious and resentful bunch. The mansion is filled with secret passages and chambers. The floor in one of the big rooms is meant to have been a giant chessboard. A sneaky butler seems to be up to no good, and the housekeeper is hostile. A tower clock strikes thirteen for unexplained reasons! And a raven down at the local pub enjoys human blood!

Suddenly, one of the other doctors gets stabbed (non-fatally) in the neck. That's quite enough for Watson; he travels down to London to enlist Holmes' aid. And, of course, he gets it.

It all seemed more than a little contrived. Holmes makes a weird little political speech at the end. I know this is sort of heretical, but I had a lot more fun watching the recent BBC miniseries Sherlock.