JohnHowardReid Reginald Owen graduated to the part of Holmes in A Study in Scarlet (1933). He also wrote the script (from an adaptation by Robert Florey) and was naturally anxious to fill it with plenty of roles for fellow actors. For comic relief, he repeated a device from the 1932 film. This time the besieged hotelier was played by Hobart Cavanaugh, his lone customer by Billy Bevan. In major roles, the wonderful Anna May Wong shines as Mrs Pyke, while Alan Dinehart beamed with equal assurance as a crooked lawyer. Alan Mowbray essayed a quick-witted Lestrade, while Warburton Gamble did the honors as Dr Watson. The rest of the players from Doris Lloyd's hesitating Widow Murphy to Tempe Pigott's briefly-glimpsed Mrs Hudson are equally fascinating. Edwin L. Marin has directed with a surprisingly sure hand, and by the humble standards of Poverty Row, production values are mighty impressive. (Agatha Christie enjoyed the movie so much, she even borrowed one of its major devices). (Available on a 5/10 Alpha DVD with warped but acceptable visuals, and extremely noisy sound. I recommend the 8/10 St Clair DVD instead).

hte-trasme "A Study in Scarlet" was produced by the low-budget E. W. Hammons at the low-budget Tiffany Studios starring a former Watson (possibly cast because of his association with Holmes films), Reginald Owen, as Sherlock Holmes. The presence of Holmes and Watson is the only connection to the Arthur Conan Doyle story of the same name, and that, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. I have no problem with a Sherlock Holmes film straying from slavish fidelity to the creator of the character. However, this one seems to deviate from the original not as a result of the filmmakers' creativity being exercised in order to make something new, but often in ways that make Holmes into someone that resembles a generic detective protagonist more than the most recognizable of them all.It's a little odd to see a supposed Sherlock Holmes dart around wearing clothes clearly dated to the 1930s (the only appearance of the famous deerstalker is in cartoon form in the opening titles), but since the story doesn't depend on anything terribly time-period appropriate, the transposition to the contemporary setting doesn't have too much of an effect. A curiosity here is that we are repeated told that Sherlock Holmes lives at 221A Baker Street, not the traditional 221B, even though he still seems to be living upstairs. Whether that's a simple error on somebody's part or a nod to the liberties being taken with the original stories there is no way to tell.Owen, unfortunately, is rather stiff and unremarkable in is portrayal of Sherlock Holmes. Many point out that he doesn't look the part (and, traditionally, he doesn't) but that hasn't been a problem for countless other actors. If he had managed to make the role his own through his performance it wouldn't have been for him either. He has little presence and seems to think that if he bellows each line with enough conviction and self-satisfaction he'll sound as if he knows what he's talking about.Sadly the rest of the actors are rather wooden and unimpressive as well, including Anna May Wong. Warburton Gamble makes no impression as Watson, and some of the murder victims are laughably unconvincing in their hesitant screams for help at their dying moments. Everything is taken deadly seriously except for some overplayed comic relief involving characters at a pub, which only semi works.There is a good mystery story at the heart of this film about a circle of criminals whose members are being murdered one-by-one, but the execution (including the direction which, the exception of one clever shot inside Merrydew's office near the end, mainly doesn't go beyond static two- an three-shots) is too lackluster to serve it well. The scriptwriter deserves credit for a good concept and for a good method of developing the story through showing us going on in all quarters without completely explaining its significance, but nobody else seems to have been trying very hard.It's still entertaining most of the time, and fun for viewers who will eat up anything Holmesian, but it's far from the best executed film version of the detective's adventures.

