Elementry

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)

This is the second film in the series staring Basil Rathbone and the last that was made by 20th Century Fox as well as the last set in the Victorian period. Holmes arrives too late to stop Professor Moriarty staying out of jail and Moriarty sets a fiendish plot to prove he is a superior intellect to Holmes.

For once someone actually gets the better of Holmes but as you would expect Moriarty's plan gets foiled anyway. The plot is decent enough if not a real mystery that will bake your brain and the production qualities for the film are also of a decent level unlike some of the later films in this series. One element of this film that does feature in the modern film from Guy Ritchie is Holmes's experiment on house flies.

3/5 average adaptation