Many fans of the series consider this the best of the Universal Studios series starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, and I can see why. It's pretty good.
It's evidently the sixth of Universal's episodes. I guess "episode" is the proper word. These franchises were the equivalent of today's hour-long TV series like "Law & Order". Universal decided to update the stories, borrowing only some elements from Conan-Doyle. The first few films were introduced with a sort of apology about Holmes being a "timeless" character at home in all ages -- not just Victorian England but war-torn London; Ancient Rome; Nome, Alaska, or wherever.
The series followed an unusual trajectory. The first three films interpolated some puzzle -- the dancing men, for instance -- from the original stories, but otherwise Holmes and Watson were engaged in rooting out Nazi spies in England. And Rathbone's hair was swept forward around his temples in a most unsettling way.
But then -- possibly because of Roy William Neill's writing as well as his promotion to producer as well as director -- the films improved for a while before their inevitable decline into pattern exhaustion. Everyone seems at their best in "The Scarlet Claw", although it owes a lot more to Universal's horror movies of the 30s than it does to Conan-Doyle. It's hard to describe this accurately but there seems to have been more CARE taken with this production. Viz., the grotesque faces in the local saloon. Somebody took some trouble to find those particular features.
The dynamic duo are in Quebec for a conference when they are called to investigate a couple of savage deaths in the small village of La Mort Rouge. The victims have their throats torn out as if by an animal.
It doesn't take Holmes long to dismiss the local notions of the supernatural and discover the murder weapon -- a five-pronged garden weeder. Well -- though the ghostly elements are thrown out pronto, the spooky milieu is not. There are few daylight scenes. And La Mort Rouge seems to be surrounded by marshes and dangerous swamps, much like Baskerville Hall. The sets are all indoor, the ground covered with dry ice vapor, and I believe I may have recognized some of the settings, including individual trees, from Universal's "The Wolf Man." People creep around in this stuff and stalk one another.
The plot itself is too complicated to bother describing except to say that the primary motive for the killings is revenge. The acting is on a professional level. Everyone does his job properly. And there are many familiar faces in the cast. It's about as good as the Universal series was to get.
It's evidently the sixth of Universal's episodes. I guess "episode" is the proper word. These franchises were the equivalent of today's hour-long TV series like "Law & Order". Universal decided to update the stories, borrowing only some elements from Conan-Doyle. The first few films were introduced with a sort of apology about Holmes being a "timeless" character at home in all ages -- not just Victorian England but war-torn London; Ancient Rome; Nome, Alaska, or wherever.
The series followed an unusual trajectory. The first three films interpolated some puzzle -- the dancing men, for instance -- from the original stories, but otherwise Holmes and Watson were engaged in rooting out Nazi spies in England. And Rathbone's hair was swept forward around his temples in a most unsettling way.
But then -- possibly because of Roy William Neill's writing as well as his promotion to producer as well as director -- the films improved for a while before their inevitable decline into pattern exhaustion. Everyone seems at their best in "The Scarlet Claw", although it owes a lot more to Universal's horror movies of the 30s than it does to Conan-Doyle. It's hard to describe this accurately but there seems to have been more CARE taken with this production. Viz., the grotesque faces in the local saloon. Somebody took some trouble to find those particular features.
The dynamic duo are in Quebec for a conference when they are called to investigate a couple of savage deaths in the small village of La Mort Rouge. The victims have their throats torn out as if by an animal.
It doesn't take Holmes long to dismiss the local notions of the supernatural and discover the murder weapon -- a five-pronged garden weeder. Well -- though the ghostly elements are thrown out pronto, the spooky milieu is not. There are few daylight scenes. And La Mort Rouge seems to be surrounded by marshes and dangerous swamps, much like Baskerville Hall. The sets are all indoor, the ground covered with dry ice vapor, and I believe I may have recognized some of the settings, including individual trees, from Universal's "The Wolf Man." People creep around in this stuff and stalk one another.
The plot itself is too complicated to bother describing except to say that the primary motive for the killings is revenge. The acting is on a professional level. Everyone does his job properly. And there are many familiar faces in the cast. It's about as good as the Universal series was to get.