Die Perle der Borgia

Rondo Hatton is my hero. Rondo took the crummy hand that fate dealt him and played it magnificently. He became one of the most endearing and cool anti-heroes of all B-moviedom. Hatton played The Creeper in three movies: The Pearl of Death, The House of Horrors, and The Brute Man (a prequel to House of Horrors). To experience Rondo Hatton as The Creeper is to experience pure magic! I watched horror movies as kid and always loved "the monster". A good "monster" gets my vote every damn time. The Creeper fits that bill perfectly and better than most. The Creeper is one of my all time favorite fright flick anti-heroes. GOD BLESS YOU RONDO HATTON!

Baker Street purists won't have too much to quarrel about with this adaption of Arthur Conan Doyle's The Six Napoleons. Because of a master criminal's haste to get away, six people who bought busts of Napoleon Bonaparte are marked for death unless The Pearl Of Death is found.

Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce are on the trail of another master criminal, in the Sherlock Holmes stories, Professor Moriarty's second in command Giles Conover. Conover is played with a quiet menace by British colony regular Miles Mander.

What Mander is after is the Borgia Pearl which with its connection to the Borgias has as bloody a history as the fabled Star Of India. Rathbone already pulls a double switch on Mander and his lovely accomplice Evelyn Ankers. But later through a bit of Holmes own hubris Mander steals the Borgia Pearl from the British Museum.

But he doesn't have it long. Pursued by the police fresh from the theft Mander ducks into a pottery shop and hides the pearl in some fresh plaster busts of Napoleon, in one of six of them which are later sold.

Now he's on a mission to recover his loot and it's a bloody mission because Mander brings along in tow the Hoxton Creeper, a giant of a man who can and does snap people's backs to kill them. The creeper is played by Rondo Hatton and he brings this Holmes feature into the realm of Gothic horror. In fact Dr. Watson's knowledge of forensic medicine is called into play here when he correctly identifies Hatton's known method of homicide.

One of the better Basil Rathbone films from the Sherlock Holmes series.

This entry in Universal's awesome and prolific series of Sherlock Holmes films is one of the best that I've seen. The series works because it offers a solid hour (or so) of light entertainment, which it peppers with good humour and an engaging plot; and that is something that is masterfully handled with this movie. The plot of this film is great, and it follows Sherlock Holmes as he makes a rare blunder which leads to a rare and valuable pearl being stolen from a museum. It is then left up to the main man to make up for his mistake as he attempts to search for the lost gem and get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding it's disappearance. This plot makes a great base for a tale about the great detective as it puts him in a position that we don't usually see him in - the man in the wrong. Aside from being amusing, this also gives us the chance to see a different side of Basil Rathbone's portrayal of the great detective. His mannerisms and facial expressions as he realises the trouble that his showboating has brought are priceless, and a highlight of the series on the whole.

Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce make for a great on-screen duo as Sherlock Holmes and his sidekick, Dr Watson and they are joined by the inept police sergeant; Lestrade, and that only increases the comedy element of the movie. The plot line this time doesn't break any new boundaries where mystery plotting is concerned, but it ensures that the film always runs smoothly through it's short running time. It also makes for some great dialogue, and Holmes' speech towards the end is of particular note for being really well done. The atmosphere for this movie is really well done, and as we follow someone that breaks people's backs during the night; this helps the story immensely. My only criticism of this film really is the same one that could be applied to most of the series, and that's that the film is far too short, and we can never really get our teeth into the mystery because the film just isn't on for long enough. However, aside from that this is still a very good Sherlock Holmes adventure and if you've enjoyed other entries in the series, no doubt you'll like this one too.

Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) allows arrogance to get in the way of common-sense, disarming a museum's alarm system to highlight its inadequacies, and giving criminal mastermind Giles Conover (Miles Mander) the ideal opportunity to make off with a legendary pearl in the process. Conover is quickly apprehended, but not before he has had a chance to stash the valuable gem inside a plaster Napolean bust.

In order to restore his tarnished reputation, Holmes sets out to locate the missing gem, following a trail of broken bodies and smashed crockery left in the wake of Conover's murderous henchman, a massive brute known as The Hoxton Creeper (Rondo Hatton), who is also looking for the pearl, snapping the back of anyone unlucky enough to have purchased one of the ornaments.

I have mixed feelings about The Pearl of Death: as perversely satisfying as it is to see London's greatest sleuth make a complete ass of himself for a change, I find it hard to accept that Holmes's mistake, a result of his pomposity, ultimately results in several innocent people being snapped like a twig by The Creeper; likewise, I struggle with the absurd level of buffoonery displayed by both Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) and Inspector Lestrade (Dennis Hoey)—while admittedly funny, it's extremely hard to swallow that they could really be that stupid.

In the end, it is Rondo Hatton's Hoxton Creeper that qualifies this film as essential viewing: born with the disfiguring condition acromegaly, which causes enlarged features, Hatton's ominous physical presence makes him a truly menacing foe, one guaranteed to send a chill down the spine (immediately before snapping it!).

Somehow the ending of THE PEARL OF DEATH was picked up and plunked down into MURDER, MY SWEET: The unarmed Detective in the dark, faced up against Miles Mander and a hulking brute, turns the tables through his understanding of the relationships between the characters. I wonder if the writers at RKO ever acknowledged this swipe from Universal? At any rate, both films make good use of lighting and creepy sets to exploit the situation, and both directors (Dmytrick & Neill) know how to use the limited acting skills of Mike Mazurki and Rondo Hatton to best advantage. I liked Rathbone's pithy comment to the Police when they arrive to catch the baddies, "You won't need your revolver. Nor handcuffs. Worthy of a hard-boiled Private Eye in any film noir!