Love those old boarding homes where you rented a room and got a hot meal and some varied conversation at or away from the breakfast table. The characters are so very entrancing: their histories compelling and engaging. The idea of a shadow on the stairs lends a sense of late 1930's mystery.
I too love those old boarding homes. Where you rented a room full of rat's and the toilet was outside , and you got Spam for breakfast , lunch and bloody dinner! Varied Conversation about starving half to death and no money for even a bowl of baccy for your pipe. Characters so very entrancing where they meddle in everyone's business. The idea of "A shadow over the stairs" lends a sense of thank f*ck I wasn't born in the 1930's.
That was a delightful movie! It really kept me guessing, and the ending was such a surprise! The British really knew and know how to make a good movie! Thank you so much for posting!
I'm glad I watched this all the way to the end, it actually WAS a surprise ending! The end was the best part, but only if you watch from the beginning. At first I thought, " my, so many people coming and going in this big house". I could take issue with a few things that didn't make sense though, like....... But, all in all, good acting and story.
Much appreciated Mr. Scott Lord. Any work of the Sherlock Holmes theme is always more than welcome.....I have seen this some time around ten years ago. The bed pineapple hiding place was my give-away, my recall. Still, I'm keen to watch again...
Movies were 10 cents/adults...and this would have been one of the "double features" along with a cartoon, news from around the world...and possibly a raffle held on stage for the audience. thanks for posting!! NM
I really enjoyed this little movie. It was well written and put together without any apparent clue to the twist at the end. Thanks Scott I just subscribed and will be watching for more.
3 of these actors played in M.G.M’s 1940’s Pride and Prejudice the Binghleys were played by Mrs. Armitage and the playwright and Kitty Bennet by the daughter.
Very enjoyable film featuring many of the actors who played roles in the Basil Rathbone - Nigel Bruce versions of Sherlock Holmes. It was a joy seeing Miles Mander and Paul Cavanaugh. The RU-vid title is a bit off but it did get me to watch this interesting minor film, so thanks.
Enjoyed this very much especially with alot of the actors that usually play villain's on the Sherlock Holmes movies with the Real Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce !!
Yes, you won't see Basil, as fine an actor and "Sherlock Holmes" as can be. But the plot is intriguing, the acting compelling. The sound track is clear, clean. Worthy of more than a disgusting glance...in my opinion.
Very entertaining, as good a Sherlock Holmes mystery....NO ARROGANT HOLMES ATTITUDE. and Unlike in Holmes movies No one made to seem stupid (Watson) in order to make Holmes appear brilliant. THANK YOU FOR THE WONDERFUL UPLOAD.
Loved this movie. Like a French farce - people coming in and out of doors and windows and listening at doors and hysterical women and melodramatic confessions - twist at end. Fun. It should be called "Eight or Nine Shadows on the Stairs." Kick back and enjoy.
I enjoyed this. Not Sherlock Holmes but a good little movie. Very 40's and Paul Cavanagh and Miles Mander were both in The Sherlock Holmes Films with Nigel Bruce and Basil Rathbone. Very well thought of British Actors. Miles Mander was also in Wuthering Heights...
Anthony Allen Truth be told the Inspector should have said "you're trying to be a 'Mr Watson!" NOT "...'Sherlock Holmes'..." as it was Watson and not SH that makes elementary contributions and wrote the stories that became the books/plays/films. IMO
Why deliberately use Sherlock Holmes' name in the title if it is not a Sherlock Holmes movie? That's intentionally misleading for anyone searching for Holmes movies. And "without Rathbone"? How about "Lord of the Rings - Adventure without Harrison Ford"? Just as helpful. Why the need to trick people searching for specific things into watching a movie that has none of what they're looking for?
This film, MrAlumni72, was produced by UFA, and filmed at Babelsberg Studios, Berlin, four years before Basil Rathbone hung-up his costume as the Sherriff of Nottingham, and became Hollywood's Holmes in the equally-excellent film that spawned the cinematic series, which was later shown on television, worldwide. I feel sure that there was not the slightest intention at the time by the Germans, let alone the film's director Karl Harte, to mislead the cinema-going public here - and remember, in those days each country routinely kept their films to themselves much more than is the practise today - but rather it was a satirical comedy-drama, made for home-consumption (and a very successful one); starring the biggest star-names in the truly German cinema of the day. Personally, I see similarities in the film suggestive of the devices which were later used to equally good-effect in the Hollywood movie *Butch Cassidy and the Sun-Dance Kid*; and I'm speaking particularly of the camaraderie between Hans Albers and Heinz Ruhmann, which was so *human* and touching in the over-view. The most-refreshing thing about this fine work - made at the zenith of the Nazis having hi-jacked a previously-free, enlightened and technically-advanced nation comparable with, or even surpassing ours, and turning it into a tyrannical dictatorship - is that there isn't one scrap of political propaganda in it, from beginning to end. It's also interesting to note that Hans Albers stood-out against the Nazis at the time, in their objections to him having a Jewess for a wife - Hitler's adoration for Albers, as the *archetypal* German, saving him and his spouse from the concentration camps - and that the parents of Hansi Tecknot (Jane, in the picture), were members of the anti-Nazi underground resistance. Heinz Ruhmann, beloved of all German actors, was also a covert anti-Nazi, but, even so, after the fall of Germany, in May 1945, he was forced by marauding Russian soldiers to watch, while they repeatedly gang-raped his film star wife, who they stumbled-on in their solitary timber cottage, when combing the woods, outside Berlin.
