I first saw THE SCARLET CLAW one afternoon after grade school. My only recollection of it was the foggy swamp where the local villagers pursued the killer and the interesting use of a special effect to make the killer seem luminescent. That film may have been the catalyst that nudged me to read every Sherlock Holmes story ever written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. But THE SCARLET CLAW is not based on an actual Sherlock Holmes story. Where many of the Sherlock Holmes films followed recycled, tired plot lines (murder on a ship or murder on a train), THE SCARLET CLAW has a psychopathic killer who's a master of disguises, terrorizing a village and ripping out the throats of his victims. In this particular Sherlock Holmes film, director/producer Roy William Neill (who directed 11 of the 14 Holmes films), throws out convention and creates the most ferocious, inventive, suspenseful Sherlock Holmes film of the series.
Not satisfied with just directing another Sherlock Holmes movie, Neill also co-wrote the screenplay for THE SCARLET CLAW with Edmund L. Hartmann based on a story idea by Paul Gangelin and Brenda Weisberg. The writers incorporate a real life passion of Holmes author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Doyle was a believer in spiritualism and the paranormal. In THE SCARLET CLAW, Holmes butts heads with Lord Penrose and the village locals who believe a one hundred year old legend about a creature who tears out the throats of its victims has returned. Holmes is skeptical (unlike his creator Doyle). For Holmes, the killer is using legend and superstition to cloak his murders. Holmes will try to debunk this lurid tale of folklore and catch the real life phantom.
THE SCARLET CLAW opens in the foggy Canadian town of Le Morte Rouge (French for "Red Death"). As the locals gossip about a monster roaming the marshes, terrorizing their sheep, the church bell tolls for no apparent reason. Father Pierre (George Kirby) discovers Lady Penrose (Gertrude Astor) holding onto the bell cord inside the church, her throat ripped out. In nearby Quebec, Lord Penrose (Paul Cavanagh) delivers a keynote speech at the Royal Canadian Occult Society. In attendance are Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce). Penrose receives a call informing him that his wife has been murdered. As Holmes and Watson prepare to check out from their hotel the next day, Holmes receives a letter from the dead woman sent days before her death, fearful for her life, requesting Holmes come to Le Morte Rouge. As Holmes says to Watson, "For the first time, we've been retained by a corpse."
Upon arriving at the Canadian village and inspecting the body, Holmes is astounded to discover that Lady Penrose is actually Lillian Gentry, an American actress who disappeared ten years earlier while touring in Canada. Holmes and Watson do not lack suspects. There is hotel proprietor Emile Journet (Arthur Hohl), a nervous man who's preparing to leave town against his daughter Marie Journet's (Kay Harding) wishes. There's the butler Drake (Ian Wolfe) who suddenly quits as the Penrose servant. Even Lord Penrose seems agitated and suspicious. But for locals like the mild mannered Potts the mailman (Gerald Hamer), they're positive it's a supernatural apparition that is terrorizing their community. While Dr. Watson surveys the crowd at the local pub one evening, Holmes walks the marshes. He encounters the glowing phantom, shooting at it. As the monster runs away, Holmes discovers a piece of phosphorous cloth hanging from a tree limb.
Working with local police Sergeant Thompson (David Clyde), Holmes traces the piece of cloth to a former magistrate, the crippled Judge Brisson (Miles Mander) who lives on the outskirts of town with his maid Nora (Victoria Horne). Brisson seems unlikely as the murderer but he did employ a gardener named Jack Tanner who may have stolen a shirt from Brisson. Holmes and Watson visit Tanner at the dilapidated De Laporte Hotel. When confronted, Tanner jumps out the window, diving into the water below. Holmes finds the glowing shirt and a half torn photograph of Lady Penrose aka Lillian Gentry in his room. Holmes deduces that Tanner is actually Alistair Ramson, an actor who fell in love with Lillian and killed another actor in jealousy over her. Ramson was sentenced to prison by Judge Brisson. Ramson is a chameleon, changing his true identity. Holmes fears Brisson is Ramson's next target.
