SmugKitZine Tied for the best movie I have ever seen

Protraph Lack of good storyline.

Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

Derry Herrera Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

utgard14 This sixth entry in Universal's Sherlock Holmes series finds Holmes and Watson in Canada investigating a series of gruesome killings in a small village called La Mort Rouge (The Red Death). The villagers, including respected Lord Penrose, believe this to be the work of an evil supernatural monster. Holmes, not surprisingly, is skeptical of this and sets out to uncover just who is behind the killings.In my opinion, this is hands down the best of the Universal Sherlock Holmes series. Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce are as wonderful as ever. Bruce brings levity to things but just enough at the right times, never at the expense of the suspense. The two stars are backed up here by a great cast of character actors like Miles Mander, Arthur Hohl, Gerald Hamer, and Paul Cavanagh. None of those names may leap out at you but I'm sure you'll recognize some of their faces if you're a fan of classic movies. The story owes a little to The Hound of the Baskervilles, the most famous of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Holmes tales (previously filmed by Fox in 1939, also starring Rathbone). Watson even mentions that story early in the film, so I'm sure even the screenwriters were aware of the similarities. Director Roy William Neill creates a fine moody atmosphere with foggy nights and colorful villagers scared out of their minds by a throat-slashing phantom. The village of La Mort Rouge would have been right at home in one of Universal's Frankenstein movies. It has the look and feel of a horror film, a genre where Universal unquestionably excelled. So if you enjoy those movies but don't typically gravitate towards mystery films, try this one out anyway. I'm sure you'll find something to enjoy here.

Robert J. Maxwell Many fans of the series consider this the best of the Universal Studios series starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, and I can see why. It's pretty good.It's evidently the sixth of Universal's episodes. I guess "episode" is the proper word. These franchises were the equivalent of today's hour-long TV series like "Law & Order". Universal decided to update the stories, borrowing only some elements from Conan-Doyle. The first few films were introduced with a sort of apology about Holmes being a "timeless" character at home in all ages -- not just Victorian England but war-torn London; Ancient Rome; Nome, Alaska, or wherever.The series followed an unusual trajectory. The first three films interpolated some puzzle -- the dancing men, for instance -- from the original stories, but otherwise Holmes and Watson were engaged in rooting out Nazi spies in England. And Rathbone's hair was swept forward around his temples in a most unsettling way.But then -- possibly because of Roy William Neill's writing as well as his promotion to producer as well as director -- the films improved for a while before their inevitable decline into pattern exhaustion. Everyone seems at their best in "The Scarlet Claw", although it owes a lot more to Universal's horror movies of the 30s than it does to Conan-Doyle. It's hard to describe this accurately but there seems to have been more CARE taken with this production. Viz., the grotesque faces in the local saloon. Somebody took some trouble to find those particular features.The dynamic duo are in Quebec for a conference when they are called to investigate a couple of savage deaths in the small village of La Mort Rouge. The victims have their throats torn out as if by an animal.It doesn't take Holmes long to dismiss the local notions of the supernatural and discover the murder weapon -- a five-pronged garden weeder. Well -- though the ghostly elements are thrown out pronto, the spooky milieu is not. There are few daylight scenes. And La Mort Rouge seems to be surrounded by marshes and dangerous swamps, much like Baskerville Hall. The sets are all indoor, the ground covered with dry ice vapor, and I believe I may have recognized some of the settings, including individual trees, from Universal's "The Wolf Man." People creep around in this stuff and stalk one another.The plot itself is too complicated to bother describing except to say that the primary motive for the killings is revenge. The acting is on a professional level. Everyone does his job properly. And there are many familiar faces in the cast. It's about as good as the Universal series was to get.

Neil Doyle I don't know how I missed this one over the years, but watching it today on TCM, I don't remember ever seeing it before.THE SCARLET CLAW was written especially for the screen and not from any novel penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Turns out it's one of the very best entries in the series, up there with THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES and THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES as essential Holmes films.It has all the atmosphere one would want in a Sherlock Holmes story and a mystery that deepens as the plot goes forward but resolved in a very satisfying way by Holmes. The cast includes an excellent performance from PAUL CAVANAGH as Mr. Penrose, whose wife dies a vicious death at the hands of a killer and leads to Holmes' investigation. GERALD HAMER as a nervous postman and VICTORIA HORNE as a frightened housekeeper are also fine, as is MILES MANDER as a judge whose life is in danger from a serial killer.Although this one takes place in Canada, it might just as well have taken place on the Dartmouth moors in Devonshire--that's the kind of atmosphere it has with plenty of mist and fog to add to the Gothic ambiance of the tale.Well worth watching for Sherlock fans. Especially good is NIGEL BRUCE as the bumbling Dr. Watson who inadvertently helps BASIL RATHBONE from time to time. His blustery interpretation of the comic sidekick is especially well done in this caper. Rathbone, of course, is beyond reproach.

chaos-rampant In this, the eighth entry in the continuing Sherlock Holmes saga, the sharp-witted detective and his affable assistant Dr. Watson, who happen to be in Canada for a discussion on the occult, find themselves hired under the most peculiar circumstances by a deceased woman. A ghostlike apparition or monster has been terrorizing the inhabitants of a small village near Quebec but the sceptical Holmes is not entirely convinced the human factor is not somehow involved in a series of gruesome murders that appear to have been committed with some kind of claw.THE SCARLET CLAW is not only one of the best entries in the Holmes series with Basil Rathbone, and certainly my favourite so far, but also a terrific murder mystery that works fine on its own terms, a genuinely engaging movie that manages to transcend its low budget limitations. It maintains the darker tone of its predecessor, THE SPIDER WOMAN, but injects it with an absorbing, suspenseful plot, an interesting backstory that is revealed gradually, and a villain whose motives make sense. In that sense it is less of a cartoon strip and more of a fully fledged movie akin to Rathbone's debut for Fox (THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES) yet simultaneously carries the pulpy atmospheric stylishness of a Poverty Row noir or a Universal horror film.A couple of jumps in logic are required of the viewer but this is not a movie to be picked apart. It is a movie to be enjoyed like fine, old cognac. For its fantastic performances by Rathbone and Nigel Bruce (much maligned for his interpretation of Dr. Watson but I think he's perfect counterbalance to Rathbone's Holmes), for the beautiful black and white cinematography, for the intricate plotting, for a great SFX scene that involves a glowing man running through the woods that hasn't dated one bit 60 years later. Fans of the series are in for a treat.