Lack of good storyline.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.

Hillary Brooke blesses this movie with her ineffable ease and subtlety, while Holmes watches for the public good. The movie is stylish and enjoyable (despite the absurd script, with some quite stupid subject matter, though it began well, with forebodings of a Ripper copycat), and Henry Daniell as Moriarty is vastly superior to the workmanlike Rathbone; Moriarty gives dignity to every scene he's in. Now to be fair, even in the stories, the mastermind was unlike all the rest, a less good idea of the author, but here Rathbone gets saddled with an over-the-top script, and the movie feels like another episode in one of the '60s TV series. Rathbone's role resembles a Dr. Who, with that unmistakable proletarian drive, an intellectualized proletarian, with none of the _reclusiveness nor the intensity (that gave him a certain eeriness) of the literary Holmes, Rathbone's Holmes is unintellectual and even a bit placid, save for the occasional bursts of energy, another person altogether, although, at Lydia's home, he looks a bit like Poe, the writer; but otherwise, his Watson is almost better. Rathbone is a good actor, here he is simply out-shined, surpassed by others in the cast.Genre-wise, it's not a mystery movie, but a melodrama, albeit a 'Universal' picture, immeasurably helped by some of the actors (H. Brooke, Daniell, Bruce). Apart from the script (a pure love letter to '40s melodramatic rubbish), it's an exciting movie, nicely crafted, with fine cast, production values, and directing; that is: they each stood for their rights, and worked with what they had, and got through.

THE WOMAN IN GREEN (Universal, 1945), produced and directed by Roy William Neil, the ninth installment of the modernized "Sherlock Holmes" mysteries for Universal (1942-1946), and eleventh featuring Basil Rathbone (Sherlock Holmes) and Nigel Bruce (Doctor Watson) in their legendary roles, is, regardless of contradictions from previous theatrical episodes, another interesting entry in the series. Along with some repeat performers in support, Hillary Brooke and Henry Daniell, who've assumed other character parts from earlier products in the franchise, would become central figures this time around, matching wits with the famed detective in another baffling mystery.The opening passage starts with an off-screen narrator, Inspector Gregson, filling in to what's to be presented as the police force come to the Scotland Yard building entrance: "I won't forget that morning, not if I ever live to be 100. I counted the men as they marched out of the yard. They hardly slept for weeks. We of the C.I.D. slept even less, but the nightmare that kept us awake was all the same nightmare. That's why we weren't surprised when the commissioner asked us up for the conference room for a bit of a talk. He talked to us plenty. We knew that! They didn't help any to know what was asked of them." The commissioner holds a staff meeting involving the most ghastly murders to take place on the streets of London since Jack the Ripper where the female victims are found with their forefingers amputated following their deaths. Having no clues nor motives has everyone stumped. A fourth murder soon takes place in Lambert Way, having Inspector Gregson (Matthew Boulton) notifying Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) for expert assistance. Observing the bodies in the mortuary, Holmes comes to the conclusion the murders are done by a skilled surgeon. However, Sir George Fenwick (Paul Cavanaugh), a lonely middle-aged widower who's been dining with "a handsome woman," Lydia Marlowe (Hillary Brooke), leaves the Penbroke House Club to her apartment for a nightcap where her maid, Crandon (Sally Shepherd) acts mysteriously during his visit. The next morning, Fenwick awakens in a boarding house on Edgeware Road, confused, unaware of how he got there, not accounting for the lost ten hours in amnesiac state. With another murder having taken place nearby, Fenwick believes he's responsible for the crimes when he finds an amputated forefinger in one of his pockets. Later, Fenwick is found murdered, much to the shock of his daughter, Maude (Eve Amber), who had witnessed her father the other night burying evidence of the forefinger in his garden. Discovering Fenwick was being blackmailed for crimes for which he is innocent, Holmes points his finger on Professor Moriarty (Henry Daniell) responsible for the crimes, which seems impossible since his nemesis is dead. Or is he? Throughout it all, THE WOMAN IN GREEN has the distinction of having two different stories for the price of one. It starts off splendidly in typical murder mystery fashion, but once Moriarty (spelled Moriarity in the cast credits) makes his appearance, the story shifts to another direction involving hypnotism. George Zucco and Lionel Atwill, who appeared earlier as Moriarty under Rathbone, each coming to plunging to their deaths conclusion, is now resurrected in the physical being and slightly younger Henry Daniell. Contradiction sets in when Holmes' amiable assistant, Watson, mentions Moriarty was "hanged in Montevideo over a year ago." If so, how about the fatal ends of Zucco and Atwill's Moriarty? Now Morarity has somehow survived his execution in the gallows and is alive and well once more. The idea of Holmes and Moriarty coming face to face again benefits the story greatly. Bertram Millhauser, credited for original screenplay, obviously didn't bother about the earlier films to keep the stories intact. Maybe having Daniell as Moriarty's brother or nephew might have sufficed. Overlooking these factual errors, THE WOMAN IN GREEN is well scripted as is. While there's an interesting segment where Watson gets hypnotized at the Mesmer Club by Doctor Onslow (Frederick Worlock), the true highlight belongs to Holmes when going into a trance by one of Moriarty's assistants, the titled character, who's never referred to in the story as "The Woman in Green." While Mary Gordon returns as Mrs. Hudson, series regular Dennis Hoey is absent this time around as Inspector Lestrade.Distributed to home video in the 1980s, and eventually DVD, THE WOMAN IN GREEN, which has fallen into public domain, has appeared on numerous television and cable television channels over the years, one of them being Turner Classic Movies (TCM premiere: March 8, 2004). Next installment: THE HOUSE OF FEAR. (**1/2)

A vast majority of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films make for very entertaining stuff. The Woman in Green is not one of the best of them, Hound of the Baskervilles, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Scarlet Claw, Pearl of Death and The Spider Woman are better, but it is certainly better than the war-time entries. The story can have a tendency to stutter and start up again and takes a little too much time to get going, Watson's mocking of hypnotism scene was pretty embarrassing and fell flat and the new Inspector is an unfunny wimp, even Lestrade at his most idiotic is more tolerable. The Woman in Green is beautifully filmed though, with some nice spooky shadows and lighting and atmospheric scenery. The eeriness of the music for mainly mesmerising the victims genuinely gives a sense of uneasiness, while the dialogue is intelligent and sometimes funny and the ending is appropriately chilling and with the right amount of thrills. The direction is always solid and comes across particularly effectively in the hypnotism scenes. The acting is fine. Basil Rathbone is great as always, he has lost a little of his freshness but he is still commanding as Holmes and doesn't change any opinion of him being the best of the film incarnations of Holmes(in general for the character only Jeremy Brett is slightly superior). Nigel Bruce is amusing, though occasionally a little too blustery and bumbling, and has some of the film's most memorable moments with the sole exception of the mocking hypnotism scene. Hillary Brooke is visually entrancing and also gives a very good performance, not quite Gale Sondergaard but an effective female foil. Henry Daniell is excellent as Moriaty, George Zucco and Lionel Atwill may be a little more threatening in comparison to Daniell's more contained and soft-spoken approach, but Daniell is appropriately icy and suave in a subdued way. Overall, a good and mostly well-done film but not one of the best of the Rathbone Holmes films. 7/10 Bethany Cox

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.