The Masks of Death

One of the main reasons for purchasing this movie on VHS was because Peter Cushing is in it, who makes a good Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock Holmes comes out of retirement to investigate some strange murders in London's sewers. He teams up with Dr Watson once again. The the case takes them to Buckinghamshire. They end up back in London and down the sewers again, they discover a lab where poison gas is being made and these people are responsible for the murders and are arrested.

This movie is worth having just for the cast alone, many of them ageing: Peter Cushing (The Curse Of Frankenstein, Star Wars), Sir John Mills (Scott of the Antarctic, Tiger Bay), Ray Milland (The Man With X-Ray Eyes), Anton Diffring (Circus of Horrors, The Beast Must Die), Gordon Jackson (The Great Escape, The Ipcress File), Anne Baxter (I Confess) and Susan Penhaligon (The Land That Time Forgot). All play good parts. Of these people, only Sir John Mills and Susan Penhaligon are still alive today.

I enjoyed this movie ans is worth looking at.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5.

'The Masks of Death' was Peter Cushing's swansong as Sherlock Holmes, a character he had played opposite Andre Morell in a Hammer 'Hound of the Baskervilles' and then in a television series for the BBC opposite Nigel Stock.

Here his Watson is an elderly John Mills, and the two make a charming pair presenting Holmes in his later life as a beekeeper who is tempted out of retirement to help an old friend, policeman McGregor (Gordon Jackson). It soon becomes apparent that more urgent matters require the intervention of the great detective when the Home Secretary (Ray Milland) comes to call with a foreign dignitary (Anton Diffring). And to complicate things, still further, The Woman has returned to London (Irene Adler of course, played by Anne Baxter).

As a plot goes, 'The Masks of Death' is rather pedestrian and not that involving. But with a cast like this, who can complain? Cushing is more crotchety than he had been in his previous outings in the role, but Mills proves a fine foil - his Watson is definitely the army man, a man of action. Baxter is luminous, and even when the solution is staring us in the face there's still enough going on in the interplay between the actors to keep us interested.

In the mid 1970s Kevin Francis (son of legendary cinematographer and director Freddie Francis) made a foolhardy attempt to keep alive the old school of British horror that he had grown up with (and to which his father had made significant contributions). Unfortunately he was tilting at windmills as his company Tyburn, which had previously released Richard Burton's DOCTOR FAUSTUS in 1967, did not have the financial resources, nor the distribution capabilities, and ultimately the audience to make his grand scheme work. In 1975 they made three films (LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF, THE GHOUL, PERSECUTION) before retreating into television where they kept a very low profile. In 1984 they once more rose to the occasion by giving Peter Cushing one last meaty role to close out his career on. It was a role that he had played 25 years earlier in Hammer's HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. That role, of course, was Sherlock Holmes.

Cushing was 70 years old when shooting on the film began and once more the game was afoot. Tyburn surrounded him with several old friends and top flight talent so that THE MASKS OF DEATH would be a grand sendoff. His old Hammer compatriots actor Anton Diffring and director Roy Ward Baker were there and Tyburn recruited Ray Milland and Anne Baxter from America to enrich the proceedings. The biggest coup however was getting John Mills to play Dr. Watson. Picking up where Andre Morell had left off in HOUND (Morell died in 1978), Mills is the perfect Watson...intelligent, trustworthy, and devoted to his friend. There is a great chemistry there which enhances their scenes together and it helps to make MASKS one of the better Holmes offerings especially for a film that is a TV movie complete with blackouts. What it lacks due to budgetary restrictions is more than made up for by watching these old pros in action.

The film opens in 1926 with an aged Watson hiring a stenographer to set down in writing the details of a case that had been supressed by the British government for more than a decade. Cushing, his frame as thin as ever and with white hair, epitomizes Holmes with just a roll of the eyes as he urges Watson to get on with it. The bulk of the story takes place in 1913 right before the outbreak of World War I. While investigating the discovery of three bodies, their faces distorted horribly (hence the title), Holmes is approached by the Home Secretary (Milland) and a German aristocrat (Diffring) to drop that case and find a missing member of German royalty. This leads Holmes & Watson in many directions for there is more going on than meets the eye. To say anything else would be criminal...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

Above all else, this TV movie was most welcome for giving Peter Cushing a chance to end his acting career on a high note and in one of his most celebrated roles (he appeared in one more film after this one but this was to be the last lead role of his long career). He'd first played Sherlock Holmes twenty-five years previously in a Hammer movie, and then in a 1968 BBC television series. Here, he revisits the character in a later stage of life and, accordingly, this time his rendition of the great detective is less agile and prone to moments of impatience and tetchiness. Cushing is just one of a number of senior actors in the cast, many of them sadly fast-approaching the end of their careers... Anne Baxter, Gordon Jackson, Anton Diffring... Ray Milland also sadly was not in great health at the time and it shows. Nevertheless, all give very good performances as one would expect from such distinguished names. The piece is nicely filmed with good location work and the music is okay too but unfortunately everything is let down by the plot. Much of the narrative involves Holmes and Watson investigating a supposed kidnapping which ultimately proves to be nothing more than a red-herring, conceived to keep Holmes distracted from another more important matter. One can't help wondering if it would have been easier for the villains to have simply assassinated Holmes if they were so worried about him bringing them to justice. And once this duplicity is discovered, the characters involved just vanish from the action and the story suddenly shifts to a climax that is, in itself rather unsatisfying. Why do Holmes and Watson, two ageing men, risk their lives in flushing the villains out of their lair when the police apparently have the whole place surrounded anyway?

It was a nice idea to see a more elderly Holmes in action for once and even better to have Peter Cushing playing him once again, and it's a shame that plans for a proposed follow-up never came to fruition, because a better story might have worked wonders. A good attempt that just doesnt quite come off.

The story is a little on the thin side, if decidedly chilling at the climax. But the pleasure of watching a first-rate assortment of mature actors go through their paces makes this a show worth watching again and again. Peter Cushing's Holmes is severe, ascetic and all business, John Mills' Watson cheerful and worth having in a tight spot, and Anne Baxter's Irene Adler a genuinely charming and intelligent lady.