Terror by Night
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| Terror by Night | |
|---|---|
 Promotional movie poster for the film |
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| Directed by | Roy William Neill |
| Produced by | Roy William Neill |
| Written by | Frank Gruber based on characters created by Arthur Conan Doyle |
| Starring | Basil Rathbone Nigel Bruce Alan Mowbray Dennis Hoey Renee Godfrey |
| Music by | Hans Salter |
| Cinematography | Maury Gertsman |
| Distributed by | Universal Studios |
| Release date(s) | February 1, 1946 |
| Running time | 60 min. |
| Country |  United States |
| Language | English |
| Preceded by | Pursuit to Algiers |
| Followed by | Dressed to Kill |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Terror by Night is a 1946 Sherlock Holmes mystery film inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, loosely based on The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax and The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle. It was directed by Roy William Neill.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Holmes and Watson meet Inspector Lestrade on a train to Scotland, in which Lady Margaret Carstairs, the owner of a famous diamond, the Star of Rhodesia, and her son Roland are travelling. The owner has asked Holmes to guard the huge diamond, but soon Roland is murdered and the diamond stolen. Holmes must find the diamond and uncover the murderer, both of whom must still be on the train. A train guard and a thuggish thief are found dead - like Roland - under mysterious circumstances, and Holmes himself is almost knocked off the train to his doom. A number of sub-plots provide both comic relief and suspicion, including Inspector Lestrade discovering a pair of petty thieves who stole a teapot from a hotel, an acerbic mathematics professor who won't accept that Watson has any authority to investigate anything, a drawling demimondaine travelling with a coffin, Lady Margaret's assumption of her social superiority to Holmes and Watson, and Watson's discovery of an old friend on the train who immediately becomes his own bumbling sidekick. Holmes produces the diamond and identifies the ringleader of the murder plot - Colonel Sebastian Moran, a former henchman of Professor Moriarty's - and turns him over to the Scottish police, but there is one last plot twist left.
[edit] Cast
- Basil Rathbone – Sherlock Holmes
- Nigel Bruce – Dr John H. Watson
- Alan Mowbray – Major Duncan Bleek
- Dennis Hoey – Inspector Lestrade
- Renee Godfrey – Vivian Vedeer
- Frederick Worlock – Professor Kilbane
- Mary Forbes – Lady Margaret Carstairs
- Skelton Knaggs – Sands
- Geoffrey Steele – Roland Carstairs
[edit] Trivia
- The character of Sebastian Moran is a Sherlock Holmes character, appearing in The Adventure of the Empty House. Elements from The Sign of Four are also part of the story.
- C. Aubrey Smith has a cameo as the man that Watson nearly knocks down in his attempt to catch the train.
