Simply A Masterpiece

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

I watched this movie and was not impressed it was supposed to be a really good film love Sherlock Holmes but this was just not for me

The only version of this film which survives today appears to have lost some twenty minutes of its running time, and has obvious gaps where scenes, or parts of scenes, are missing.That said, what remains is very good indeed. Raymond Massey, in his film debut, makes his only appearance as Holmes, wandering about in his technological empire in Baker Street in his silk dressing gown, looking more like Noel Coward than a master of crime prevention. However, his manner and sarcasm when comparing his memory to that of his machine index of criminals saves the day and stops the character descending into caricature.Watson - Athole Stewart - is convincing as an ex-army man who served in India, and one senses he is more than a match for the villain of the piece, the scene-chewing Lyn Harding recreating his stage triumph as Dr Rylott. Our heroine is played by Angela Baddeley - who is remembered best these days for her work in the 1970s as TV's Mrs Bridges in 'Upstairs, Downstairs'. Here she definitely sounds more upstairs than down, with her cut-glass vowels, and seems to have but one emotion - wide-eyed terror.With a few character additions, notably a Native servant as befits a Sahib from the Raj, the tale of the 'Speckled Band' is largely faithful to Conan Doyle, although the transformation of Baker Street HQ into a bust office with a secretary and typists is simply a curio, and does not compare to the traditional chaos and pipe smoke we would usually expect.Massey's Holmes is devious, sharp, clever, and almost fey. I particularly like the ending, which frames the characters of both Holmes and Watson - it would have been interesting to see this develop into a series with the same pair of actors. As it is, it remains an adaptation one can savour even with the cuts and jumps in plot which have become a casualty of time.Can be obtained on DVD in several budget sets.

The fact that a film is on DVD doesn't guarantee that its quality is very good. The fact that a film's quality is threadbare doesn't mean you shouldn't buy it. This review actually applies to 2 films paired on a single DVD.The plots of these films are of little consequence. They are of interest only to people who collect Holmes films … anybody who merely wants a few of the better offerings would do well to purchase some of those made by Jeremy Brett … or, in a pinch, Basil Rathbone. There are a few other very good Holmes films featuring good actors on a one-shot basis – such as "Seven Per Cent Solution" or "Private Life of Sherlock Holmes". In any event, these films are considerably less estimable.Here we have a pair of films featuring some of the best actors to do Holmes, even if the results tend toward disappointing. This appears to be the only disc with these films on it (although "Deadly Necklace") appears by itself in the same version on other discs."(Sherlock Holmes and) the Deadly Necklace" dates from 1962, although it neither looks it nor sounds it. Some who have seen this may be surprised to learn that it was produce by Hammer Studios. Not that Hammer hasn't turned out some really schlock stuff, but where Christopher Lee was concerned, they usually did a better job. The print a direct transfer from a rather worn 1:1.33 copy in black-and white. The quality of the color suggests the original may have been in color, and the snipped ends of the film's aspect suggest it may originally have been 1:1.66 or more.The film is set in the early 20th Century – not improbable, since Holmes was still working then (and didn't actually die until 1957). However, the script is not adapted from any actual Doyle story. It involves an Egyptian necklace, and Professor Moriarty shows up as a world-famous archaeologist as well as the Prince of Crime. The plot is melodramatic and banal.The biggest defect of this film is that – for whatever unfathomable reason – Hammer filmed it in Germany. It was nonetheless filmed in English. It was then dubbed in German and then re-dubbed in English. So what you hear isn't Lee nor any of the other original actors, but a bunch of unknowns – not that, outside of Lee, I doubt anyone would know any of the other actors. This is too bad, since Lee (see his "Hound of the Baskervilles") makes a quite decent Holmes. As it is, his voice double is condescending and plain as bread pudding with no raisins nor cinnamon.The music for this film is primarily jazzy, in a possible attempt to be "period". Too bad nobody thought of ragtime. As it is, the music doesn't relate to what's happening on the screen, and often is at odds with the action.The other film is "(Sherlock Holmes and) the Speckled Band" from 1931, starring a young Raymond Massey. The quality of the picture and sound is fully up to that of the 1962 effort, and in fact a bit better. Massey makes a quite respectable Holmes, although he certainly doesn't own the rôle in the way Rathbone did and Brett does. The other thespians who take part in this production are unlikely to be of interest to modern readers. The acting – as is true of many films of this period – owes a lot to the post-Victorian stage and to silent films.It should be noted that, while "The Deadly Necklace" is available on DVD by itself, "The Speckled Band" is available only with the former film.There is very little else to be said of this film. The settings seem to be an odd combination of the 1890s (horse-drawn carriages) and the 1920s (electronic devices such as a primitive dictaphone). Taken altogether, it's an interesting curio and a sufficient inducement to buy the DVD with the pairing rather than a DVD with "Deadly Necklace" only.

This is exactly the kind of thing I look for in an old Sherlock Holmes movie; atmospheric, almost Victorian, with old clichés played straight.The villain almost twirls his mustache. The whole thing creates perfectly creepy suspense with beautiful camera work and expressionistic sets that still have that silent movie movie, though four or so years into the sound era. Montage sequences pop up frequently, and the actors are often caught in a profile. Shots are often in deep focus, with shafts of light illuminating a distant figure in white - most often the heroine, terribly vulnerable in the cavernous spaces of the derelict old mansion. Simple suspense techniques remain effective, and the movie conjures a far more convincing world of fairy-tale menace than the Sherlock Holmes movies of just a few years later, when the light gets flat, the sets get thin, and the puzzle aspect of the crime overwhelms the horror and suspense. To my way of thinking, Sherlock Holmes movies should have a Grand Guignol element that borders on the supernatural; the more they become just puzzling crimes, the less interesting they are.