The Spider Woman

The fifth installment in Universal's Sherlock Holmes series and one of the best. "Spider Woman" finds Basil Rathbone matching wits with the enticing title character, superbly played by the beautiful Gale Sondergaard. Rathbone's Holmes is brilliant as always, but even Nigel Bruce's Dr. Watson is permitted to show some brains for once in this immensely entertaining mystery. A good show all around, although this series would really hit its peak with the next episode, "The Scarlet Claw."

With an involved, detailed mystery and an elegant adversary played by Gale Sondergaard, this is one of the most entertaining features in the Sherlock Holmes series of movies starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. The story gets a little far-fetched, but it is quite interesting. It is loaded with plot devices pulled from several different Arthur Conan Doyle stories, and it's interesting to see how many you can catch. It also features the usual pleasant camaraderie between Rathbone and Bruce, plus Dennis Hoey as Inspector Lestrade.

As "The Spider Woman", Sondergaard creates a memorable opponent for Holmes. The slightly exaggerated role cannot have been much of a challenge for such a fine actress, but she puts her heart into it, and looks as if she is enjoying herself - as her character certainly is. By creating such a dynamic character, she also helps make the complicated story seem more plausible, and it creates a worthy challenge for Holmes.

The movie also contains the amusing bits of dialogue and detail that characterized so many of the movies in the series. The climactic sequence, in particular, is a very good combination of suspense and wit. It is a fitting way to cap off an enjoyable entry in the popular series.

The 1942-43 Holmes/Watson films are often pathetic nonsense involving Nazi spies and have Holmes dashing all over the place firing guns at all and sundry, which doesn't work at all.

Yes, this is wartime, and the targets in the fairground shooting gallery are Hitler, Hirohito and Mussolini, but this is a proper detective story about mysterious murders.

It's an amalgam of Conan Doyle's original stories The Sign of Four and The Final Problem rather than a farrago of cod secret agents, and it works pretty well as a mystery.

Gale Sondergaard makes a marvellous villain, and plays excellently opposite Rathbone's Holmes.

Well worth while

As the title suggests, this time Holmes has got to do with a TRUE 'spider woman' - not that she bears any resemblance to those not very charming creatures, but she's exactly as dangerous and reckless as them, and even 'works' with them (by the way, she's played by Gale Sondergaard, who specialized in mysterious and sometimes really fatal ladies)...

But at the beginning of the story there's a mysterious series of 'pyjama suicides', where quite successful and seemingly happy people suddenly commit suicide in the middle of the night, without leaving even a note behind them; and for solving those very strange 'incidents - which aren't suicides, but MURDERS, as Holmes has already deduced - Holmes goes 'underground' in a very spectacular way. He fakes his own death, and disguised as a high-ranking Indian officer, he examines a famous casino where people play for very high stakes - because, as he knows, there's ONE thing all the 'suicide cases' had in common: they had all been notorious gamblers... And there he meets dark, beautiful Adrea Spedding - the 'spider woman'...

So, of course, there's no great mystery there; we get to know very soon who's the instigator of those 'suicides', and how they're carried out - but that leads us to REAL, enormously poisonous spiders and other sudden, unexpected dangers and a lot of other features that render this movie REALLY suspenseful! Surely a great enjoyment for every fan of classic crime...

Sherlock Holmes matches wits with THE SPIDER WOMAN, a fiendish femme fatale responsible for a series of ingenious London murders.

Holmes & Watson face one of their most dangerous enemies in this highly enjoyable little crime mystery. Angry arachnids, toxic gas, Hitler's deadly heart and a very sinister little boy are only some of the elements Holmes must contend with in order to solve the latest crime spree to baffle the Metropolitan Police. Behind it all is the malice of a clever, cruel & cunning woman who gleefully challenges the great detective to do his best to stop her.

The movie is not without its faults. The brief running time and abrupt conclusion are unfortunate, and the ultimate reason for all the murders is really not all that exciting, but the vivid characters and dangerous adventure more than compensate for the film's shortcomings.

Basil Rathbone & Nigel Bruce remain perfect in their leading roles. Rathbone obviously relished playing the cerebral genius and he gets to spice out his characterization with a couple of dead-on disguises. Bumbling Bruce only grows more lovable with each passing film, playing his part with fierce loyalty as well as charming naiveté.

Oscar winning actress Gale Sondergaard portrays the title role with deadly feline guile, teasing Holmes the way a cat plays with a mouse. Alec Craig & Arthur Hohl steal a few screen moments as eccentric entomologists. Back for their recurring roles are Dennis Hoey as dogged Inspector Lestrade and dear Mary Gordon as Mrs. Hudson.

This film -- which was based on wisps of plot from Conan Doyle's

The Final Problem, The Empty House, The Speckled Band, The Sign of Four, and The Devil's Foot -- followed SHERLOCK HOLMES FACES DEATH (1943) and preceded THE SCARLET CLAW (1944). Miss Sondergaard reprised her villainous role two years later in THE SPIDER WOMAN STRIKES BACK (1946).