SUMMARY: RUNNING TIME: 1 Hr., 12 Min.
Released in 1933, this black-and-white Sherlock Holmes murder-mystery lifts its title from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1887 original Holmes novel. Hence, the plot is officially credited as being only “suggested” by Doyle’s work, but the story is otherwise an original creation. Directed by Edwin L. Marin, this film was made in California as a KBS Production.
Set in the present-day, a corpse is discovered aboard a train at London’s Victoria Station. Yet, this supposed suicide victim is the only latest homicide befalling an enigmatic clique linked to China known as ‘The Scarlet Ring.’ With another victim’s daughter, young Eileen Forrester (Clyde), reluctantly joining the ‘Ring,’ she finds that her father’s attorney, Thaddeus Merrydew (Dinehart), is its unscrupulous and ever-evasive mastermind.
Sensing that a crime cartel’s members are being systematically eliminated, Sherlock Holmes (Owen) pursues leads pertaining to Merrydew’s other suspicious clients. Among them is the sultry and recently widowed Mrs. Pyke (Wong). Each of the Ring’s dead pawns is revealed to possess a written note ominously reciting a familiar nursery rhyme counting down ten doomed ‘children.’
Pursuing a shadowy serial killer, Holmes knows an innocent woman’s life is at stake, as is a sizable inheritance. It’s up to Holmes and Scotland Yard’s Inspector Lestrade (Dinehart) to thwart a murderous conspiracy banking on greed.
Sherlock Holmes: Reginald Owen
Dr. John H. Watson: Warburton Gamble
Thaddeus Merrydew: Allan Dinehart (aka Alan Dinehart)
Mrs. Pyke: Anna May Wong
Eileen Forrester: June Clyde
John Stanford: John Warburton
Inspector Lestrade (misspelled as ‘Lastrade’): Allan Mowbray
Jobez Wilson: J.M. Kerrigan
Mrs. Hudson: Tempe Pigott
Will Swallow: Billy Bevan
Mrs. Murphy: Doris Lloyd
Daffy Dolly: Leila Bennett
Dearing: Halliwell Hobbs
Capt. Pyke: Wyndham Standing
Ah Yet: Tetsu Komai
Merrydew’s Butler: Olaf Hytten
Thompson: Hobart Cavanaugh
Baker: Cecil Reynolds
James Murphy: Uncredited
Train Housekeeper # 1: Uncredited
Train Housekeeper # 2: Uncredited
Partridge (Train Steward): Uncredited
Rumfeld (Train Maintenance Worker): Uncredited
Lestrade’s Plainclothes Cops: Uncredited
Notes: Owen is among the few actors to have portrayed both Holmes and Dr. Watson on film. Hobbs and Mowbray (though separately) later appeared in the Sherlock Holmes film series co-starring Basil Rathbone & Nigel Bruce. Late in this film is an extraordinary gaffe: a newspaper advertisement’s close-up depicts Holmes’ address as “221A Baker Street” rather than Doyle’s “221b Baker Street.” An actor subsequently verbalizes the same mistake in dialogue.
REVIEW:
One should first keep in mind the film’s historical relevancy among Hollywood’s earliest (and best-known) surviving adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, no matter how faithful it isn’t to Conan Doyle. Interestingly, this film’s smoke-and-mirrors twists predate the film adaptation of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None and Basil Rathbone’s Sherlock Holmes: The House of Fear by twelve years.
Perhaps less surprising is that both these 1945 films easily surpass Reginald Owen’s Sherlock Holmes whodunnit. Despite its neat premise (one that Owen himself wrote the dialogue), the script’s execution is exceedingly bland. Trying to instead visualize Rathbone’s Holmes and Nigel Bruce’s Watson might help somewhat relieve the tedium.
It is also ironic how Anna May Wong’s intriguing femme fatale in limited screen time is far more watchable than observing Owen and Warburton Gamble tread their ultra-wooden paces as Holmes & Watson.
1933’s A Study in Scarlet, if anything, is worthwhile just to see a Golden Age star like Wong on screen. Getting a decent resolution to this storyline’s mystery is something of a bonus, too. Otherwise, The House of Fear and the original And Then There Were None are recommended as more satisfying viewing options.
BRIAN’S ODD MOON RATING: 4 Stars
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