TheLittleSongbird Am a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes and get a lot of enjoyment out of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. Also love Basil Rathbone's and especially Jeremy Brett's interpretations to death. So would naturally see any Sherlock Holmes adaptation that comes my way, regardless of its reception.Furthermore, interest in seeing early films based on Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories and wanting to see as many adaptations of any Sherlock Holmes stories as possible sparked my interest in seeing 'Silver Blaze', part (the last in fact) of the series of film with Arthur Wontner. Would also see anything that has Holmes encountering his arch-nemesis Professor Moriaty. 'Silver Blaze', not just a straight adaptation of just this particular story, but with elements of other Holmes stories (with the interesting inclusion of Moriaty and the Baskervilles) too, is very much worthwhile. Not one of the best Sherlock Holmes adaptations certainly, the best of the Jeremy Brett adaptations and films of Basil Rathone fit under this category. It's also not among the worst, being much better than any of the Matt Frewer films (particularly 'The Sign of Four') and the abominable Peter Cook 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'.It's not perfect. The sound quality is less than great, while some of the pace could have been tighter, especially at the start as it does take too long to get going. Some of the dialogue unnecessarily rambles a bit in a particularly talky outing in the Wontner Holmes films, and the low budget limitations do show in the production values (other than some nice shots the film looks pretty cheap, the cheapest looking of the Wontner Holmes films). However, there are some nice interesting shots that stop the film from looking completely cheap. The writing generally is thought-provoking, Holmes' deductions and crime solving are a huge part of the fun as well as very true in detail and spirit to Conan Doyle's writing, the mystery elements are intact, there are moments of suspense and the story is intriguing and not hard to follow.Arthur Wontner may technically have been too old for Holmes but he did not look too old and his portrayal is on the money, handling the personality and mannerisms of the character spot on without over-doing or under-playing. Ian Fleming is a charming, loyal, intelligent and amusing Watson, with nice chemistry between him and Wontner, really liked his inferior attempts at deduction. The support is competent without being outstanding or as memorable, Lyn Harding's Moriaty comes off best. Overall, worth watching and decently solid if not great. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Neil Doyle This is about on par with the lowest of the Monogram films that the U.S. produced during the '40s--however, it's a British B-film with little to recommend it.Holmes is played by sharp-featured Arthur Wontner (who bears somewhat of a resemblance to Basil Rathbone) and Ian Fleming is a suave version of Dr. Watson. Unfortunately, Lyn Harding is a very unimpressive figure as Professor Moriarty.The story taken from "Silver Blaze," left me uninvolved with its racetrack background. The TCM presentation begins with an announcement that the film has been restored, but you'd never know it. The soundtrack is poor with much of the British dialog unintelligible and the scenes themselves are murky and poorly photographed.I lost count of how many times Wontner says, "Elementary, my dear Watson," but let's just say this will never rank as one of my favorite Sherlock Holmes stories.Summing up: A feeble exercise in mystery that seems longer than its one hour and six minutes.

klingon-attack Wontner is not my favourite Holmes; to me he seems a bit nondescript altogether. The storyline of this movie of course is well-known and follows, if not exactly but pretty closely the story of the same name in the canon. There is just a whiff of EMPTY HOUSE in it, with Col. Moran using the famous air gun on Holmes. What's a bit odd is the inclusion of Sir Henry Baskerville (presumably because the story is set in Dartmoor) and what's even weirder is Baskerville's adult daughter who has a minor role in the story (but where's Beryl I wonder? Or maybe she isn't the mother....). Then of course we have the omnipresent and stereotypical Professor Moriarty (who was given the first name 'Robert' **ROFL**!!!) but I think he doesn't come across very convincingly. All in all watchable but average.

classicsoncall Arthur Wontner and Ian Fleming reprise their Holmes and Watson roles, once again foiling a plot by the villainous Professor Moriarty (Lyn Harding) and his top henchman Moran (Arthur Goullet). This time around, the story involves a murder and the theft of a race horse in an effort to insure that a big time gambler doesn't lose his shirt if the opposition horse wins.Holmes achieves particular delight in putting down Scotland Yard Inspector Lestrade (John Turnbull), but in this film, Lestrade seems to realize what Holmes is doing. His look of exasperation is evident when Holmes utters the line quoted in the summary above. On the flip side, what's missing this time around is the philosophical debate between the detective and his nemesis Moriarty. They meet only at the end of the film when Moriarty is discovered and captured at his secret hideout. Quite honestly, I was expecting Moriarty to fall to an expected demise in the empty elevator shaft, as he did not once or twice, but three times going up against the sleuth (The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes and The Secret Weapon, and The Woman in Green).There are similar elements in this film that were also used in the prior year's "Charlie Chan at the Race Track" (champion horse with an altered appearance, use of a weapon at the end of the race, big time money resting on the outcome), but the stories diverge from there. They merge once again though as the case is solved by each film's ranking detective.I'd be a little critical of Sherlock Holmes' method in this one however. He relies on an old horseshoe belonging to Silver Blaze to make an exact match with a grassy outline in a moor a distance from the Baskerville Castle. Sure it fits, but so would just about any other horse shoe - sounds a lot like a ringer to me.