Glucedee It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Rainey Dawn I have admit I am with others on Reginald Owen's Sherlock Holmes... his acting is fine but he does not "fit" Holmes at all. He does not look or act like the Sherlock Holmes we have all come to know. It's not a horrible portrayal of Sherlock but it's not all that great either. This is simply not Reginald's style of character - he cannot capture Sherlock's personality.The story of A Study in Scarlet is a good one! I realize it's not like the book but viewing the film as simply Hollywood entertainment then it's a pretty good story. I like this movie just not as well as other Sherlock Holmes films and it's mainly because of Reginald Owen is Sherlock - that might be shallow but it's just my personal taste in Sherlock Holmes.7/10

OldAle1 The copy of this I watched was from one of those 50-film box sets - I think it's "Mystery Classics". I had some hopes for it being a decent copy - all 3 of the Rathbone Holmes on the set are quite clear and presentable - but alas such was not the case, though it appears that the separately-available Alpha Video DVD isn't much or any better. This is scratchy, indistinct and fuzzy at times, with poor sound and lots of noticeable dialog dropout. So it's conceivable that a better print would make some difference in my feelings.Not likely though. Overall this is one of, if not the, poorest Holmes films I've seen. A large part of the problem rests in the casting of Reginald Owen who is not only physically wrong - a jowly, double-chinned Holmes just doesn't work - but also just plain irritating and seemingly uninterested in the character. I'm sure the screenplay has a lot to do with things also, as it makes out Holmes to be more of a super-cop than anything else, and every time he explains (in even more exasperated tones than is usual for the character) his miraculous sleuthing it comes off as talking down to both his fellow police and Watson, and to us the audience. Of course, Holmes is supposed to be arrogant - but here it's a sort of flip arrogance - hard to explain exactly, but it just seems both perfunctory and unnecessary. And having Holmes shoot one of the bad guys in the back at the end -- that didn't work at all.The plot has little to do with the novel from which it takes its name; here Holmes is on the trail of a murderer slowly killing off members of some secret society which is only revealed in nature at the end but which we can figure out very early on. The whole Mormon backstory and flashback nature of the novel is gone - apparently there were worries about alienating people at the time; this is after all a Hollywood, not a British production. Everything feels very by-the-numbers, the rest of the actors aren't really interesting either except for Anna May Wong as the femme fatale who brings at least a little eroticism and enthusiasm to her part.

sol ***SPOLIERS*** Lackluster Sherlock Homles mystery that has Sherlock not only showing the audience how good he is in going undercover-in disguise-but also for what seems like the first and last time in his career, as a brainy and elementary thinking sleuth, uses a firearm in gunning down and killing one the bad guys.The movie "A Study in Scarlet" seems to be a precursor to the 1939 Agatha Christie murder mystery "Ten Little Indians" written some six years after the film was released in 1933 which is about the only reason for viewing it. The movie itself doesn't really hold its audience's attention with a number of unsavory characters lead by shyster London lawyer Thaddeus Merrydew, Alan Didehart. It's Merrydew & Co. who were all involved in smuggling a cache of jewels out of Pre-Communist China, circa the late 1920's, and are now dropping dead like flies on the streets of London because of it.After a Mr. Murphy was found dead on a London bound train his wife Mrs. Annabelle Murphy, Doris Llyod, hired detective Sherlock Holmes, Reginald Owen, to see if her husband in fact was murdered not that he committed suicide like the London Police reported. Holmes soon discovers, through a number of cryptic messages in the local newspapers, that there's this group of people involved in an illegal jewelry smuggling operation that started back in China some eight years ago. The ringleader of this gang of Jewel thieves is top London criminal lawyer Thaddeus Merrydew who represents them. There's also the totally innocent Elleen Forrester, June Clyde, who's only connection with the Jewel or diamond smugglers is that her late father Col. Frrester, a member of the smuggling ring, left her his share of the profits, some 200,000 in Pound Sterling, in his will.As the members of this jewel smuggling ring, called the "Scarlet Ring", start to be killed off it soon becomes apparent that Merrydew is somehow responsible for their deaths with the help one of the rings members! But the question is which one since almost all of the jewel smugglers end up dead by the time the movie is over. It's then that Merrydew and his partner, or partners, in crime screw up in them foolishly thinking that they pulled the wool over the great Sherlock Holmes eyes. Old Sherlock, we learn, had Merrydew and Co. pegged right from the start in not only deciphering the killer's secret coded messages in the newspapers but also, I kid you not, in Holmes uncovering his very unusual shoe size that the killer left at the scene of one of his murders!***SPOILERS***Slow moving and hard to follow Sherlock Holmes film with only the appearance of the femme fatal in the movie Mrs Pyke, Anna May Wong, adding some hot Chinese mustard in it to spice the movie up a few notches. There's also the mysterious and what looks like opium pipe smoking Ah Yet, Tetsu Komai, as both Mrs. Pyke's and lawyers Merrydew's hit-man. Always puffing on his pipe and looking stoned out of his head you wondered why the two master criminals, Mrs. Pyke & Thaddeus Marrydew, would have anything to do with a strung-out weirdo like Ah Yet in the first place? Unless they were as strung out and smashed as he was by taking turns shearing his pipe!

xredgarnetx As long as one understands this version of A STUDY IN SCARLET bears no resemblance to its source material, one can enjoy the performance of Reginald Owen -- best known for playing Scrooge -- as the inimitable Sherlock Holmes. The story as such involves a secret group of individuals who are being knocked off one at a time. A fortune is at stake! Holmes is called in and more or less immediately identifies the killer(s), but the movie stretches events out to feature length, and a bad movie it is not. Owen makes an acceptable Holmes, even though the story has been moved forward to the time in which the movie was made. Warburton Gamble's Dr. Watson leaves something to be desired, but most movie Watsons can be found lacking. Only Ian Fleming in 1935's TRIUMPH OF SHERLOCK HOLMES and the Dr. Watsons of the Jeremy Brett TV series come even close to the Watson of the Conan Doyle stories. Worth a look as a novelty.