Holmes and Watson rush to Brisson's house but it's too late. Disguised as Brisson's maid Nora, Ramson kills Brisson. Holmes returns to Ramson's hotel hideout and confronts him. Ramson has one more person to kill: Emile Journet who was a prison guard where Ramson was incarcerated. Before Ramson can shoot Holmes, Watson blunders in, saving Holmes. Ramson escapes yet again. Journet has vanished so Ramson strikes where it hurts Journet the most: Journet's beloved daughter Marie. Holmes figures out Journet is hiding out at Brisson's empty house. When Journet learns Marie is dead, he agrees to work with Holmes to lure the killer out into the marshes for a final showdown, revealing Ramson's initial identity.
I had forgotten that Sherlock Homes often disguised himself to root out the bad guys or pick up a piece of information off the streets in his stories. In THE PEARL OF DEATH (1944) the filmmakers thoroughly fake out the audience (and me) with Holmes's disguise. Holmes resorted to disguises in THE HOUND OF BASKERVILLE and THE SPIDER WOMAN (1943) as well. But THE SCARLET CLAW flips that scenario as sociopath actor Alistair Ramson plays three different characters during the film (although Holmes does don a fake moustache to trick the killer in the film's final minutes). In THE SCARLET CLAW'S most shocking murder, Ramson dresses up as Judge Brisson's maid Nora, foreshadowing Anthony Perkins dressing up as his mother Mrs. Bates in PSYCHO. It's a terrifying scene, staged brilliantly by director Neill. Martin Scorsese seems to pay homage to that scene in his remake of CAPE FEAR (1991) with villain Robert DeNiro dressing up as a maid to commit mayhem.
The villains in the Sherlock Holmes series were usually either his arch nemesis Professor Moriarity (played by three different actors in the series) or facsimiles of Moriarity (like Giles Conover in THE PEARL OF DEATH). Another Holmes adversary in A Scandal in Bohemia Irene Adler was transposed as femme fatales Adrea Spedding in THE SPIDER WOMAN or Hilda Courtney in DRESSED TO KILL (1946). But Alistair Ramson in THE SCARLET CLAW is an entirely different villain. Out for revenge, Ramson infiltrates the sleepy village of Le Morte Rouge, taking over the role of a trusted person to extract his revenge on the woman who scorned him and the men who put and kept him behind bars. In the Sherlock Holmes films, the bad guys were usually out to steal money and get wealthy. Ramson purely wants revenge. He's the only psychopathic killer that Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson will encounter in the entire series. The murders in THE SCARLET CLAW are brutal, packing psychological harm to the loved ones of the deceased and the village. The murder of Marie Journet, the most innocent person in THE SCARLET CLAW, is strikingly brutal for a Sherlock Holmes film.
After I saw THE SCARLET CLAW, my visual references to what Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson looked like were actors Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. I always imagined those two when I read Sherlock Holmes stories as a kid. Rathbone was born to play the part of Holmes. He was tall with an angular face and eagle like nose. In the modern Holmes films, he didn't wear the deerstalker cap like in the original stories and Victorian period films. Rathbone had a varied career prior to playing Sherlock Holmes, appearing in swashbuckling films like CAPTAIN BLOOD (1935) and THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938). Sadly, Rathbone was typecast for playing Sherlock Holmes for seven years. When the series ended, Rathbone had a hard time finding different roles. He ultimately went back to the stage for several years before reappearing in Michael Curtiz's WE'RE NO ANGELS (1955) and later Roger Corman's TALES OF TERROR (1962).
Many Sherlock Holmes fans take umbrage of how Nigel Bruce and the filmmakers portrayed Dr. Watson as a bumbling companion, a comic foil to Holmes brilliant sleuth. Watson was like Lou Costello or Stan Laurel to Holmes's straight man. In THE SCARLET CLAW, Watson's bumbling saves Holmes from the killer. Yes, in many of the Sherlock Holmes films, Watson seems a bit like a buffoon. But he's also shown to be a man of compassion, taking care of war veterans in SHERLOCK HOLMES FACES DEATH or comforting a grieving family member in THE WOMAN IN GREEN (1945). In HOUSE OF FEAR, Watson finds the most important clue not Holmes. Holmes and Watson tease and chide each other but there's no doubt the two men are loyal, steadfast friends. Bruce appeared in numerous films including Alfred Hitchcock's REBECCA (1940) but he will always be remembered as Dr. John H. Watson. Rathbone and Bruce's chemistry was believable in all fourteen films they made together and a major factor in the popularity and success of the Sherlock Holmes franchise.
