Touches You

Good start, but then it gets ruined

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

"The Woman in Green" is a considerable return to form for the Basil Rathbone Holmes movies. This entry has a good story and it marks the third screen appearance of the master criminal Professor Moriarty. The character is played well by Henry Daniell and there's a scene involving he and Rathbone where some of the dialogue from the story "The Final Problem" is used. It is taken from the section where Holmes and Moriarty have a confrontation at Baker Street. The scene where a demonstration of hypnotism is carried out is a highlight. Inspector Lestrade is absent but his replacement is OK. The climax is a good one and includes a couple of humorous touches.

This routine addition to the Rathbone/Holmes series feels slightly tired and repetitive from the very beginning. The direction from old hand Roy William Neill feels a little plodding and things are not helped by the decision to create a new story instead of using one of Doyle's - at least with his tales, you could expect interesting little twists and additions to the plot. Here, the simple storyline of murder and hypnotism continuously lacks the excitement and intrigue of other, better adventures. The "spark" isn't gone, as such, instead it just pops up intermittently.It's not a film without its merits, though. For a start, the string of gruesome murders is enough to have any thriller fan going, and the extra little detail - a finger missing from each corpse - adds considerably to the mystery and suspense of the tale. It turns out that the explanation for these missing digits is rather mundane, but the intrigue is still there. When the subject of hypnotism comes into the film halfway through, it's interesting to see how attitudes towards it have changed in the past fifty years - here, it still seems to be a fringe therapy, not really taken seriously by the masses. The film uses it simply for a plot device, and for a comic relief interlude which has sceptic Watson being made to eat his words as he removes a shoe and sock while in a trance.The acting is alright, but both Bruce and Rathbone are beginning to look a little old and tired with their roles. Rathbone in particular looks bored in some scenes, and lacks those zestful moments which counteracted the silent brooding which typically characterised his Holmes. The supporting cast are unmemorable, aside from Henry Daniell's creepy turn as a weird-looking Moriarty! Daniell puts in a quietly menacing turn and milks his villainy for all it's worth. In the exciting ending, Moriarty leaps from a rooftop and grabs a drainpipe, which promptly collapses and leaves him plummeting to the ground below. A fitting end for this memorable screen and paper villain, who here was a bit too full of himself and obviously no match for Holmes.The ending of this film desperately tries to be suspenseful, with Holmes apparently going under a trance and being made to walk off the edge of a roof. Yet it's painfully obvious that he'll survive the experience and turn the tables on the villains at the last minute. These films are chiefly memorable for the little quirky moments of which there are only a couple here (one nice bit has a man in a hypnotic trance get a large needle driven through his hand - a simple trick, yet most effective and wince-inducing). This is by no means a bad film, just a predictable one, with Holmes far from his best.

I can understand why it was hard to tell what a true sequel to anything was back in the 1940's. The title "Part II" wasn't used until "The Godfather: Part II"! Anyway, this movie was quite satisfying, although I admit that it did get weaker in the second half. It's still worth looking at. It was nice to see Professor Moriarty here. I'm not even really a "Sherlock Holmes" fan, but the character is so popular I would know about the other elements in the series. Basil Rathbone was the most prolific Sherlock actor and in the longest running series of movies. It's weird to reference a "Woman In Green" when everything's in black and white! It gets interesting when they start talking about hypnotism. Sherlock Holmes was created to promote skepticism and I believe they get it pretty scientifically accurate here. These films were short films. What I mean is that they weren't short films. They were feature length films that were short by those standards. I guess it can get pretty confusing to classify the difference. The performances are fine and it's all quite authentic. ***.

After ten films together, the chemistry between Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce translates into a convincing on-screen friendship as the iconic Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson; the genuine affection between the two partners in crime-solving is palpably evident in their eleventh outing, "The Woman in Green." Watson is evidently touched when Holmes openly admits he let a villain escape in order to save his dear friend's life. Despite his blustering, Watson provides valuable advice and support to Holmes in this film, and, despite his grumbling at being used, the good doctor is more than comic relief. In Betram Millhauser's original screenplay, a string of young women are murdered throughout London, and each victim has had a finger surgically removed. Holmes and Watson are brought in by Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard to aid the investigation.Producer-director Roy William Neill and his irreplaceable leading men have returned, and Neill has also brought back several other welcome figures from previous Holmes films in the Universal series. Veteran supporting players from other Holmes mysteries include Hilary Brooke, Henry Daniell, Paul Cavanaugh, Sally Shepherd, and Mary Gordon as the good, the bad, and the suspicious, in no particular order. Cinematographer Virgil Green, who lensed two prior Holmes films, provides crisp black and white images that especially flatter both Brooke and Rathbone, while his murky shadows that shroud London's back streets and the Victorian halls of 221B Baker Street add an aura of atmospheric mystery.Unfortunately, despite the excellent cinematography, fine assured direction, and seasoned members of the Sherlock Holmes stock company, "The Woman in Green" is a notch down from the prior three efforts in the Universal films. The script utilizes a tired plot device that not only creaks, but also fails to convince. Although fans of the series will relish the interplay between Watson and Holmes and the old friends among the cast, viewers will likely groan at some overly familiar scenes and easily guess both Holmes's and the villain's transparent ploys. Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce are always welcome and a delight to watch, but some adventures do not match their talents, and this entry is among them.