Such a wonderful surprise to find here Sir Basil Rathbone - Sherlock Holmes himself - as a thief character, and what a thief. A high rate hood, not a petty one. I won't spoil you this delightful tale any further; it would be a shame for me to jeopardize your pleasure. What I noticed the most was the technical way of filming, handling the camera, not so usual in the fifties cinema. But after all, this is a TV stuff, isn't it? And TV has always been a sort of laboratory for future big screen work. I think that to better understand Basil Rathbone's choice in this role is to know that Rathbone was tired of Sherlock Holmes's one and he stopped it in the late 40's: 1946 to be accurate. In this story, I would even say that Rathbone plays a sort of SH too, in a close room with several other characters, and him "investigating" who the "traitor" is, instead of the murderer; maybe a kind of tribute of what he did a couple of years later in the famous series. This episode is so tense, so sharp as a knife, so powerful. I still don't believe it, folks. Surely a great TV moment for me.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews