- Sherlock Holmes and the House of Fear
Infobox Film
name = Sherlock Holmes and the House of Fear
caption = DVD cover
director =Roy William Neill
producer =Roy William Neill
writer =Arthur Conan Doyle Roy Chanslor
narrator =
starring =Basil Rathbone Nigel Bruce Aubrey Mather
music =Paul Sawtell
cinematography =Virgil Miller
editing =Saul A. Goodkind
distributor =Universal Pictures
released =March 16 1945
runtime = 69 mins
country = USA
language = English
budget =
preceded_by = "The Pearl of Death "
followed_by = "The Woman in Green "
website =
amg_id = 1:23348
imdb_id = 0037794"Sherlock Holmes and the House of Fear" is a
1945 crime film directed byRoy William Neill . It is based on "The Five Orange Pips " byArthur Conan Doyle , and features the charactersSherlock Holmes andDr. Watson . It is the 10th film of the Rathbone-Bruce series.Plot summary
Holmes is visited by Mr. Chalmers, an insurance agent, with a strange tale. Seven elderly single men, calling themselves "The Good Comrades" live together in the remote Scottish castle of Drearcliffe House. Recently one of the "Good Comrades" received a strange message, an envelope containing nothing but seven orange pips. That night he was murdered and horribly mutilated. A few days later the second envelope was delivered containing six pips, and the recipient also died mysteriously soon afterwards, his battered corpse recovered from the base of the cliffs. Chalmers holds £100,000 of life insurance policies on the seven men, and suspects that one is systematically murdering the others in order to collect the money, and begs Holmes to investigate.
Holmes and Watson arrive at the scene only to find another murder has occurred. This man received five orange pips, and his body was burned. Lestrade also arrives to investigate. Despite Holmes' best efforts three more deaths occur, each time leaving the victim unrecognisable.
Lestrade jumps to the obvious conclusion, that the single surviving member, Mr. Bruce Alistair, murdered all the others. However, Holmes has deduced the truth and leads Watson and Lestrade to a secret room where all the "Good Comrades" - alive and well - are in hiding. Holmes explains that Alistair was the victim of a plot to frame him for murder and collect the insurance money by the other six. [Davies, David Stuart, "Holmes of the Movies" (New English Library, 1976) ISBN 450 03358 9] They even killed the local tobacconist, Alex MacGregor because one day he saw one of the presumed-dead comrades on the beach alive and wrote a note to Lestrade; unfortunately that note was MacGregor's death warrant.
Cast
*
Basil Rathbone –Sherlock Holmes
*Nigel Bruce – Dr. Watson
*Aubrey Mather – Bruce Alastair
*Dennis Hoey –Inspector Lestrade
*Paul Cavanagh – Dr. Simon Merivale
*Holmes Herbert – Alan Cosgrave
*Harry Cording – Captain John Simpson
*Sally Shepherd – Mrs. Monteith
*Gavin Muir – Mr. ChalmersReferences
External links
*imdb title|id=0037794|title=Sherlock Holmes and the House of Fear
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