Melodia Fatal

The Master minds -Holmes and Watson- tackle the master crimes . While Holmes and Watson encounter at 221 Baker Street talking about the publication of the story 'Scandal in Bohemia with Irene Adler' in the Strand Review , are visited by an old friend , a collector of music-boxes , explaining the robbing a special box manufactured by an inmate from Dartmoor prison . Holmes aware about a series of music boxes holds the key to plates stolen from the Bank of England . As always , Sherlock goes into the action dressed in tweed suit , tweed coat and Fedor , as in his twelve Holmes films produced by 20th Century Fox and Universal and mostly directed by Roy William Neill . Then he sets out in pursuit the baddies and in this episode Holmes confronts an uncanny enemy (Patricia Morrison) with malignant purports . This entry , as usual , finds Mrs Hudson , but doesn't appear Inspector Lestrade , substituting a commissioner of Scotland Yard (the eternal secondary Ian Wolfe) . At the ending is resolved the case in an exciting conclusion into library of Samuel Johnson who was a XVIII century poet and author of a notorious dictionary of English language .

Once terminated the movie , Rathbone dreary on Holmes character decided killing him , such as Arthur Conan Doyle made dropping Holmes into Falls of Reichenbach . This decision along with cancellation the radio-broadcasting proceeded long time ago , originated the followers were deeply annoyed and Nigel Bruce got anger , but he early died . After that , Rathbone only played as Holmes a parody in ¨Milton Berle show¨ and on Broadway stage about a play written by his wife Ouida and with Thomas Gomez as Moriaty . In spite of various historical and important roles performed by Rathbone such as ¨Disraeli¨ and ¨Svengali¨, none surpassed his immortal character , the ideal role for Rathbone and gave him fame and money .

The last in a wonderful cycle of 14 movies that got launched by a different major production company but always kept the brilliant duo of lead actors Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Sherlock Holmes and his loyal assistant Dr. Watson. Some say this is a much weaker entry in the series but, quite frankly, I have no idea on what arguments those opinions are based, as this is another marvelously scripted and professionally directed detective adventure! When an old school friend of Dr. Watson is found murdered, Sherlock Holmes immediately suspects that this has something to do with his latest collector's item purchase, namely a wooden musical box. Two other identical boxes were made by a convicted burglar in prison and the altered melody hides a secret code that leads his accomplices to the location of two stolen Bank of England printing plates! True, the valuable-objects-hidden-at-different-locations premise is somewhat similar to the previous Holmes film "The Pearl of Death" and may therefore come across as unoriginal, but the screenplay contains more than enough variety to make "The Secret Code" another very compelling mystery film. Holmes female opponent, for example, is a truly clever woman who nearly succeeds in setting a trap for our brilliant detective during a very well-mounted sequence. Furthermore, "The Secret Code" (I refuse to use the completely irrelevant title "Dressed to Kill") is fast-paced and contains loads of terrific dialogues. As usual, Bruce's character Dr. Watson provides the story with a couple of neat comical moments, most notably the scene in which he tries to comfort a little girl who just got traumatized by imitating the sound of a duck...impressively, I may add.

The last Rathbone Holmes (14/14) is again a slightly weaker affair than most of the preceding entries, another variant of The Pearl of Death this time involving music boxes. Music boxes whose tunes play out the location of the stolen and hidden Bank of England £5 plates no less. Holmes proves he has an inbuilt police whistle and a photographic(?) memory for music, whilst Watson says that he likes brass bands but is tone deaf. The woman here, although a thoroughly bad hat is not The Woman, the one and only Irene Adler who had bested Holmes in 1891, but for most of the film she has the upper hand.

By now the steam had left Rathbone, and although Bruce wanted to carry on and Universal held the copyright until 1949 the series had reached its natural conclusion. Director Roy William Neill had less than a year left to live too. Some lovely bits: Holmes consoling Mrs Hudson, distraught at letting 2 people into 221b who turned it over; Holmes' biscuit jar was seen to good advantage. And yes, the bullet holes in the wall from Faces Death were still there at the end! No matter how bad, mawkish or daft this marvellous series got I've always loved every entry. Watching a clean Definitive DVD of this with a lump in my throat I think of Brian Wilson's line "It's so sad to watch a sweet thing die", without even the dignity of end credits (they're lost).

All things must pass.

Dressed To Kill was the last of the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes movies. I rather enjoyed this.

Music boxes are sold at an auction and the buyers of these seem to get killed. Holmes and Watson are called to investigate these killings and learn that a young women, who is the leader of a criminal gang has something to do with them. After attempting to kill Holmes, she is caught at the end.

Joining Basil and Nigel in the cast are Patricia Morison as the gang leader and Holmes Herbert.

Dressed To Kill is a good way to spend just over an hour one evening. Great stuff.

Rating: 3 and a half stars out of 5.

I have to agree with about everyone here on two things: 1 - it's sad to see this great combination of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce end its run of Sherlock Holmes films, and 2 - it's too bad it ended with a mediocre film.

The story involves several music boxes which are made in prison and sold at an auction. Whoever buys them, gets killed. (I was sorry to see Dr. Watson's friend "Stinky" bite the dust so early, as he was one of the more interesting characters.)

The main culprit is a deadly female who reminds Holmes of an ex-foe he has great respect for: "Irene Adler." This character is "Hilda Courtney" (Patricia Morrison).

Actually, if I was grading this, I'd give it a C for "average." It's not the worst one in the series, as some people think, but it's not riveting, either, and I can see why the guys decided to "pack it in" after this one. The end of World War II also signaled the end of this series as a number of them were WWII stories.

It was a wonderful ride. I own all of them in the series and have a high regard for everyone connected with the set. I still think Rathbone is THE Sherlock Holmes and always will be.