Dressed to Kill (1946 film)
| Dressed to Kill | |
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| Directed by | Roy William Neill |
| Produced by | Roy William Neill |
| Written by | Arthur Conan Doyle Frank Gruber Leonard Lee |
| Starring | Basil Rathbone Nigel Bruce Patricia Morison |
| Music by | Jack Brooks |
| Cinematography | Maury Gertsman |
| Distributed by | Universal Pictures |
| Release date(s) | 1946 |
| Running time | 76 min. |
| Language | English |
- For other uses, see Dressed to Kill.
Dressed to Kill, aka 'Sherlock Holmes in Dressed To Kill', is a Sherlock Holmes film starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes. It is the last collaboration between Rathbone and Nigel Bruce.
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Plot
Three inexpensive musical boxes (each one playing a subtly different version of "The Swagman"), manufactured in Dartmoor Prison, are sold at a local auction house in London. At an auction in London, identical music boxes made at a local prison are sold to patrons Julian "Stinky" Emery (Edmund Breon}, William Kilgour and Evelyn Clifford (Patricia Cameron).[1]
After the sales, the underhanded Colonel Cavanaugh (Frederick Worlock) bribes Ebenezer Crabtree (Holmes Herbert), the auctioneer, to give him the purchasers' addresses.
Hilda Courtney (Patricia Morison), a beautiful acquaintance of Stinky, visits and asks him for his music box as a gift. When Stinky refuses, Hamid (Harry Cording), the driver for Cavanaugh and Hilda, enters and kills him.
Holmes and Watson hurry to Kilgour's to examine his music box, and after the housekeeper reluctantly lets them in and then leaves, they find a young girl tied up in the closet, who tells them the housekeeper, whom they realize was really Hilda, attacked her and stole her music box.
Hilda and Cavanaugh follow Evelyn Clifford to the toy store at which she works, only to discover that Holmes has already purchased her music box. Outside, Hilda realizes that a Scotland Yard man, Sergeant Thompson (Tom Dillon), is following them, and they kill him.
Holmes deduces that the three boxes must work together to form a coded message, and learns that they were crafted by a prisoner named John Davidson, who years earlier stole and hid a set of five-pound note engraving plates from the Bank of England, from which counterfeit money could be made.
Holmes notices that Evelyn's music box plays a slightly different tune than Stinky's, he goes to entertainer Joe Cisto (Wallace Scott), who can identify any song. Joe affirms that the tune, an Australian folk song, is a few notes off and writes down the correct notes.
During a discussion, a remark of Watson's about numbering the keys of a piano, Holmes understands that the off notes correspond to numbers, which correspond to letters. He decodes the message: Behind books third shelf secretary Dr. S, but knows that this is only the second of three statements.
When his study is ransacked, Holmes discovers that one of the criminals left behind an exotic cigarette, which he traces back to Hilda. He visits her, only to be ambushed by Cavanaugh and Hamid, who take him to a warehouse, handcuff him, set off a deadly chemical smoke bomb and hang him by the cuffs. While Holmes struggles to escape, Hilda visits Watson and set off a smoke bomb tricking him into revealing the location of the box as he tries to save it. In the haze steals it. Cavanaugh, Courtney and Hamid go about deciphering the full musical notes.
Holmes escapes and returns home, while treating Holmes' wounds, Watson happens to recite a Samuel Johnson quote, which tips off Holmes as to the identity of "Dr. S." They rush to the Samuel Johnson memorial museum, in which the bookcase is located, and arrest the three thieves just as they are retrieving the plates.[2]
Cast
- Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes
- Nigel Bruce as Dr. John H. Watson
- Patricia Morison as Mrs. Hilda Courtney
- Edmund Breon as 'Stinky' Emery (as Edmond Breon)
- Frederick Worlock as Colonel Cavanaugh (as Frederic Worlock)
- Carl Harbord as Inspector Hopkins
- Patricia Cameron as Evelyn Clifford
- Holmes Herbert as Ebenezer Crabtree
- Harry Cording as Hamid
- Leyland Hodgson as Tour guide
- Mary Gordon as Mrs. Hudson
- Ian Wolfe as Commissioner of Scotland Yard
References
External links
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