The Pearl of Death

Despite their back-to-back successes with the Arthur Conan Doyle adaptations The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (released six months apart in 1939), Twentieth Century Fox was disinclined to pursue an ongoing series. Needing some variation in its output of "B" horror movies, which had by 1942 degenerated to sequel after sequel (The Ghost of Frankenstein, The Mummy's Tomb, The Invisible Agent), Universal Studios paid the Conan Doyle estate $300,000 for the rights to nearly two dozen of the late author's short stories as part of an exclusive seven year contract. Universal also secured the services of actors Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, who had charmed audiences as the World's Greatest Detective and his blustery helpmeet Dr. Watson in the Fox films, and for a sense of continuity brought back Mary Gordon as Holmes' Baker Street landlady Mrs. Hudson. With these purchases, the studios then closed its pocketbook and played its Sherlock Holmes series fast and cheap, albeit getting tremendous production value out of its backlot of standing sets. For Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942), the studio made the bold and controversial choice to update the mysteries to modern times. As Holmes' rivals in revelation Charlie Chan, Mr. Moto and Ellery Queen were being pressed into wartime service in those days, so Holmes and Watson would be called in to suss out the machinations of double agents, turncoats and sundry Axis rats. The Pearl of Death (1944) was the sixth of twelve Sherlock Holmes mysteries mounted by Universal between 1942 and 1946. Based loosely on the 1904 short story "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons" (collected in the omnibus The Return of Sherlock Holmes, for which Conan Doyle afforded the sleuth a reprieve from the heroic death he had met besting the nefarious Dr. Moriarty in "The Adventure of the Final Problem"), Bertram Millhauser's script is less concerned with overt wartime themes as had been the case with Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon and Sherlock Holmes in Washington (both 1943). Crisply directed by Roy William Neill (who inherited the series from John Rawlins after Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror and stayed on through to the final chapter, Dressed to Kill, 1946), the film is an enjoyable mash-up of mystery and espionage tropes (including a great deal of disguise-wearing) centered around "the Borgia Pearl," a Hope Diamond-like bagatelle that brings death to those who seek to possess it. Basil Rathbone was paid $20,000 for his services (nearly double Nigel Bruce's salary of $12,000) and was allowed to bring an added measure of nervy nuance to his portrayal of Holmes this time out, as the master detective's sterling reputation suffers a blow when he loses possession of the Borgia Pearl to master thief Giles Conover (Miles Mander) and is menaced in the third act by Conover's spine-snapping amanuensis The Hoxton Creeper (Rondo Hatton). Roy William Neill finished shooting just two days over the allotted three-week schedule and The Pearl of Death is widely considered to be one of the better entries in the cherished if somewhat uneven series. Back to Rondo Hatton. Hatton would soon be branded as Universal's "monster without makeup," a tasteless and heartless sobriquet that says less about the unfortunate actor's ability to craft a character than it does Universal's desperation for distinction at any cost. Afflicted with the glandular condition acromegaly, in which the pituitary gland produces an excess of growth hormone, Hatton was able to find bit work in Hollywood as a resident grotesque in such films as RKO's The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939) and Fox's In Old Chicago (1937) and The Ox-Bow Incident (1943). Given the presence that Hatton brings to The Pearl of Death, it is an outrage that his salary amounted to just $400. At the height of his career two years later, Hatton would bring in only $3,000 as The Brute Man (1946), a variation on his Creeper character. By the time the film was in the can, however, Universal was so embarrassed by the title that the studio fobbed it off onto the "Poverty Row" outfit Producers Releasing Company. (Universal was at the time in the process of redefining itself as Universal-International and had discontinued its B-movie mill.) Sadly, well before the theatrical release of The Brute Man, which afforded him his only starring role, Rondo Hatton died of a heart attack secondary to acromegaly at the age of 51. A cult figure in death, Hatton inspired the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards, given out annually for excellence in horror, science fiction and fantasy filmmaking. Producer: Roy William Neill Director: Roy William Neill Screenplay: Bertram Millhauser; Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (story "The Six Napoleons") Cinematography: Virgil Miller Art Direction: John B. Goodman, Martin Obzina Music: Paul Sawtell (uncredited) Film Editing: Ray Snyder Cast: Basil Rathbone (Sherlock Holmes), Nigel Bruce (Doctor Watson), Dennis Hoey (Lestrade), Evelyn Ankers (Naomi Drake), Miles Mander (Giles Conover), Ian Wolfe (Amos Hodder), Charles Francis (Digby), Holmes Herbert (James Goodram), Richard Nugent (Bates), Mary Gordon (Mrs. Hudson), Rondo Hatton (The Creeper). BW-69m. by Richard Harland Smith Sources: Universal Horrors: The Studio's Classic Films, 1931-1946 by Michael Brunas, John Brunas and Tom Weaver England's Secret Weapon: The Wartime Films of Sherlock Holmes by Amanda J. Field