La griffe sanglante

The setting in this Sherlock Holmes adventure is Canada, and features a nice tribute to my neighbors in the north at the end of the film with a quote from Winston Churchill.

I was glad to see a movie debunk all this occult nonsense that the film world usually embraces, or at least is fascinated by. The characters are interesting and Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) is his normal mumbling and bumbling entertaining self. There are a couple of good suspense scenes, too.

This is one of the better SH thrillers and looks super on the restored DVD. It's hard not to enjoy all the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies. They are real treasures.

I like all of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films, but this is one of my favorites. Imagine you are in The Quiet Man's village of Inisfree full of quirky colorful characters and suddenly the fog rolls in and a glowing monster wandering around the marshes first starts ripping out the throats of sheep, then graduates to people.

The same thing happens here, except it is in a village in wartime Canada. Luck will have it that Holmes and Watson are in Canada at a convention on the occult when the first human victim is killed, the wife of one of the attendees of the conference. She was once a famous actress. This is quite a mystery, since two of the people Holmes comes to suspect end up victims of "the monster" themselves, and yet none of the three victims has anything in common, none know each other now nor ever did. Well, they actually did have one thing in common - each had an odd premonition that they were about to be killed before it happened. The first victim actually sent a message to Holmes at the convention in Canada asking for his help, unfortunately, not in time though.

You know you are in present day because of the technology being used, but the characterization of Holmes, Watson, and the villagers makes the film timeless. How odd that Universal could hit it out of the park in the 40s with the Sherlock Holmes series in the realm of suspense and even horror, but really never managed to hit the mark post Laemmle with any of the actual Universal horror franchises.

This is a wartime film that rarely enough has nothing to do with WWII, yet at the end Holmes manages to find a way to quote Churchill.

I'd highly recommend this one.

Although to some people this might be blasphemous, I am not at all a fan of the way Bruce interprets the Watson character. This is simply because I believe this is not the way ACD intended to portray the character and it's simply ridiculous. Movies being another art form though, one must certainly make allowances for alternative interpretations. Rathbone, as usual, excels himself here and in my personal Holmes actor ranking he's first just before Jeremy Brett.

At the outset, I had the slight impression that the story is a bit of a rip-off of the HOUND but very soon one realises that the storyline goes into quite another direction. But since The Hound Of The Baskervilles is my very favourite Holmes story that didn't undo the story for me.

What made me wonder a bit was that although set in francophone Canada the only French allusions are the use of the address 'monsieur' and the name of the village... Everything else sounds quite English.

Still, the movie is greatly entertaining and the eerie marshland atmosphere with a hint at the supernatural is cleverly caught.

Roy William Neil continued to direct this series, and this is one of the best. Story is not adapted by a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle tale, but instead tells an original one. Holmes & Watson are in Quebec Canada to attend a conference when they are called upon to investigate a murder of Lady Penrose, who had in fact already contacted Holmes, but was too late to save her. Locals believe it to be a supernatural creature at work, but Sherlock knows better. Atmospheric and exciting entry seems inspired by earlier "The Hound Of The Baskervilles", but is better handled here. The series was at its peak now, and in the next two entries as well.

"The Scarlet Claw" is probably the best of these Rathbone/Bruce films. The plot is very cool. I found the movie to be more frightening than "The Hound of the Baskervilles". And of course, Rathbone is always wonderful as Holmes. I would recommend this movie to any Sherlock Holmes fan or to anyone who just likes mystery movies.