The master minds tackle the master crimes!
The famous Borgia Pearl, a valuable gem with a history of bringing murder and misfortune to its owner since the days of the Borgias, is brought to London, thanks in part to Sherlock Holmes. But before long the jewel is stolen, due to an error on Holmes' part, and shortly thereafter, a series of horrible murders begin, the murderer leaving his victims with their spines snapped and surrounded by a mass of smashed china.
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Character
Classical in form, resolved, unpretentious and cool.
- classical in formformally daring
- resolvedopen-ended
- unpretentiousprestige
- cooloverwhelming
- character-ledplot-driven
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Reviews on TMDB
Written by TMDB members; each links to the original. Not part of Tastebuds's numbers.
- CinemaSerfon TMDB · Jun 20227/10
Having safely snaffled the blood-steeped “Borgia Pearl” from the dastardly clutches of “Giles Conover” (Miles Mander) “Holmes” (Basil Rathbone) is hoist by his own petard when his rather pompous illustration to the museum curator of the flaws of electronic security systems only sees it stolen again! This time, he and “Watson” (Nigel Bruce) have to try to track it down whilst the smug “Lestrade” (Dennis Hoey) has a laugh at their expense. They really haven’t much clue, until a man is murdered in a particularly violent fashion and his body found amidst some smashed china. Then another, then another - all with broken crockery. “Holmes” reckons this might be the clue, but it’s a jigsaw puzzle just to put together one of the fragments of one of the items, there is no chance they can reassemble all of the pieces - except, well maybe there is a pointer to the criminal mastermind concealed amongst all this debris? The denouement is a bit rushed here, but along the way there is plenty of mischief from a Rathbone at his most supercilious and from Bruce who manages to use his keen deductive brain to stop himself gluing his sleeve to his scrapbook. There’s plenty of humour in this one too, a b
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Cast
- Basil RathboneSherlock Holmes
- Nigel BruceDr. John Watson
- Dennis HoeyInspector Lestrade
- Evelyn AnkersNaomi Drake
- Miles ManderGiles Conover
- Ian WolfeAmos Hodder
- Charles FrancisFrancis Digby, curator
- Holmes HerbertJames Goodram, courier
- Richard AherneMuseum Guard Bates
- Mary GordonMrs. Hudson
Crew
- Roy William NeillDirector
- Bertram MillhauserWriter
- Virgil MillerDirector of Photography
- Paul SawtellOriginal Music Composer
- Ray SnyderEditor
- Roy William NeillProducer
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Pairings
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