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Sherlock Holmes in Pursuit To AlgiersRating:
Release Date: 27 January, 2004 Retail Price: $19.98 OUR Price: $17.98 You SAVE: $2.00! Cast: |
Sherlock Holmes in Pursuit To Algiers Reviews
Very good movie
This is a good movie. Just got it in the mail the other day, and my son and I loved it. Basil Rathbone was wonderful in his role as Sherlock Holmes. I'm glad we ordered it.
An oddity - but not an unpleasant one
Were it not for "Sherlock Holmes in Washington," "Pursuit to Algiers" would no doubt be considered the very strangest of the Universal Holmes series. The initial mystery at the start of the film is completely obliterated by a plot that is little more than a thriller set on a cruise liner. Ever seen Sherlock Holmes play bodyguard for a foreign dignitary? No? How about his clever defeat of not one, not two, but three expert assassins? Never seen that, either? Well, now's your chance!
In all fairness, it's not that bad - it just doesn't feel like a Sherlock Holmes story. For better or worse, with this film the Universal series is heading into its final decline, and the writers have abandoned all hope of making the films so much as resemble a real Conan Doyle story. As a result, they're resorting to things like cruise liners to liven up what's becoming a somewhat flat formula. It's not a bad idea, but unfortunately, it does away with most of the fog-and-darkness mystique that everyone loves about Sherlock Holmes.
Basil Rathbone himself is, by now, starting to seem very tired. For most of the plot, he stays rooted in a sort of bored, dour mode, only occasionally shifted by a moment such as his (unusually amused) appraisal of Watson's choice in women. Nigel Bruce, on the other hand, is having a ball. Thankfully, he's less embarassingly inept than in the previous film, "The Woman in Green," and more bizarre still, he's actually the focus for much of this picture. Watson is genuinely concerned for Holmes early on, grieves for him when he's believed dead, has a couple of nice comic moments, and - best of all - gets to sing "Loch Lomond." (I'm fairly sure that's Nigel Bruce's actual singing voice, too. Great timbre.) All in all, it's probably Bruce's best outing since "The Scarlet Claw."
There may not be much mystery here, but the thriller aspect is not done poorly; there are some very fun scenes of Holmes matching wits and banter with the villains. There's also a real surprise at the end - a shocker for one of these Holmes pictures, actually - that helps to raise the film up from the rather lacklustre story.
This picture has, with its eleven fellow films, been painstakingly restored by the UCLA Film and TV Archive for the DVD release. It has a few quality problems, and is singled out for that in the "Sherlock Holmes Collection: Volume Two" restoration featurette, but most of the trouble comes at the very beginning and (quite abrupt) ending of the film. For the majority of its length, it looks fine, albeit with the occasional flicker, and I found it far less distracting than the variable picture on "The House of Fear."
All told, this is a fun and watchable entry in the Universal Holmes series, but not one of the essentials. If you're going to buy it for completeness' sake, go with MPI's "Sherlock Holmes Collection: Volume Three" set; otherwise, casual fans should stick with a rental.
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