US
1946
1hr
Dir: Roy William Neill
Starring: Basil Rathbone and Renee Godfrey
Sherlock Holmes recovers a stolen jewel on board the London-Edinburgh express
This Sherlock Holmes crime film is mostly an original story that was not directly based on any of Arthur Conan Doyle’s tales. The Hollywood-made mystery was the penultimate film of the Basil Rathbone / Nigel Bruce series of 14 Sherlock Holmes films and it contains a pretty random collection of shots that are intended to depict the journey to Scotland, but it is an even more ramshackle collection than usual. The train journey takes up the vast majority of the film’s running time but it is entirely studio bound using some really dodgy sets and some dubious models, with American stock, German, and French locomotives (!) thrown in. However, there are a couple of stock shots of real British trains. One shows a low-angle view of an LMS ‘Royal Scot’ Class 6P 4-6-0 leaving London Euston, whilst the others show a GWR express taking water on Goring troughs, and a going away shot of an LMS express hauled by what appears to be a ‘Patriot’ Class 4-6-0. Euston’s Doric arch is also briefly glimpsed.
