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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
THE FINAL EPISODES OF RATHBONE AS SHERLOCK HOLMES, January 24, 2007
This is the was the last of the set of radio programs where Rathbone and Bruce team up one last time. Rathbone was concerned about being typecasted and left radio for the newer medium TV. Bruce remained with another actor on radio, but it wasn't the same; ever again. Bruce died sudddenly in 1953 of a heart attack. Rathbone was in an almost constant state of mourning for more than 2 years after Bruce passed. The two had become the best of friends, playing pranks on the radio show, often during the live performances. One of the best was in character during a scene, Bruce/Watson) speaks after a "gunshot" "Look Holmes, there!" By mistake was heard the breaking of glass, Bruce/Watson adlibed to his line, "Holmes, the poor fellow, someone shot him and broke his glass of Perti wine." Rathbone/Holmes) chuckled his line trying regain composure. These are some great radio shows as timeless as the actors who portrayed them. Get the final set, you'll be glad you did.
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
"I thought we could spend a quiet evening by the fire", March 17, 2008
"Murder by Moonlight" is the fourth and last of the CD collections of 1940s Sherlock Holmes radio episodes "Starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce". But in the case of this collection that phrase on the cover is somewhat misleading, since four of the twelve episodes included come from after Rathbone's departure from the series and feature his successor as radio's Sherlock Holmes, Tom Conway. Nigel Bruce is actually billed above Tom Conway on these episodes for his role as Dr. Watson.
"The Book of Tobit" is a hilariously predictable episode, which I don't actually mean as a criticism. It places Holmes in a rather unique situation, which leads him to take Watson's friendship for granted even more heartlessly than usual. Watson, of course, remains loyal. "Murder Beyond the Mountains" is a story set during Holmes' travels in Tibet, when he was supposedly dead after the Reichenbach Falls incident; thus Watson appears only as narrator. Although the story is interesting, the logic of Holmes' solution of the mystery did not quite convince me. It's also morbidly amusing to note that writers Denis Green and Anthony Boucher resort for the second time on these CDs to the same ghoulish method of murdering a male Chinese character.
"The Manor House Case" is based on a reference to an unchronicled investigation in Conan Doyle's "The Greek Interpreter", and is commendable for its precise faithfulness to the Canonical reference to the incident, a characteristic not always found in Holmes pastiches. This story also once again places Holmes and Watson in an amusingly novel situation as Watson attempts to investigate a mystery himself (and, gratifyingly, makes a somewhat better job of it than one might expect of Bruce's Watson). "The Adventure of the Stuttering Ghost" was the very first Tom Conway episode. Conway's portrayal of Holmes, while completely professional and convincing (much more than can be said of some actors who have tackled the role), seems very much like a slightly inferior version of Rathbone's interpretation.
"The Great Gandolfo" is a story set in Holmes' retirement, involving a stage magician and his assistant, as well as Holmes' brother Mycroft. It is an extremely frustrating episode because it seems obvious that there should be a further plot twist at the end which Holmes and Mycroft have missed. It seems to me that they end up letting a very clever woman get away with murder and espionage. "The Adventure of the Original Hamlet", another Tom Conway episode, is an effectively melodramatic Moriarty story.
"Murder by Moonlight" finds Holmes and Watson on a steamship to India in 1894. It is interestingly integrated with an earlier episode, "The Vanishing White Elephant", by Watson's telling us that this adventure happened while he and Holmes were on their way to that one. "The Singular Affair of the Coptic Compass" is another Tom Conway episode involving Moriarty. I found the significance to the story of the eponymous compass to be an interesting plot twist, but some listeners may well feel cheated by it.
"The Gunpowder Plot", a particularly memorable episode, takes place on Guy Fawkes Day and sees Holmes and Watson attempting to avert a latter-day version of Guy Fawkes' intended crime. Especially amusing is the sequence in which Holmes and Watson pretend to be building inspectors, with Rathbone utilizing his flawless Cockney accent. "The Babbling Butler", another Tom Conway show, features a memorable guest character in the form of a cruelly biting society wit.
In "The Accidental Murderess", Holmes and Watson are walking through the woods of Stratford-upon-Avon, Shakespeare's hometown, when Holmes is shot and slightly wounded by a married couple, the wife of which has previously been accused of murder. This one will keep you guessing for a while. "The Adventure of the Blarney Stone" ends this CD set, and Simon & Schuster Audio's Holmes-Rathbone series, very disappointingly. As an American of Irish descent, I was actually deeply offended by this story's stereotypical depiction of the Irish as drunks who talk constantly about "the little people", and whose police refuse to conduct a murder investigation on St. Patrick's Day!
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Better than TV before bedtime, December 14, 2006
I am a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes and enjoy the original stories and the many that have been written since the days of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. These radio shows from the 1940's are great, they even have the commercials from the original broadcasts.
I like to turn on a cd when I am going to bed, turn out the light and drift of into 19th century London for my last few waking moments. It does sometimes take me a week or so before I have actually heard an entire cd.
The only down side is that my wife doesn't share my enthusiasm for Sherlock Holmes and can occasionally let her dislike of going to sleep to it be known.
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