Silver Blaze or Murder at the Baskerville (1937)

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Silver Blaze or Murder at the Baskerville (1937)

5/10

Starring

Arthur Wontner

Ian Fleming

Directed by Thomas Bentley

Silver Blaze or Murder at the Baskerville stars Arthur Wontner who plays Sherlock Holmes in this 1937 adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Silver Blaze. Arthur Wontner is flanked by Ian Fleming who plays Dr. Watson. The movie has a very bad score, as the music was more annoying than it was appealing, the acting by the extras is all out of place making it harder to appreciate this movie.

Arthur Wontner’s portrayal of the famous detective can be seen as dull in this movie, and Watson was ever so silent in this movie with Holmes doing too much detecting and talking that it looked a little too unrealistic. The movie has a poor story and the directing is weak as, you can spot many weaknesses in the tale, and the story doesn’t carry you along as it should.

The movie starts by introducing the antagonist and Holmes arch enemy Professor Moriarty as he is planning another dark scheme. Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Wontner) on the other hand got an invite from an old friend to come spend the holiday with him; the invite was from Sir Henry Baskerville, who he helped 20 years earlier in getting rid of the hound that hunted the Baskervilles.

Holmes agreed to go reluctantly, after Dr. Watson (Ian Fleming) was able to convince him that he needed the break from the unending cases that they have been facing. While with the Baskervilles (Henry and his daughter who was with her fiancée) the two (Holmes and Watson) find themselves in the middle of a double murder mystery and the theft of a price horse (Silver Blaze).

Now Holmes and Watson had to put their holiday on hold, because they have to solve this mystery and find the missing horse before the great cup and also bring Professor Moriarty and the criminals behind it all to justice.

Silver Blaze was done and released in 1937 and the movie was re-released in America in 1941 as Murder at the Baskerville, with the producers hoping to ride on the success of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce The Hound of the Baskerville (1939), as this movie is set 20 years after the events of the hound, making the movie look like a sequel to the Rathbone/Bruce Hound of Baskerville.

Well, old as it is you will have to allow the poor video quality to stay and excuse the producers, but the story itself is dull and if you don’t fall asleep watching this, you still will not be recommending this flick to anyone.