Besides Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, Dennis Hoey as Inspector Lestrade and Mary Gordon as Holmes's landlady Mrs. Hudson appeared in most of the Sherlock Holmes films (although neither appear in THE SCARLET CLAW). But the Sherlock Holmes series also created a repertory of actors and actresses who appeared in several of the Holmes films, usually playing totally different characters each time. Paul Cavanagh who plays the elegant but irritable Lord Penrose in THE SCARLET CLAW would appear as a more sympathetic nobleman in THE WOMAN IN GREEN and a member of the Good Comrades in THE HOUSE OF FEAR. Miles Mander is a victim in THE SCARLET CLAW but he plays the main villain Giles Conroy in THE SPIDER WOMAN. Ian Wolfe appeared in four Holmes films. In SCARLET CLAW, he's only the butler but in DRESSED TO KILL, Wolf played the Commissioner of Scotland Yard. Gerald Hamer appears as the friendly mailman in THE SCARLET CLAW but he's a war veteran suffering from shell shock in SHERLOCK HOLMES FACES DEATH and a suspicious archeologist in PURSUIT TO ALGIERS (1945).
Universal Pictures (who made 12 of the 14 Holmes films) was king of the horror film in the late 30s and early 40s. THE SCARLET CLAW certainly has the most horror film influences in the Sherlock Holmes series. Foggy marshes, a glowing "monster", a gothic village with the Edgar Allen Poe inspired name Le Morte Rouge (the Red Death"), and murder victims with their throats torn out all bear horror film characteristics. Director Roy William Neill even directed FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN (1943) in between SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SECRET WEAPON and SHERLOCK HOLMES IN WASHINGTON. Many of the Sherlock Holmes films borrowed music pieces from the Universal horror films especially during the opening credits. Dr. Watson reference two of Holmes previous cases that were deemed supernatural in THE SCARLET CLAW naming The Hound of the Baskerville and The Sussex Vampire. Thankfully, instead of calling the film THE SCARLET FIVE PRONGED GARDEN WEEDER (the unique murder weapon in this grisly tale), the filmmakers chose the catchy THE SCARLET CLAW.
Kudos to director Roy William Neill. From the beginning of THE SCARLET CLAW with the fog shrouded town, the church bell tolling mysteriously, and the locals of Le Morte Rouge gossiping about a ghostly monster, Neill sets the tone for a scary Sherlock Holmes mystery. Neill and his director of photography George Robinson (who worked with Neill on FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN) bathe the film in shadows and fog, maintaining the suspenseful mood. Neill stages some impressive set pieces: the escape of Tanner from the hotel, the murder of Judge Brisson, and the final hunt for the murderer in the marshes. Sadly, director Neill would pass away from a heart attack in 1946, the year of the final Sherlock Holmes film he directed DRESSED TO KILL. But Neill righted the Sherlock Holmes series with THE SCARLET CLAW, pointing the franchise in a better direction after the first of the Universal films stumbled with their style and narrative.
THE SCARLET CLAW was a pivotal film in the Sherlock Holmes series. The previous Universal films had Holmes battling Nazis and making patriotic speeches as World War II wore on. THE SCARLET CLAW returned Holmes to THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLE territory with a supernatural plot, a mystery to be solved, and a paranoiac to be apprehended before he can continue his "orgy of crime." After THE SCARLET CLAW, the next few films like THE PEARL OF DEATH, SHERLOCK HOLMES FACES DEATH, and THE HOUSE OF FEAR were adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's actual Sherlock Holmes stories. Holmes and Watson were solving real mysteries finally not fighting Nazi bad guys. But THE SCARLET CLAW is a stand alone film in the Sherlock Holmes film canon. It's part horror film, part whodunit with plenty of red herrings to keep audiences guessing who the killer is. Alistair Ramson is the closest adversary Holmes will match wits with who reminds us of a real life London killer - Jack the Ripper. THE SCARLET CLAW foreshadows future movie serial killers that we will encounter. It's a film ahead of its time and well worth viewing.
