Author Archives: cinemashrew

Now we’re getting somewhere. For my money, this is the best one in the series. It has a good plot. Holmes must find a stolen pearl before a couple of criminals get to it. Everybody is in fine form with this one. Holmes despite making a mistake early on solves the mystery at a goodContinue reading “Pearl of Death (1944)”

Sherlock Holmes goes to Canada in this movie. There he encounters a ghostly beast that has been scaring the crap out of people in a small village. Running through the marshes at night while glowing in the dark, thanks to some trick editing, could certainly have that effect on people. The beast isn’t content toContinue reading “Scarlet Claw (1944)”

In this series Sherlock Holmes seems to get captured about as often as Meg from Burst Angel. The Holmes movie series with Rathbone hit its peak in 1944 with a couple of pretty interesting movies in a row. The first one was this one pitting Holmes against quite possibly the most diabolical femme fatale ofContinue reading “Sherlock Holmes and the Spider Woman (1944)”

We reach the final dregs of 1943 with this noire movie starring Lon Chaney Jr. Unlike most of his better movies when he was either a man made monster or a werewolf, the movie studio took a big chance by giving Chaney several movies that would actually allow him to act and this of courseContinue reading “Calling Dr. Death (1943)”

The Bowery Boys show up in another Lugosi movie. This one is not as memorable as the other movie. The guys go to a house in the country to prepare it for a friend of theirs who has just gotten married. While they are working on the house they encounter Lugosi who is in chargeContinue reading “Ghosts On the Loose (1943)”

In this movie, Lugosi was a gorilla about town. Lugosi is in this movie, which is pretty bottom level, yet still manages to be entertaining in a campy sort of way. He has turned himself into a half monkey creation. I’m not sure why he thought this was a good idea to begin with, butContinue reading “Ape Man (1943)”

We get another dark house movie with Sherlock Holmes this time doing our favorite old movie idea. The mystery is pretty good and the atmosphere as usual is definitely up to par. That being said certain other movies in the series stand out more. It’s not that this one is bad. It’s just been doneContinue reading “Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943)”

“Well, here’s another nice mess you’ve gotten me into…” We get a slight change of scenery with this movie when Holmes goes to Washington. Holmes must find a small piece of microfilm that turns out to be just a macguffin and not that important since we never find out what was actually on the film.Continue reading “Sherlock Holmes Goes to Washington (1943)”

This is an interesting movie if you understand the careers of Rathbone and Atwill at the time. Rathbone was on his way up while Atwill on his way down after a scandal so seeing the two of them go at each other is an interesting thing. This is also the second in the series ofContinue reading “Sherlock Holmes and Secret Weapon (1943)”

Lugosi shows up for his second and final role as a vampire in a serious movie. Later movies with him as a vampire would only parody the character. This movie is basically Dracula 2.0, but they added a couple of things to make it a little more interesting. For one thing, similar to Sherlock HolmesContinue reading “Return of the Vampire (1943)”