Product: Dressed to Kill (1946)
Rating: 4.0
Another good episode...
It is remarkable to me just how much these early Sherlock Holmes' movies influenced the later James Bond films. Ian Fleming makes reference to Sherlock in From Russia With Love, where the Russians refer to the English as having a Sherlock Holmes mentality with regard to James Bond within the British Secret Service.More remarkable to me is the trademark of - as Dr. Evil would put it - putting Sherlock Holmes in an easily escapable situation by planning an overly elaborate and exotic death and then not actually witnessing his demise but assuming that all goes to plan. I mean, this is Sherlock-Freaking-Holmes here, don't you think that he's going to think of a way out of that garage?At this stage in the game, without Professor Moriarity to chase around, Holmes is usually pitted against a femme fatale, as in the case of this movie. It is another pleasant mystery in which Holmes must crack a code and then rescue the MacGuffin before the bad guys do. I especially appreciate the nod to Samuel Johnson and Boswell, whose relationship was the precursor to Holmes and Watson.