La Femme en vert

"The Woman in Green" (1945) as directed by Roy William Neill is an unusually intelligent and satisfying thriller. Reliable Bertram Millhauser wrote the original screenplay, adding elements from several of Arthur Conan Dyle's stories including "The Empty House" to an interesting but rather gruesome mystery. The plot-line involves murders of young woman from whom a finger has been surgically removed after they have died. Enter Sherlock Holmes, asked to help by Inspector Gregson, who along with his Scotland Yard colleagues is being pressed by their Boss to get results on this series of disturbing killings. Gregson takes the murders of vulnerable young women hard, adding to the seriousness of their number and frequency. Sherlock Holmes, the world's first consulting detective, is moved also and suspect his old nemesis in the matter--except that the man has been reportedly executed in Montevideo. The solution to the case end by involving Holmes with one of the suspects who turns out to have been a victim, the man's daughter, a lethal mastermind, threats against Holmes's companion Dr. Watson's life, and a sinister climax that finds Holmes walking a tightrope between life and death as his friends hasten to rescue him. Director Niell has made few errors here, and makes clever use of shots from several stories high to set up an effective climactic scene As Holmes, Basil Rathbone is unusually heroic and effective throughout. Nigel Bruce is given a rather peripheral role with low-grade comedic bits that he does flawlessly. Henry Daniell is his thoroughly professional self as the mastermind, especially when he invades Holmes's Baker Street apartments for a eerie discussion with his chief adversary. Paul Cavanagh and Hilary Brooke are each given varying moods to play and do them very well indeed. Others in the case have smaller parts and vary in their effectiveness. I find two errors in the handling of a logical storyline. One comes when Maude Fenwick, daughter of a victimized father, is given no reaction to the discovery that he is involved in the series of murders; the other is the static nature of he shots in a nightclub-restaurant that might have been handled by panning with Holmes and the Inspector. Apart from these cavils, I suggest that this is an entertaining trip into mystery, mayhem and mesmerism. One worth more than one study as it is perhaps one of the best of the Rathbone-Bruce Sherlock Holmes series of adventures.