Movie Review: Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace

Movie Review: Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962) directed by Terence Fisher

What comes from Benghazi?

Early in the morning, a group of children and a fisherman find a body floating in the Thames, prominently displaying the name of a recently docked ship, the Thyasia. As the passengers disembark from the ship, one of them bumps into a waiting Professor Moriarty (Hans Söhnker). This is observed by two loafers, one wearing an eyepatch. He directs the other to follow Moriarty’s automobile.

At 221b Baker Street, Doctor Watson (Thorley Walters) and Mrs. Hudson (Edith Schultze-Westrum) banter while waiting for Sherlock Holmes (Christopher Lee) to return for dinner. The one-eyed man from earlier is in distress in the street, so Watson brings him in for medical aid, only to discover it’s actually Holmes. Holmes chides Watson for falling for this, only to have another man be in distress in the same street. This is the fellow Holmes had sent to follow Moriarty. He’s dying of an odd hiltless dagger in his back, and manages to utter a cryptic word and make a strange gesture before passing on.

Holmes brings in Inspector Cooper (Hans Nielsen) of Scotland Yard, who reminds Holmes that as a civilian, he should not be meddling in police business unless invited to do so. He also doesn’t believe in Holmes’ wild theories that respected archaeologist Moriarty is a criminal mastermind. Holmes and Watson are forced to follow up the investigation on their own.

At the Hare and Eagle public house, our detectives overhear just enough of the conversation between Moriarty and one of his henchmen to learn that a man named Peter Blackburn (Wolfgang Lukschy) who lives in Hertfordshire is the target.

At Mr. Blackburn’s house, he’s become increasingly paranoid, but won’t explain why to his wife Ellen (Senta Berger) or friend Paul King (Ivan Desny). Can Holmes arrive in time to save him? (No.)

It seems that some six years before the story starts, Moriarty was on an Egyptian expedition that found a tomb alleged to be that of Queen Cleopatra. He’d engaged three men to steal a fabulous necklace that was part of the treasure in the tomb. Two were caught and sentenced to prison, while Blackburn rabbited back to England with the necklace. Moriarty has decided that now is the time to reclaim his prize, so had the prisoners broken out–only for the two to quarrel on the ship back, resulting in that first body.

This 1962 movie was a German production, though it had a British star and director, and was largely shot on location in London and Ireland. Evidently, the Doyle estate interfered greatly with the production, causing at least some of the issues with the screenplay. It was dubbed into German, then re-dubbed into English for international release, but without asking Christopher Lee to reprise his voice.

Good: Christopher Lee makes an imposing Sherlock Holmes and his physical acting is impressive. He gets to do a couple of disguises–watch how his body language changes.

There’s some witty dialogue, and a couple of nice set pieces–one of the murders is an actual mystery that requires actual thought from Sherlock, and a heist plan looks nifty. Leon Askin puts in a creepy but sometimes pathetic performance as Charles, chauffeur and hitman for the professor.

Watson is a bit dim, but is shown to be able to follow basic clues to reach a mostly correct conclusion.

Less good: The dubbing is often mismatched in volume and tone, and Mr. Lee’s actual voice is much missed. The plotting and flow is choppy in places.

Political: It’s briefly suggested that Cleopatra’s necklace be returned to the Egyptian government (after all it was illegally removed from that country), but this is immediately dismissed by the police in favor of auctioning it off to the highest bidder, with a nice finder’s fee going to Holmes.

The “Many Lives of Sherlock Holmes” DVD I watched this on had a poor print of the movie, but did also have some remarks by Christopher Lee as himself on his love of the Sherlock Holmes books.

Overall: This is low-quality Holmes, the sort of thing that in my youth non-network TV stations would show on weekend afternoons while the network channels had sports events. It’s not actively bad, but I’d mostly recommend it to people filling in their Sherlock Holmes or Christopher Lee movie checklists.