Sherlock Holmes - The House of Fear
by Roy William Neill
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Aubrey Mather, Basil Rathbone, Dennis Hoey, Nigel Bruce, Paul CavanaghDirector: Roy William Neill
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language)
Format: Black & White, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 69 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-11-25
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Mpi Home Video
Movie Reviews of Sherlock Holmes - The House of Fear
Movie Review: A deucedly, even fiendishly, clever tale of murder and greed. Thank goodness Holmes, not Watson, is doing the deducing
Summary: 4 Stars
"Murder," says Sherlock Holmes to his friend, Dr. John Watson, "is an insidious thing. Once a man has dipped his fingers in blood, sooner or later he'll feel the urge to kill again."
"Good gracious me," says Watson.
High on the lip of a Scottish cliff overlooking the crashing sea sits Drearcliffe, a grim stone mansion where, says the legend, no man ever goes whole to his grave. Seven more or less elderly men live there, the members of the Good Comrades Club. The host and fellow member, the owner of Drearcliffe and a most cordial, even innocent and trusting man, is Bruce Alistair. He was quite enthusiastic when someone, he can't remember who he tells Sherlock Holmes, suggested each member of the club take out an insurance policy with all the other members listed as beneficiaries. The last man alive, of course, will be very wealthy. When one of the seven men, sitting at dinner, receives an envelope with seven orange seeds, no one thinks twice. Hours later the man is murdered, done to a crisp in a horrible automobile crash. The next night, another member of the club receives another envelope, this time with six seeds. He's found later at the base of the cliff, so mangled that only his cuff links can identify him. At this point, the insurance company calls in Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone). Soon, he and Watson (Nigel Bruce) are in Scotland and have secured invitations to stay at Drearcliffe. As gruesome death stalks the ancient house, there will be only two members of the Good Comrades Club left alive. One is the perpetually agreeable Bruce Alistair. The other is a man Holmes had encountered years earlier, a famous surgeon who was acquitted of the brutal murder of his young bride.
Despite boulders rumbling down the cliff ("Great Scott, Holmes, that was meant for us!"), a suit of armor that trembles, a moldering passageway, the entrance to which is hidden in a great, flaming fireplace, and death that is accompanied by hideous mutilation, Sherlock Holmes is not to be deterred. The secret of the deaths of the Comrades Club will amaze us, but not Holmes, at it's ruthless logic and subtle scheme.
The House of Fear runs slightly more than an hour. It sets a brisk pace that doesn't falter and turns out to be one of the better Rathbone/Bruce entries in the series. The mystery is just clever enough that I doubt too many will figure out what's up until most of the movie is over. Rathbone does his usual serious portrayal of Holmes. Bruce does his usual imitation of a buffoon. The DVD transfer is very good. The MPI Home Video releases with the UCLA Film and Television Archive restorations are the only editions to get. The numerous public domain releases look awful.
Summary of Sherlock Holmes - The House of Fear
The master detective Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and his faithful cohort Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) are back, preserved and digitally restored in 35mm to original condition by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. This newly restored version of the classic film includes the period war bond tag and studio logo and credits from its original theatrical release. Filled with ominous shadows and interesting camera angles, the visual beauty of the film in 35mm is stunning. The Good Comrades are a collection of varied gentleman who crave one thing - solitude. They reside at Drearcliff House, ancestral home of their eldest member. All seems serene and convivial until one by one the members begin to perish in the most grisly of manners. Foul play is suspected by the Good Comrades' insurance agent, who turns to Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson for guidance. When Holmes is told that the deaths are preceded by a message in the form of orange pips sealed in an envelope, delivered to the next victim at dinner, and that the Good Comrades' insurance policies are all to be paid to the surviving member, the famed detective is convinced that there is murder afoot. Holmes and Watson are off to Scotland to try and solve the mystery.Here is another strong entry (beautifully restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive) from the peak of Basil Rathbone's prolific, seven-year run as a definitive Sherlock Holmes for the big screen. The House of Fear (1945), adapted from "The Five Orange Pips," is a chamber mystery concerning successive murders of the members of an elite club, the Good Comrades. On film, the tale seems a bit ludicrous, but its conclusion is among the most startling in the Rathbone films. There's also a fair amount of comedy between Watson (Nigel Bruce) and Inspector Lestrade's (Dennis Hoey) bumbling ways. --Tom Keogh
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