Small House of Everything

Small House of Everything

Tuesday, August 29, 2017

OVERLOOKED MOVIE: THE SPECKLED BAND (1931)

How about a little bit of Sherlock with Raymond Massey as the world's first consulting detective?   Athole Stewart plays Watson.  Lyn Harding, Angela Badderly, and Nancy Price are also featured.  The story was adapted by W. P. Lipscomb, who would win an Oscar seven years later for Pygmalion, and was directed by Jack Raymond (Sorrell and Son, The Mysterious Mr. Reeder).

This one is a bit strange.  The only copy I could find online was this one -- cut from 90 to 50 minutes.  The quality of the film is poor because the copyright had expired and copies were made and copies of the copies were made.  This particular copy is probably third generation, or more, and it shows it.  Nonetheless, it's an interesting film.

There's some good acting here but, having been made so close to the silent era, at times exagerrated silent film gestures are evident.

The adaptation takes some liberties with the original Conan Doyle story, but we will forgive that.

Enjoy.


https://archive.org/details/SpeckledBand


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