Review of The Woman in Green

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