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Violet Stoner (Joyce Moore), an acquaintance of Watson (Athole Stewart)
was murdered a year ago, but neither the cause of death nor the murderer
was ever fouond out, only Sherlock Holmes (Raymond Massey), who didn't
even investigate the case, has his suspicions: It was Violet's stepdad
Doctor Rylott (Lyn Harding). And Holmes also makes a prediction: Violet's
sister Helen (Angela Baddeley) will come to him for help once she's about
to be married - and sure enough she does, claiming that once she announced
her wedding, her stepdad has become a different person (while we, the
audience have of coursse known for the longest time that he indeed is
Violet's murderer).
So Holmes asks Helen to smuggle him and Watson into the mansion where
she lives with her stepdad and into her room - where he soon discovers a
hidden panel, connecting her room with her stepdad's through which good
stepdaddy in the night wants to let a poisonous snake loose into her room
- but since Holmes has suspected this he and Watson stand on guard and
once the snake lowers itself onto Helen they chase it back into Doc
Rylott's room, and when they go over to restrain him, he has already been
bitten to death by the snake.
An early sound film and it painfully shows: The camerawork is extremely
stagey, the performances are all theatrical to the hilt (especially Lyn
Harding - later Moriarty in the Arthur
Wontner-Sherlock Holmes films - hams up his villain role
terribly), and the script very much fits the needs of a stageplay (instead
of a movie). Add to that the lack of excitement since we know the killer
early onin the film and there isn't very much left. Only the ending
delivers a nice twist.
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