OldAle1 The copy of this I watched was from one of those 50-film box sets - I think it's "Mystery Classics". I had some hopes for it being a decent copy - all 3 of the Rathbone Holmes on the set are quite clear and presentable - but alas such was not the case, though it appears that the separately-available Alpha Video DVD isn't much or any better. This is scratchy, indistinct and fuzzy at times, with poor sound and lots of noticeable dialog dropout. So it's conceivable that a better print would make some difference in my feelings.Not likely though. Overall this is one of, if not the, poorest Holmes films I've seen. A large part of the problem rests in the casting of Reginald Owen who is not only physically wrong - a jowly, double-chinned Holmes just doesn't work - but also just plain irritating and seemingly uninterested in the character. I'm sure the screenplay has a lot to do with things also, as it makes out Holmes to be more of a super-cop than anything else, and every time he explains (in even more exasperated tones than is usual for the character) his miraculous sleuthing it comes off as talking down to both his fellow police and Watson, and to us the audience. Of course, Holmes is supposed to be arrogant - but here it's a sort of flip arrogance - hard to explain exactly, but it just seems both perfunctory and unnecessary. And having Holmes shoot one of the bad guys in the back at the end -- that didn't work at all.The plot has little to do with the novel from which it takes its name; here Holmes is on the trail of a murderer slowly killing off members of some secret society which is only revealed in nature at the end but which we can figure out very early on. The whole Mormon backstory and flashback nature of the novel is gone - apparently there were worries about alienating people at the time; this is after all a Hollywood, not a British production. Everything feels very by-the-numbers, the rest of the actors aren't really interesting either except for Anna May Wong as the femme fatale who brings at least a little eroticism and enthusiasm to her part.

sol ***SPOLIERS*** Lackluster Sherlock Homles mystery that has Sherlock not only showing the audience how good he is in going undercover-in disguise-but also for what seems like the first and last time in his career, as a brainy and elementary thinking sleuth, uses a firearm in gunning down and killing one the bad guys.The movie "A Study in Scarlet" seems to be a precursor to the 1939 Agatha Christie murder mystery "Ten Little Indians" written some six years after the film was released in 1933 which is about the only reason for viewing it. The movie itself doesn't really hold its audience's attention with a number of unsavory characters lead by shyster London lawyer Thaddeus Merrydew, Alan Didehart. It's Merrydew & Co. who were all involved in smuggling a cache of jewels out of Pre-Communist China, circa the late 1920's, and are now dropping dead like flies on the streets of London because of it.After a Mr. Murphy was found dead on a London bound train his wife Mrs. Annabelle Murphy, Doris Llyod, hired detective Sherlock Holmes, Reginald Owen, to see if her husband in fact was murdered not that he committed suicide like the London Police reported. Holmes soon discovers, through a number of cryptic messages in the local newspapers, that there's this group of people involved in an illegal jewelry smuggling operation that started back in China some eight years ago. The ringleader of this gang of Jewel thieves is top London criminal lawyer Thaddeus Merrydew who represents them. There's also the totally innocent Elleen Forrester, June Clyde, who's only connection with the Jewel or diamond smugglers is that her late father Col. Frrester, a member of the smuggling ring, left her his share of the profits, some 200,000 in Pound Sterling, in his will.As the members of this jewel smuggling ring, called the "Scarlet Ring", start to be killed off it soon becomes apparent that Merrydew is somehow responsible for their deaths with the help one of the rings members! But the question is which one since almost all of the jewel smugglers end up dead by the time the movie is over. It's then that Merrydew and his partner, or partners, in crime screw up in them foolishly thinking that they pulled the wool over the great Sherlock Holmes eyes. Old Sherlock, we learn, had Merrydew and Co. pegged right from the start in not only deciphering the killer's secret coded messages in the newspapers but also, I kid you not, in Holmes uncovering his very unusual shoe size that the killer left at the scene of one of his murders!***SPOILERS***Slow moving and hard to follow Sherlock Holmes film with only the appearance of the femme fatal in the movie Mrs Pyke, Anna May Wong, adding some hot Chinese mustard in it to spice the movie up a few notches. There's also the mysterious and what looks like opium pipe smoking Ah Yet, Tetsu Komai, as both Mrs. Pyke's and lawyers Merrydew's hit-man. Always puffing on his pipe and looking stoned out of his head you wondered why the two master criminals, Mrs. Pyke & Thaddeus Marrydew, would have anything to do with a strung-out weirdo like Ah Yet in the first place? Unless they were as strung out and smashed as he was by taking turns shearing his pipe!