How sad is this?

Great Film overall

Good start, but then it gets ruined

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

*Spoiler/plot- The Woman In Green, 1945, Sherlock Holmes is called to solve the "finger murders," a series of brutal and seemingly unconnected killings of women in London, and finds a beautiful hypnotist and his old enemy, Professor Moriarty, lurking in the shadows.*Special Stars- Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Henry Daniell and Hillary Brooke star.*Theme- Holmes solves every crime, eventually.*Trivia/location/goofs- Hillary Brooke is delightful. Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's brother is mentioned, but not seen in this movie. Dr. Watson was supposed to remove his trousers under hypnosis, but he only lifts his trouser leg in the final film. Dr. Moriarity falls to his death, or did he? *Emotion-An enjoyable mystery in the Rathbone Holmes series. Several plot devices from many Holmes stories are incorporated into this film and this film has enough drama and intrigue to satisfy everyone.

Despite criminal mastermind Moriarty having supposedly been hanged in Montevideo, Sherlock Holmes suspects that his arch-nemesis is behind the current spate of grisly slayings in London which sees each victim with their forefinger neatly severed. Holmes' suspicions prove correct, of course: Moriarty is indeed still alive, carrying out a dastardly blackmail plot which involves beautiful hypnotist Lydia Marlowe (Hillary Brooke) tricking wealthy men into believing that they are murderers.This may be the 11th adventure for Rathbone and Bruce as Holmes and Watson, but there is very little indication of the kind of malaise that all too often strikes long running movies series. After a temporary war-time dip in quality, the great sleuth's adventures quickly returned to form, and although this case might be missing the wonderful Gothic elements that typify the best of Holmes' cases (most notably, fog), its nastier-in-tone-than-normal plot still delivers more than enough intrigue, suspense and danger.Holmes' re-acquaintance with Moriarty is perhaps the film's highlight, Henry Daniell's devilishly devious quarry using Watson as insurance, leaving the detective frustratingly unable to act against him; Hilary Brooke is also excellent—extremely alluring yet completely wicked, she is the perfect partner-in-crime for the malevolent professor. Rathbone and Bruce, of course, are their usual reliable selves, Holmes as logical and analytical as ever, and Watson providing the film with some welcome humour by way of his bumbling nature.7.5 out of 10, rounded up to 8 for IMDb.

Diverting detective mystery in which the principal investigator's name happens to be Sherlock Holmes. If nothing else, it's good for late night viewing when drowsiness seems elusive. Also, Hillary Brooke carries around a lapidary glow that makes one long for the days when women's bathrobes had padded shoulders.This is the one about hypnosis. A number of young women have been killed around London and one of their fingers amputated and carried off. Men of prominence have been hypnotized by Hillary Brooke and Professor Moriarty and wake up near the murder site with the detached digit in their pockets. They are subsequently blackmailed. That's the plot in a nut shell.In the course of the investigation, Holmes plays a bit of violin music, the bumbling and muttering Nigel Bruce gets to be hypnotized during a visit to the Mesmer Club and make a fool of himself, and Holmes pretends to be hypnotized and coaxed into walking off a penthouse balcony.An incident is stolen from Conan-Doyle's "The Empty House," but nothing else will look very familiar to aficionados. The story and its execution are perfunctory. Holes are not worth going into. But, well, okay -- just one. The "hypnotized" Holmes must write a suicide note and he does so without looking down at what he's writing. It's just a small point but it's a signal that no one was paying much attention any longer to a series that was being ground out to keep the customers coming in and being entertained in a way that challenged nobody's sensibilities or intelligence.The device used to hypnotize Watson at the Mesmer Club is called an Archimides spiral and is useful for hypnotic inductions. I used one while collecting psychological data on visual after effects and one or two subjects began promptly nodding out. If anyone want to see what a visual after effect is like, he should locate a spiral -- they're around -- activate it and stare at it for about thirty seconds, then shut it off. You might not believe what happens next.

There is a vile murderer lose in London, not since the terror of Jack The Ripper has London been subjected to such gruesome doings. The killers trademark is that he severs the forefingers of his victims, the police are baffled. Enter Holmes and Watson, called into action once again, but even the intrepid Holmes is baffled. There is more to the case than meets the eye, and could there be on old adversary behind the murders?.The Woman in Green is the eleventh of the fourteen Sherlock Holmes film's starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson, and the eighth of the eleven directed by Roy William Neill. Partly based around Arthur Conan Doyle's-The Adventure of the Empty House, The Woman In Green {ambigious title in context of the films content} continues the dark path trodden in the previous film, House of Fear (1945). As Holmes ruefully observes another female victim on the slab in the mortuary he muses "fiend that did this," and then promises to crack the case. It's Holmes obsession with the case, and the macabre nature of the story that carries the audience thru it's very chatty first half. That the darkness lifts at the midpoint is no bad thing due to the introduction of a rather well known foe from Holmes' past. However one has to wonder, as good as the "twist" is, if the film would have been better off staying in darker territory? You see the second half eases in tone as Watson slips into, what is admittedly always great fun, comedy mode and the babe of the piece {a smashing Hillary Brooke} becomes focal along with he who shall not be named. It works of course, this is Holmes trying to crack a devilish case, one that will encompass a new form of trickery in the pantheon of villainy. And then there is some fabulous shots used by Neill, one particular sequence involving swirling water and a white flower is very memorable. While the ending, in true Holmes, Watson and villain style, does its job all told. It's just one can't help feeling that this should have been far better than it eventually turned out to be. Still a fine series entry mind, and arguably the last time a Rathbone film had that delicious dark undercurrent to it. 7/10