La perle des Borgia

The Universal Holmes series was on a roll at this point, having just released what is probably the best film in the series, The Scarlet Claw, earlier the same year. This one is a bit of a step down, but on a par with earlier films like Sherlock Holmes Faces Death and The Spider Woman...and on a much higher level than the first three flag-waving WWII propaganda films.

This entry is based on the Arthur Conan Doyle story, The Six Napoleons. And while numerous changes were made, it actually follows the original story more closely than any of the other Universal pictures did. Most of the films were either very loose adaptations, amalgams of several different Holmes stories, or original scripts that were merely inspired by the Conan Doyle canon. This one, however, follows the general outline of the original story, while adding various subplots along the way. Overall, it works, even if it does seem to veer off-track at a few points.

These films were produced at breakneck speed (it was not uncommon for three Holmes films to be released in a single year) with fairly low budgets, but Roy William Neill knew how to achieve great results with his limited resources. As with its immediate predecessors, the camera-work in The Pearl of Death is strong and evocative, the direction is confident and effective, and the performances are, at least for the most part, fine to excellent. Rathbone's Holmes is once again in his proper element here, and Rathbone makes the most of the character.

The Pearl of Death is just a step below The Scarlet Claw, in my estimation...which still makes this outing quite enjoyable. Anyone who liked The Spider Woman, Sherlock Holmes Faces Death, or The House of Fear will definitely appreciate this one. Out of the dozen Holmes films that Universal churned out between 1942 and 1946, this is one of the eight that I would say deserve to be called "great."