The Spider Woman

Adrea Spedding (Gale Sondergaard), the evil mastermind of The Spider Woman, concocts a particularly absurd scheme in order to make herself filthy rich: she convinces wealthy men with cash flow problems to use their life insurance policies as collateral against a loan; then she bumps them off, not with anything as simple as a gun or dagger, but by releasing a pygmy into the ventilation ducts where they live, and having him release a poisonous spider into their bedroom while they sleep. So excruciating is the pain from the spider's bite, that the men hurl themselves to their death rather than endure the agony. With no clues as to why the men have killed themselves (the obedient spider obviously having wandered back into the vent having done his duty), the press report these mysterious deaths as 'pyjama suicides'.

Holmes (Basil Rathbone) naturally suspects otherwise and cooks up with own crazy plan to discover the truth: whilst enjoying a relaxing fishing break in Scotland with trusty sidekick Watson (Nigel Bruce), the great detective fakes his own death, and then adopts a series of silly disguises to investigate the case, soon coming face to face with The Spider Woman, who proves to be every bit as devious and deadly as Holmes' old nemesis Moriarty, but better looking.

This preposterous plot makes for one of the most entertaining films in the series, Holmes' sporting patently false facial hair for his roles as a rude postie and a down-on-his luck Indian Rajni Singh, Watson making a complete fool of himself with an eminent entomologist, and Spedding ordering pint-sized Obongo from the Congo, the Prancing Pygmy (Angelo Rossitto, one-half of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome's Master Blaster) back into his case! The film also benefits from a suitably silly ending in which Adrea tries to do away with Holmes in a manner so convoluted it would shame Austin Powers' Dr. Evil: she ties him up in a fairground shooting gallery, his heart directly behind one of the targets, and leaves it up to an oblivious Watson to do her dirty work!