Sherlock Holmes in the Spider Woman
Here is another strong entry (beautifully restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive) from the peak of Basil Rathbone's prolific, seven-year run as a definitive Sherlock Holmes for the big screen.The Spider Woman(1944) employs details of Holmes's apparent death and resurrection between "The Final Problem" and its follow-up, "The Adventure of the Empty House." But the movie takes a different direction when a bizarre series of late-night "pajama suicides" finds Holmes probing the involvement of a femme fatale. Of the quartet of features in this set (all produced and directed by the energetic Roy William Neill)Spider Womanhas the most vivacity and familiar textures from Doyle's canon.--Tom Keogh