Sherlock Holmes series

Critique • At the movies

Raymond Massey, right, as Holmes with Roland Young as his Watson in The Speckled Band.

Modernized Holmes

The Speckled Band (1931): Film, 90 minutes; director Jack Raymond; writer W.P. Lipcomb; featuring Raymond Massey, Athole Stewart, Lyn Harding

Canadian-born Raymond Massey offers a quite different take on Sherlock Holmes in The Speckled Band (1931), but to no avail.

It's not the first adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's story of that name from The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes collection, as there had been a silent treatment in 1923.

This new version is hardly out of the silent era either, with melodramatic acting from much of the cast, including Lyn Harding as the villain (more on him in later Holmes filmography), and with attempts at some very early special effects, such as double exposures.

The film is big on atmospherics, trying to create a spooky feeling of foreboding, despite the story being set in (then) contemporary times. Holmes himself is shown in a bizarre modern light, operating a modern crime detection office set up by Watson (Athole Stewart) with what seem to be proto-computers to track criminals around the world. Although some scenes are quite evocative, the overall juxtaposition of the sequences of ultramodern crime detection with Victorian-era horror thrills makes for a movie of split personality. No one tone appropriate to Sherlockian mystery is set.

Massey though is the most relaxed, even languid, actor in the film. He seems to be quietly amused by the overacted antics of those around him, until he's required to leap into action to defeat the "speckled band". Given the proper vehicles, he would have made a fine Holmes in a film series.

Unfortunately he's not in this short movie enough—available copies run anywhere from forty-two to ninety minutes—with the villain, the damsel in distress and a bald Dr. Watson (Athole Stewart) taking up most of the screen time.