Lost in Limehouse: A Messy, Bizarre Victorian Gag Reel

Is it worth your time?

Honestly, that depends on your tolerance for old-fashioned, slightly cringey humor. If you love early 20th-century slapstick and don't mind some really dated stereotypes, you might get a kick out of it. If you're looking for a serious mystery or even a decent parody of Walter the Sleuth, you will probably hate this.

It’s basically a fever dream of Victorian tropes thrown into a blender. You have the mustache-twirling villain, the screaming heroine, and a version of Holmes that seems like he wandered off the set of a much cheaper production. The whole thing feels like a stage play that decided to play dress-up.

The Vibes

The pacing is all over the place. Sometimes it feels like it’s moving at warp speed, and other times it just stalls while people make faces at the camera. There's a scene in the Chinese gangster den that honestly lasts about three minutes longer than it should. You can almost feel the actors waiting for someone to yell 'cut' so they can go get a sandwich.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Lost in Limehouse (1933) through its definitive frames.

Speaking of the gangsters, the caricatures here are really loud. It’s the kind of broad, noisy comedy that doesn't really translate well to modern eyes. It feels like they were trying to do a high-energy burlesque, but it just lands as a bit of a chaotic mess. It reminded me a little of the frantic energy in Jazz Mamas, though definitely not as sharp.

Odd Little Moments

• There is a moment where Holmes trips over his own coat that clearly wasn't scripted, but they left it in anyway.
• The villain's mustache is so fake it’s practically its own character. I spent half the movie wondering if it was going to fall off.
• The background extras in the Limehouse scenes look like they have absolutely no idea where they are or what they’re supposed to be doing. It’s pretty funny if you watch the corners of the frame.

It’s definitely not a masterpiece. It lacks the tight construction you might find in something like The Non-Stop Flight. But there is something weirdly endearing about how much they are trying to force the humor. It’s not subtle, it’s not smart, and it definitely isn't trying to change the world.

Sometimes you just want to watch a mustache-twirler lose a fight to a guy in a deerstalker hat. If that’s you, pull up a chair. Just don’t expect to remember much about it an hour later. 🎩