CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

Derrick Gibbons An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

Allison Davies The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Rainey Dawn This Arthur Wontner / Sherlock Holmes film is not all that bad but it's not the greatest Holmes film on the market. And I find it's not as good as the title suggests or sounds like it would be but it is still fun little ditty to watch! Here we have Sherlock and Doc Watson on a case of murder and a stolen horse named Silver Blaze. Sherlock suspects his old nemesis Professor Moriarty to be behind it all. But why does Moriarty want Silver Blaze badly enough to murder the stable boy? What are his diabolical plans this time? A pretty good morning murder mystery to watch with a cup of coffee! Not a bad way to wake up.7/10

JohnHowardReid Wontner's last film in his series, Silver Blaze (1937) or Murder at the Baskervilles, I regard as his best. The ingenious script by Arthur Macrae (who also plays the young lead with considerable charisma), H. Fowler Mear and Wontner himself, not only adheres with reasonable fidelity to Conan Doyle's story, but also introduces a clever framing device which allows for a final demise of Professor Moriarty (who had clearly met his end in the previous entry; but there was no way a picturegoer's memory would stretch over two years, so why not?). And moreover, it was directed by Dickensian expert, Thomas Bentley. Dickens? Well, after all, there are significant caricatural or Dickensian qualities about Holmes, Watson, Moriarty and company, to say nothing of the way the heroine is so short-changed and has so little to do or say. Judy Gunn, in her final of twelve movies, plays so fleeting a role, she is way down the credits. But look at some of the other supporting characters here: D.J. Williams as Silas Brown has only the one scene – but what an impression he makes! Of course the support player everyone greets with delight is none other than Ronald Shiner. Although far away from his glory days as Britain's number one most popular star and biggest box office draw in the early 1950s, Shiner still shines even at this early stage (if you can call it early. He'd already made 16 films). Williams and Shiner are so Dickensian, it hurts! True, Bentley handles the action in a somewhat perfunctory fashion. He's no Yak Canutt certainly. But overall this Silver Blaze is a polished, pleasing production. And best of all, it enjoys the highest quality of the available Wontner DVDs, with a nice clear sound track and well-defined images.

bkoganbing Silver Blaze finds Sherlock Holmes and the ever present Dr. Watson back at Baskerville Hall seen of their greatest case. Apparently Sir Henry Baskerville gives them free run of the joint in gratitude for saving his life back in The Hounds of the Baskerville case. Anyway no sooner are they there than the murder of a stable-boy and the theft of a prize race horse happen and suspicion falls on the Baskerville son-in-law.On the other side of the pond Arthur Wontner and Ian Fleming did a few Sherlock Holmes films and are as known there as Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce are here. The horse itself is found on the moor where that infamous hound used to prowl, apparently none the worse for wear. But that's only the beginning.Wontner and Fleming are certainly the equal of Rathbone and Bruce. Except for a couple of the early films, the Rathbone/Bruce films were B films the same as this British production so the quality is about the same. Professor Moriarty is at the bottom of things here as you note by the cast list. This Moriarty believes in taking direct action and does try to eliminate Holmes before he spoils the Professor's foul scheme. My criticism of the film is that in fact Moriarty is grafted into the screenplay. The original novel does not have him in it. I'm not a Holmes expert, but it seems to me that Moriarty always went in for bigger schemes than fixing horse races.Still it's a good Sherlock Holmes mystery well worth Americans viewing a British view of their conception of the greatest sleuth in history who happens to be one of their's.

sol (Some Spoilers) Going to a well deserved vacation at the Baskerville Manor, the sight of one of his most famous cases some 20 years earlier, Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Wootner, and his long time friend and aid Dr. John H. Watson, Ian Flemming,have anything but free time to rest and relax there. Not far from the Baskerville Home there's a racetrack and it's to have it's biggest race of the meet that weekend, The Barchester Cup, with the much heralded horse Sliver Blaze the very heavy betting favorite. Unknown to everyone in and out of the track the brilliantly evil Prof. Moriarty, Lyn Harding, is involved to make sure that Silver Blaze does not only lose the race but is not even on the track the day the big race is to be run. Being contacted by big time British bookie Miles Standford, Gilbert Davis, and given $10,000.00 to make sure that Silver Blaze is out of the winner circle at the end of the Barchester Cup race Moriarty goes to work overtime to make sure that it happens. Big-time bookie Stanford will end up broke if Silver Blaze win the race since he doesn't have the cash to cover all the winning bets he has on the racehorse. Things start to go into motion days before the race with the stable boy of Silver Blaze found dead and the horse gone. Later the trainer James Straker, Martin Walker, of Silver Blaze in found dead on the moors outside Baskerville Manor with his neck broken. Holmes in his usual and brilliant way picks up the clues that everyone else on the case missed including police inspector Lasterade, John Turnball. Like Sherlock Holmes tells him: "You see what I see but I trained myself to notice what I see". Holmes deduces that the groom of Silver Blaze died from an overdose of opium that was put in his curry dinner meal that night at the stable by non other the Silver Blaze's trainer James Straker. Straker taking Silver Blaze out to the secluded moors outside the stables tried to cut the horses tendon with a surgical knife so it would break down during the race. The equine instead reared up and broke his neck with a well placed kick killing him. Finding the horse disguised with his silver blaze across his face colored over with black paint Silver Blaze is entered into the Barchester Cup race only to have his jockey shot, with a hidden air-gun inside a newsreel camera, off the horse during the race thus losing it. Holmes later using Dr. Watson as bait, to find and trap Prof. Moriarty, who's pistol-whipped and taken prisoner blindfolded to the Moriatry hideout by one of his goons Moran, Arthur Goullet. Afer receiving his $10,000.00 from Stanford for getting Silver Blaze to lose the race Prof. Moriarty has Watson about to be dropped 80 feet to his death Sherlock Holmes and the police comes to Watson's rescue and take Moriarty and his goons, as well as Stanford, into custody. As prof. Moriarty is taken away by the police at the end of the movie he gives the usual "I'll Be Back" speech that you get from movie villains as their arrested at the end of a crime/murder movie. Prof. Moriarty has been coming back, in dozens of Sherlock Holmes films, ever since.