Thu 19 Apr 2018
THE SPECKLED BAND. British & Dominions Film Corporation, UK, 1931. Lyn Harding, Raymond Massey (Sherlock Holmes), Angela Baddeley, Nancy Price, Athole Stewart (Dr. John Watson), Marie Ault (Mrs. Hudson). Based on the story “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,†by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Director: Jack Raymond.
This was Raymond Massey’s first credited screen role, and as Sherlock Holmes, he looks and acts just like Raymond Massey. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, and in many ways he’s the best actor in the film, but as chance would have it, he never played the role again.
Hopefully someday someone will somewhere find a complete version of this film, one that can be remastered so that it’s actually watchable. The one in general circulation is in really shoddy shape and has been cut down from what was originally may have been a 90 minute movie to one that runs less than 50. (The 90 minute figure may be incorrect, but there are many obvious jumps in the story line.)
I don’t remember a band of gypsies camping outside the manor house in the original story where all of the action takes place, but I may be wrong about that, and I think the Indian servant is new also. The extra characters do flesh out the story some, and even more importantly, they add a few more possible suspects as to committed the mysterious murder of a young girl alone in her locked bedroom.
What I know was not in Doyle’s tale was a front office to his lodgings in Baker Street filled with what appears to be primitive computers to which a staff of young ladies are shown busily typing in data about all sorts of crimes that have been committed in England over the years.
Not only that, but Holmes is proud to show off a device capable of recording voices, which in the film itself was way before its time, as the primary mode of transportation are horse-drawn carriages. It is also a mystery why the device was shown only once but never to be been seen again.
Unfortunately my knowing the solution to the crime ahead of time — as I assume most of you do, too — makes it difficult to say how effective the overall impact of the film is. It’s an interesting artifact, that’s for certain, and I’m glad I watched it, but more than that, I cannot say.
April 20th, 2018 at 12:19 am
I enjoyed this despite the bad print and the updating (something that began with the Norwood Holmes made while Doyle was still alive and continued until the 1939 THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. Massey is an interesting Holmes, and given a better adaptation might have been a great one.
There are several “Speckled Band” adaptations available on YouTube, but I recommend the pilot for the Douglas Wilmer Sherlock Holmes series, though it is in black and white and under tight budget restraints it does fairly well by the story.
Sadly today, I fear the outcome of the story would come as a total surprise to most viewers outside this blog.
April 20th, 2018 at 4:52 pm
I’ll bet that back in 1931 over 80 percent of people seeing this movie knew who did it when they walked in. And more importantly, how.
April 20th, 2018 at 10:42 pm
There was a band of gypsies in the original story and this was why the phrase “the speckled band” resonated with some of the characters. I suspect Conan Doyle thought he was confusing his readers.
April 20th, 2018 at 11:36 pm
Thanks, Randy. So there was a band of gypsies in the story. I simply don’t remember them, but I must have read it over 60 years ago. That’s no excuse, though!
I haven;t gone back to check my memory on this, but in the movie I believe there’s a scene in which the dying girl staggers out of her room, crying out “the speckled band! the speckled band” and the camera switches immediately to a shot of a gypsy with of course a speckled head band.
April 25th, 2018 at 8:19 pm
That’s the sort of thing the camera could focus on. In the original short story it’s sort of a red herring. Julia Stonor stumbles out of the room and says “the speckled band” and drops dead. Her twin sister, Helen, suggests to Holmes that it may refer to the band of gypsies nearby. Holmes isn’t so sure. I have the advantage of having read all the stories many times.
May 3rd, 2018 at 8:27 pm
I had forgotten I actually had a copy of this film and finally got around to watching it. I don’t know about the correct length, but my copy is 60 minutes long so “only” 30 minutes is missing. It’s watchable, but there are a number of additions to the film that were not in the original short story.
Regarding the modern setting of the film, all of the earliest Holmes films were set during the period during which they were filmed until 1939 when someone decided to set the films in the Victorian period. Of course the later Rathbone films from Universal were set in the 1940s. After that most of them reverted to the Victorian era.