Terror by Night

A valuable diamond is being carried on a train from London to Edinburgh. The stone is called the Star of Rhodesia and its owner is taking it with him. Sherlock Holmes boards to guard it, with Watson beside him. The journey begins. Before long the owner is found dead and the diamond has gone. The train does not stop; everyone is in the same carriages and nobody can get off. Holmes eliminates the passengers one by one. Roy William Neill directs. Basil Rathbone plays Holmes and Nigel Bruce plays Watson. The film is one of the late links in the Sherlock Holmes series with Rathbone, which reached fourteen films in the forties. It is short and direct; it runs a little over an hour and turns down no side path. The setting is deliberately narrow; the whole film takes place on the train, which is also a result of working on a low budget. The plot is in the classical closed setting arrangement and the suspects are few. Compared with the others in the series this one rests on a less known text and is largely an original screenplay. Watson as played by Nigel Bruce is written as incompetent, in the habit of the period, and that changed in later adaptations. Who it is for: viewers who like classic Sherlock Holmes adaptations and short crime films. Who it is not for: the solution is simple, the characters thinly written, and the technical quality old.