Holmes (Basil Rathbone) is hired to escort a young Algerian monarch back home after his father is assassinated. Set almost entirely on an ocean liner, there are many suspects and more than enough red herrings.
Well, that ends it. Fourteen Sherlock Holmes films up, fourteen down, the first of which I watched five years ago. I’ve marveled how consistent they are in tone and quality, but the earlier ones were a bit more serious. Part of the consistency may be due to the frantic pace they were produced. All in eight years, twelve in five years. This somewhat mirrors Nigel Bruce’s pace of 78 feature films over twenty five years, including seven films released in 1940 alone. Movies are simply not produced at that pace anymore.
Marjorie Riordan was charming as a song and dance ingenue. She would soon get bored with Hollywood and leave for grad school. 6’5” former wrestler Wee Willie Davis had a minor career playing brutes and thugs. Here was no exception.
Pursuit to Algiers proved to be the hardest film for me to find, resorting to YouTube and tolerating the skippable ads every eight minutes. I’m glad I watched the set but I don’t expect to ever revisit them. I wish I could have seen more with mom. AMRU 3.
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