This is an odd duck of a Sherlock Holmes film. Anyone who knows the first thing about Holmes knows that A Study in Scarlet was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first story about the Great Detective, so it's only natural that this early film (1933) would bring that story to life - but it doesn't, as this Study in Scarlet has very little in common with Doyle's published story. The really odd thing about this film, though, is Holmes' address, which is 221A Baker Street rather than 221B Baker Street. A pre-Scrooge Reginald Owen doesn't make for a bad Sherlock (but he does make for a plump one), although he comes up woefully short against the likes of Basil Rathbone and the incomparable Jeremy Brett. I should note that this is Owen's one and only appearance as Holmes - and, somewhat ironically, it came a year after he played Dr. Watson opposite Clive Brooks' Sherlock Holmes.
This is a fairly standard pastiche affair. You've got this secret little society calling itself the Scarlet Ring, and it's clearly up to no good. Holmes first hears of it when the widow of one of its members seeks his help after seeing her dead husband's estate turned over to the group, leaving her with nothing. Apparently, the group's leader, smarmy lawyer Thaddeus Merrydew (Alan Dinehart), has been in Holmes' sights for some time, and he is eager to finally nab him. In a way, it's a race against time because members of the Scarlet Ring keep turning up dead under suspicious circumstances. Holmes does his investigation (including a little undercover work in disguise), figures everything out, and - in the end - explains it all to Watson and the rest of us. That explanation includes some pretty big facts that we had no possible way of knowing on our own, though, and that never sets too well with me.
With shadowy killers, secret passages, coded messages, and a blonde damsel in distress, this Study in Scarlet makes for a perfectly adequate little mystery - but neither the film nor Reginald Owen truly captures the essence or carries the aura of vintage Sherlock Holmes. And poor Dr. Watson (Warburton Gamble) might as well be a piece of furniture, as he serves almost no purpose in the film.
