The film begins with Professor Moriarty, arch-criminal and personal arch-enemy of Sherlock Holmes, being sentenced to death for the many murders he committed - but he swears that before HE'll hang, the three people who helped arrest and convict him will die as well; including Sherlock Holmes, of course...
In the meantime, we get to know an entirely 'different' Sherlock Holmes than the pedantic, snobby loner we knew from Conan Doyle's novels and would later find again in Basil Rathbone: Clive Brook (who played the role for the second time; his first appearance as Holmes was in a 1925 silent) is a cheerful, amiable chap - and what's more, he's in love, and he's about to give up sleuthing in order to marry and retire to the country!! But - Moriarty upsets his plans by breaking out of jail, and immediately beginning to take his revenge: he hangs the judge who convicted him in his own house; so, in alphabetical order, as Holmes deduces, the next one will be Colonel Gore-King, with whom Holmes isn't exactly on friendly terms... Moriarty plans to use that grudge for his own plans - while, criminal mastermind as he is, he's working at the same time with the help of Chicago gangsters on the 'reign' over all pubs, American style (protection or 'pineapples' = bombs, for Englishmen) - and on a big-scale robbery at the big bank that belongs to Holmes' future father-in-law... BUT - Holmes has got an equally brilliant mind, and develops his own plans...
As we said, we see Sherlock Holmes in an ENTIRELY new light here - and the two most memorable scenes are the one where he disguises in drag, as his father-in-law's 'Aunt Matilda' (!); and the final scene, where we see the great sleuth for once KISS his girl (!!). But, of course, there's enough left of the Holmes we all know - for example, he can't avoid even here using that well-known term of his, 'Elementary!', all the time...
For 'strict' Sherlock Holmes fanatics, this movie may be 'against the rules' set by Conan Doyle - but for all others, I believe, it's a wonderfully entertaining, excellently played and directed, enormously suspenseful and VERY clever classic detective movie; and with a good dose of British humor, too!
In the meantime, we get to know an entirely 'different' Sherlock Holmes than the pedantic, snobby loner we knew from Conan Doyle's novels and would later find again in Basil Rathbone: Clive Brook (who played the role for the second time; his first appearance as Holmes was in a 1925 silent) is a cheerful, amiable chap - and what's more, he's in love, and he's about to give up sleuthing in order to marry and retire to the country!! But - Moriarty upsets his plans by breaking out of jail, and immediately beginning to take his revenge: he hangs the judge who convicted him in his own house; so, in alphabetical order, as Holmes deduces, the next one will be Colonel Gore-King, with whom Holmes isn't exactly on friendly terms... Moriarty plans to use that grudge for his own plans - while, criminal mastermind as he is, he's working at the same time with the help of Chicago gangsters on the 'reign' over all pubs, American style (protection or 'pineapples' = bombs, for Englishmen) - and on a big-scale robbery at the big bank that belongs to Holmes' future father-in-law... BUT - Holmes has got an equally brilliant mind, and develops his own plans...
As we said, we see Sherlock Holmes in an ENTIRELY new light here - and the two most memorable scenes are the one where he disguises in drag, as his father-in-law's 'Aunt Matilda' (!); and the final scene, where we see the great sleuth for once KISS his girl (!!). But, of course, there's enough left of the Holmes we all know - for example, he can't avoid even here using that well-known term of his, 'Elementary!', all the time...
For 'strict' Sherlock Holmes fanatics, this movie may be 'against the rules' set by Conan Doyle - but for all others, I believe, it's a wonderfully entertaining, excellently played and directed, enormously suspenseful and VERY clever classic detective movie; and with a good dose of British humor, too!