‘Temptress of pleasure or mistress of murder?’
The Woman in Green is a 1945 mystery film in which Sherlock Holmes investigates the murders of young women, each with a finger severed. Scotland Yard suspects a madman, but Holmes believes the killings are part of a diabolical plot.
Directed by Roy William Neill (The Pearl of Death; The Scarlet Claw; The Spider Woman; Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man) from a screenplay by Bertram Millhauser (The Pearl of Death; The Invisible Man’s Revenge; The Spider Woman), loosely based on the story ‘The Adventures of the Empty House’ by Arthur Conan Doyle.
The Universal Pictures production stars Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Hillary Brooke, Henry Daniell, Paul Cavanagh, Matthew Boulton, Eve Amber, Frederick Worlock, Tom Bryson, Sally Shepherd and Mary Gordon.
Plot [contains spoilers]:
When several women are murdered and their forefingers severed, Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson are called into action by Inspector Gregson, but Holmes is initially baffled by the crimes.
Wealthy widower Sir George Fenwick has a romantic evening with glamorous young Lydia Marlowe, which adjourns to her apartment. After drinking a “special cocktail” mixed by Lydia’s maid and becoming entranced by a bowl of floating flowers on her coffee table, he awakes ten hours later in a stupor at a flop house in a seedy part of London. Hearing a news crier hawking papers blaring a new mutilation murder, he cringes when he finds a woman’s forefinger in his pocket.
The next day his daughter comes to Holmes and Watson (unaware that Moriarty’s henchman is following her). She tells Holmes and Watson that she saw her father burying something in their garden the previous night. Later, she dug up a box containing a forefinger and shows it to them.
Fenwick is then found dead in his home, obviously murdered to keep him from talking. Holmes theorizes that Moriarty, who was supposed to have been hanged in Montevideo, is alive and responsible for the crimes. Watson is called to attend to a medical emergency.
Minutes later, Moriarty appears and explains that he faked Watson’s call so he could talk to Holmes. Moriarty leaves, and Watson returns. Holmes describes what had transpired, notices that a previously shut window shade in the empty house across the street is now open, and sends Watson to investigate.
There Watson believes that he sees a man with a rifle shoot Holmes in his apartment through the open window. Holmes then arrives and explains that he put a plaster bust in his place as a target. Inspector Gregson takes the shooter, a hypnotized ex-army sniper, away, but the man is kidnapped and later killed and left on Holmes’s doorstep.
Holmes has surmised that blackmail is the game, and is now convinced that Moriarty is having women killed, and their forefingers cut off as the “hook” to a blackmail scheme. He then has rich marks hypnotized, who awaken surrounded by clues convincing them they have committed the murders. The crimes are so heinous that even though a victim may discover he is innocent, he will still remain silent to avoid having his name besmirched through association.
Holmes befriends Lydia at the Mesmer Club, a magicians’ society, suspecting that she is in cahoots with Moriarty. He’s taken to her house to be hypnotized, but she asserts he is too anxious to be put under, and insists he take a pill containing cannabis japonica. Moriarty enters and has one of his men prick Holmes with a knife to confirm that he is hypnotised. He then has Holmes write a suicide note, then walk out onto the upper story ledge of Lydia’s apartment, where he will be commanded to jump to his death.
Watson and the police arrive in the nick of time. Holmes then reveals he had foiled Moriarty’s plan by secretly ingesting a drug that rendered him insensitive to pain, allowing him to fake hypnosis. Moriarty then wrests free from a policemen and leaps to the ledge of a neighboring building. However, he slams hard into a metal drain pipe, dazing him, which comes free and causes him to plummet to his death.
Cast and characters:
Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes
Nigel Bruce as Doctor Watson
Hillary Brooke as Lydia Marlowe
Henry Daniell as Professor Moriarty
Paul Cavanagh as Sir George Fenwick
Matthew Boulton as Inspector Gregson
Eve Amber as Maude Fenwick
Frederick Worlock as Doctor Onslow
Tom Bryson as Corporal Williams
Sally Shepherd as Crandon, Marlowe’s maid
Mary Gordon as Mrs Hudson
Percival Vivian as Dr Simnell
Fred Aldrich as Detective
Leslie Denison as Vincent, barman at Pembroke House
Olaf Hytten as Norris, Fenwick’s butler
Boyd Irwin, as short-tempered detective closing window
Harold De Becker, as shoelace seller
Alec Harford as Commissioner of the CID
Filming locations:
Universal Studios – 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California
Technical specs:
68 minutes
Black and white (later released in a colour version)
Aspect ratio: 1.37: 1
Audio: Mono (Western Electric Recording)
Working title:
Invitation to Murder
Trailer [poor quality]:
Free to watch on YouTube [1080p Premium HD]:
Free to watch on YouTube in colour [1080p Premium HD]:
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