House, where a customer loudly complains of bones in his fish and the barman shows them a menu with the price “2/6” circled. These “clues” lead them to a clandestine meeting at 26 Fish- bone Alley, where the Prime Minister of Rovenia beseeches Holmes, in the wake of his King Stefan’s assassination, to escort Prince (now King) Nikolas to safety in Algiers. The detective agrees for the sake of democ- racy, but is separated from Watson when the hired aircraft cannot accommodate him; he instructs his associate to take a ship to Algiers, where they will meet and resume their holiday plans. While at sea on the S.S. Friesland, Watson reads a bulle- tin of the plane’s crash into the ocean and is later surprised by Holmes (once again, back from the dead) and a young man (Leslie Vincent) he is instructed to address as his nephew Nik- olas. (So much for disguises— he’s not even “Nicholas”!) The ship’s passengers are the usual ruddy herrings: Sheila (Marjorie Riordan), a young singer from
Our heroes ponder an apparent two-pipe problem in this promotional shot for PURSUIT TO ALGIERS.
Brooklyn mortified by the sight of Holmes who won’t let her music bag out of her sight; a mannish, monocled woman (Rosalind Ivan) with a pistol in her handbag; a pair of whispering eccentrics (John Abbott, Gerald Hamer); and another unholy three (Rex Evans, Martin Kosleck, William “Wee Willie” Davis) who come aboard at Lisbon and
The “Unholy Three” of PURSUIT TO ALGIERS: Martin Kosleck, pool boy Rex Evans and William “Wee Willie” Davis.
barely make a secret of their in- tention to kill Holmes and nab the young King.
Though roundly entertaining, the movie is basically one big tease. The connect-the-dots opening is overly fanciful (Holmes knew the Fishbone Al- ley assignation wasn’t a trap be- cause he recognized the Prime Minister of Rovenia recommend- ing the fish-and-chips!); Holmes’ survival of the crash at sea is never explained, nor is Sheila’s foiled attempt to nudge Nikolas overboard; Mirko (Kosleck) is not turned over to the ship’s captain after a failed attempt to knife Holmes in his bed, nor are the budding romance of Nikolas and Sheila or the climactic abduction of the would-be King adequately resolved. This inconsequential teasing reaches its summit dur- ing a dinner party when Dr. Watson agrees to relate the ad- venture of The Giant Rat of Sumatra (“a story for which the world is not yet prepared,” as Holmes once said), the scene cutting away and returning for funny and unrevealing ellipses of the case, including a mo- ment when Watson portrays the
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