Margaret Carstairs (Mary Forbes), following a foiled robbery attempt in London. (There is a typically dry Neill aside when we learn that this “duck’s egg” was cut down from its original size, so as not to appear ostentatious.) When the diamond disappears in the wake of the murder of Lady Margaret’s son, everyone aboard is naturally suspected, including Vivian Vedder (Renee Godfrey), a black widow-type who is tak- ing her aunt home to Scotland for burial in a deluxe casket; Prof. William Kilbane (Frederick Worlock), a mathematician who protests to the police’s intrusions into his privacy; Mr. and Mrs. Shallcross (Gerald Hamer, Janet Murdoch), who admit to thievery; and Watson’s tag-along club friend, Major Duncan-Bleek (Alan Mowbray). The real Skelton Knaggs puts in a welcome appearance, but disappointingly, nothing ever emerges from the Egyptian sar- cophagus glimpsed among the baggage in the cargo room. Though TERROR BY NIGHT fulfills all of its promises in un- der an hour, it was often cut for television broadcasts, so that it opened with Roland Carstairs’ (Geoffrey Steele’s) meeting of Holmes at the station. MPI’s ster- ling presentation opens with a most unusual, ominous musical accompaniment under the Uni- versal globe, a stock footage primer on the Star of Rhodesia, and an opening scene at Mock & Son’s funeral supply store in London, where Vivian Vedder is seen ordering her aunt’s stylish casket from Mr. Mock (Harry Cording), with actress Renee Godfrey speaking—as she does throughout the production—in the most godawful English ac- cent you’re ever likely to hear. The film was also commonly broadcast with a TV syndication “The End” card, which has been replaced here by the original
closing shot of the train further- ing down the tracks toward Edinburgh. The film is not only marvelously complete, but one of the best-looking transfers of the bunch, likely taken from a surviving negative.
Universal’s Holmes series came to a sudden end with the engaging DRESSED TO KILL, which isn’t perfect but evinces some swells of ambition, running more than a reel longer than its padded predecessor and tackling a genuine intellectual puzzle rather than another in-transit whodunit. Three music boxes manufac- tured inside Dartmoor Prison are sent for auction at Gaylord Art Museum Auctions in Knights- bridge, but are sold before their intended buyers—a criminal ring led by the alluring Mrs. Hilda Courtney (Patricia Morison)—can acquire them. Each of the boxes, made by an incarcerated col- league, plays a variation on the (alleged) old Australian tune “The Swag Man” and it’s up to Holmes to deduce how the almost im- perceptible differences in the melodies are meant to lead Mrs. Courtney and company to a re- cently stolen duplicate set of Bank of England £5 note plates. Leonard Lee’s script (adapted by TERROR BY NIGHT’s Frank Gruber) works Holmes into the story in captivatingly casual fashion, as Julian “Stinky” Em- ery (Edmond Breon)—an old school chum of Watson’s—hap- pens to look up the duo after one of his music boxes, similar to the plain wooden one he bought at auction, is stolen. When Emery later turns up dead with the other plain box taken, Holmes and Watson are drawn in.
In fairly brief screen time, Edmond Breon (a fresh and in- teresting face in a series by now overrun with familiar ones) sketches one of the series’ most
memorable supporting charac- ters. Raconteur, collector and, most touchingly, an aging roué, “Stinky” Emery shows his vulner- ability by removing his toupée in his first private moment and grip- ping it like a trump card when he knows an attractive woman will soon be swinging by his apartment for a late drink. Sen- timent is also brought into the scene of Emery’s murder, when a knife is flung into his back by Mrs. Courtney’s lovesick chauf- feur Hamid (Harry Cording), whose jealousy is inflamed when he sees this harmless old man place an arm around her—an echo of the Evelyn Ankers/Rondo Hatton relationship from THE PEARL OF DEATH.
Unlike its predecessors in this
set, DRESSED TO KILL seems to belong to a slightly older timeframe, with black cabs and other cars on the roads of Lon- don that belong more specifically to the 1920s than the 1940s. Other inconsistencies occur in the characterizations of Holmes (now a drinker) and Dr. Watson, who is said to have “no ear for music” (was PURSUIT TO ALGIERS’ “Loch Lomond” forgotten al- ready?), and it is disappointing that, after much intensive thought, Holmes doesn’t actually solve the puzzle, but is rather accidentally led to the solution by something muttered during one of Watson’s nostalgic tangents. DRESSED TO KILL is in gen- erally fine shape, though the main titles are in soft, semi-let- terboxed condition. In the climac- tic scenes inside the home of Dr. Samuel Johnson (which are sto- len by an uncredited Anita Sharp- Bolster, as a sly-tongued woman touring the premises), there are a couple of super-grainy high angle shots of people climbing the stairs, but this is an optical grain due to them ending in dissolves and not a fault in condition.
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