My apologies, MrAlumni72 - I've got the wrong film in mind; my thinking you were referring to *Der Man Der Sherlock Holmes War*; a German film from 1937, which is also on youtube, and which I strongly recommend you to watch. No, I heartily-agree with your very valid comments on here, as to *Shadow On The Stairs*; the problem I feel being that Rathbone was probably committed to another film at the time, and couldn't make-it for this particular feature, which has the rest of the *Hollywood Holmes Repertory Club* in its cast. Yes it was disappointing, and very definitely misleading. You are dead-right !
Most people don't even know that ALL of thee Rathbone "S.Holmes" movies were completely Wrong. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson existed in A.C.Doyle's books in the late 1800s and slightly into the 20th Century. None of them, Holmes, Watson, or their creator Doyle have ever heard the word "NAZI" in their entire lives. They all disappeared well before WW ONE. The Granada Productions with Jeremy Britt were Arthur Conan Doyle driven. The episodes by Britt were all completely along Doyle's writing - no cars, no telephones to speak of, no Airplanes for sure. Rathbone worked more for the British War Effort than to act for the stories of Doyle.
Hello dear Scott.Where are you from? What movie do you rrcommend to learn modern English and to speak it naturally? Thank you very much. Greetings from Moscow Russia.🇷🇺
I picked movie because I thought it was a Sherlock Holmes movie but it was a very enjoyable film nevertheless and I believe the character wrote himself as a Sherlock Holmes .
I enjoyed the film, too, and was thinking about how it all would be like as a stage play (which the movie was indeed based on, as I recall the beginning credits), especially the rapid verbal interplay among the characters....
This movie really shows the inherent racism in Britian in the 1930s and 1940s. When the Indian Seik character, SIngh, attempts to run away after being confronted by the police, Bromilow takes it upon himself to grab him by the shirt and then punch him so hard that he falls against the railing around the stairs. They both smash through it and fall about 5 ft onto the stairs. In the next scene Singh is lying unconscious, injured and possibly dead on the sofa. Do the police say "Mr. Bromilow, you are under arrest for assault and battery, malicious wounding, and destruction of property"? No, only "You were lucky Mr. Bromilow. You could have been killed!" Bromilow then looks contemptuously at Singh and says "No matter. HE broke my fall!" Yes, Singh turned out to be a traitor, but at this point, none of the other characters knew this.
What on God's Earth makes you people so important? There is NOTHING in the description saying this IS a Holmes film. Point it out if it's there. Otherwise STOP complaining. You're watching this for FREE because of someone else's work and time. It's one thing to dislike the film. It's another to trash talk the one who made the effort to post. Stop tantruming like a spoiled selfish children. Especially when you're wrong. GROW UP!
I think it was directed and played a bit over the top on purpose. Plus there were things from the beginning that didn't make sense, were overplayed and all that bloody movement gave a somewhat of a farcical tone. But with the twist in the end, somehow made it all worthwhile.
I enjoyed the movie, however, as MrAlumni72 said, it is very misleading to use the name of Sherlock Holmes in the title. What's the point other than upsetting viewers? It's not as though you are receiving advertising revenue from this posting. In fact, as said in the Economist magazine, "Conan Doyle's heirs claim that they have the right to extract license fees or suppress publication". If you not careful, you could end-up on the receiving end of a cease and desist order.
Lighten Up..............its an excellent movie and know that they won't make movie like this anymore so, put the political correctness and BS aside and titling and just enjoy it.............this is world is so messed up, that good stuff is hard to come by..........lighten up people............enjoy what we have.
People were STUPID in the olden days, he quickly picks up the murder weapon. Don't get me wrong I know live watching old classic movie and being middle aged it's a real treat.
How is this Sherlock Holmes? People... just read the stories! Then watch film versions (or you won't even know when people append the name of SH to things that are completely unrelated in any way...)
Quite capitol I say. Parden me I get a bit accented when I listen to English speakers and Cockney speakers always do that to me. Great movie. One thing: it doesn't truly fit as to why the Indian men were in the story. Oh well. Author's right I guess.
Cute. And it was quite unusual for Hollywood to make such a nice movie at this time in history. The comedy parts were understandable - since there were very, very few "evil" movies made that may upset the American Public. Even Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto, and Nigel Bruce's character as Dr. Watson kept people smiling while they were working the factories for war supplies. Oh... Yes >> This was Hollywood USA Made. The only British thing about this were the actors. As were the Sherlock Holmes movies of that era.
...it was rather difficult to get to the place where the movie gets good ....if ever. Granted it's not Holmes, but other mystery movies from this period are excellent. This movie was very hard for me to sympathize with any of the characters much less try and tell what was being set up. Maybe I'll try again one night.
If you have a yen for hysterical, out of control, nearly teetering on the brink of nervous breakdown, tearless crying jags, this is the film for you! The cuckoos are out of their clocks!
As unhealthy to lick a pencil head as to lick an envelope - unless you're a gourmet specializing in lead and glue meals. But yes, that used to be done before ballpoints were in common use.
