Sherlock Holmes' Fatal Hour (1931) Review: Arthur Wontner is actually great

If you have a rainy Sunday and a big pot of tea, you should probably watch this. It is for people who like the original books and don't mind a movie that feels like a filmed stage play.

Action fans will hate it. There are no explosions and nobody is jumping off buildings here. 🕵️‍♂️

I was mostly struck by Arthur Wontner's face. He looks exactly like the drawings from the old Strand Magazine. Exactly.

His nose is thin and he has this way of looking over his glasses that makes you feel slightly judged. It's a very specific vibe.

The movie starts with Ronald Adair, who is a bit of a dummy. He gets caught cheating at cards and then some scary guys start leaning on him.

The card room scenes are so quiet you can hear the actors' shoes clicking on the floor. It’s that 1931 sound quality where everything feels like it's happening in a vacuum.

I noticed a weird shadow on the wall during the first ten minutes that didn't seem to belong to anyone. It just stayed there, being a shadow. 🕳️

Ian Fleming plays Dr. Watson. Not the James Bond guy, obviously, but a different Ian Fleming.

He plays Watson as a real person, not a bumbling clown. I liked that quite a bit.

Usually, Watson is just there to say "Good heavens, Holmes!" but here he actually seems like he could handle a gun if he had to.

The plot is a mashup of two different Doyle stories. Sometimes you can see the seams where they glued them together.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Sherlock Holmes' Fatal Hour (1931) through its definitive frames.

One moment we are talking about cards, and the next we are talking about counterfeit money. It’s a lot to keep track of if you aren't paying attention.

I found myself wondering if movies like The Eyes of the World had better lighting than this. This film is very, very dark in the corners.

Norman McKinnel plays Professor Moriarty. He doesn't look like a supervillain.

He looks like a guy who would give you a hard time about a small business loan. He is very menacing in a quiet, grumpy way.

There is a scene where Holmes is wearing a disguise. It’s a classic fake beard and hat situation.

It is so obvious that it's him, but the other characters just go along with it. I love that about old movies.

The pacing is... well, it's slow. It moves at the speed of a turtle on a holiday.

Sometimes a character will walk across a room and it takes about thirty seconds of screen time. No music, just clack clack clack of shoes.

It reminded me of the stillness you see in Martha, though that's a completely different kind of story.

The dialogue is very wordy. Everyone speaks in full, perfect sentences even when they are supposed to be scared.

Things I jotted down:

• The pipe smoking is constant. I think Wontner must have been lightheaded by the end of the day.
• There is a very strange painting in the background of the club scene. It looks like a giant bird.
• The ending happens very fast. Like they realized they were running out of film.
• Moriarty's office has way too many books. Nobody reads that much.

I've seen a lot of early 30s stuff lately, like The Gun Runners, and this feels much more "theatrical." It’s not trying to be a movie-movie.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Sherlock Holmes' Fatal Hour (1931) through its definitive frames.

It’s trying to be a Sherlock Holmes story you can see with your eyes. 👁️

There is one shot where Holmes is looking out a window and the reflection is all wonky. It made me think about how hard it must have been to film with those big old cameras.

If you compare it to something like Blow Your Own Horn, the tone is night and day. This is very serious business.

Is it the best Holmes movie? No. But Wontner is probably my favorite Holmes now.

He has this sharpness. You believe he is actually thinking, not just reading lines from a script.

The way he holds his magnifying glass is very professional. 🔎

I did find the villain's secret hideout a bit disappointing. It just looked like a basement with some crates in it.

I was hoping for some giant traps or maybe a secret door that didn't squeak so much. But the squeaking adds a bit of realness I guess.

One more thing—the title "Fatal Hour" makes it sound like a ticking clock thriller. It really isn't.

It’s more like "Sherlock Holmes Sits in a Chair and Thinks for a While." But I mean that in a good way.

If you like movies that let you breathe, give it a shot. If you need 10 cuts per second, go watch something else. ✌️

It's definitely better than some of the fluff from that era, like The Bride's Relations. At least something happens here.

I'll probably watch the sequels. I heard Wontner gets even better in the next one.