“You should see Charlie here when there’s a tasty bit outside in the street.”
The Musgrave family has opened up their home, Musgrave Manor, as a hospital for servicemen suffering from shell shock. Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) is serving as resident physician for the facility.
Sally Musgrave (Hillary Brooke) has fallen in love with one of the resident patients. He is a wounded American fighter pilot named Captain Pat Vickery (Milburn Stone). Sally’s brothers Geoffrey (Frederick Worlock) and Phillip (Gavin Muir) are not pleased.
Then one of the physicians working at the estate, Dr. Sexton (Arthur Margetson), is assaulted by an unknown assailant when out on a walk. Since Watson is responsible for the care of everyone at the facility he calls in his friend Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) to see if he can get to the bottom of what happened. By the time Holmes arrives Geoffrey Musgrave is dead. On hand from Scotland Yard is Inspector Lestrade (Dennis Hoey). Lestrade immediately arrests Captain Vickery.
Holmes, on the other hand, is not as quick to judge. Phillip is next in line to be head of the family. The passing of the family lineage requires a ceremony where a poem is recited. After one day of officially being head of the estate Phillip too is found murdered. Lestrade wants to arrest the butler, Alfred Brunton (Halliwell Hobbes)
Holmes suspects that the special ceremony that is preformed, the “Musgrave Ritual”, has something to do with the murders. He questions Sally about the poem that she has to recite at the ceremony. The words to the poem refer to chess pieces and seem to play out a particular game of chess. The floor in the main hall of the mansion is laid out in black and white tiles and looks like a giant chess board. It’s large enough that a game could be played using household staff as chess pieces. Holmes suggests that if they want to solve the murders, they should… play a game.
“Sherlock Holmes Faces Death” was released in 1943 and was directed by Roy William Neill. It is the 6th of the 14 Sherlock Holmes movies that featured Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. This is also the 2nd of 6 movies where Inspector Lestrade is a character. The movie is based on the Doyle story “The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual” 1893.
Although the Universal Sherlock Holmes movies take place in the modern world of the 40’s, “Sherlock Holmes Faces Death” manages to have a gothic flavor. Replacing Nazi’s and German spies are Old Dark Houses with secret passages, ravens, family rituals lightning strikes and clocks that strike 13. Granted almost none of these things have anything to do with the main story, they’re just decorations.
Captain Vickery, the love interest of Sally Musgrave, is played by a young Milburn Stone (Doc Adams of "Gunsmoke" fame). 20 year old Peter Lawford has a bit part as a pub patron in the beginning of the film.
The Musgrave Ritual
Who first shall find it, were better dead. Who next shall find it, perils his head. The Last to find it defies dark powers and brings good fortune to Hurlstone towers. Where was the light on the face of the messenger? Where did he speed? To guard the queen's page. What form in advanced, the bishop’s page brashly? And who to repel, the King's cautious page? What then the disaster? Page slaughters page. Who came then to slay him? The bloodthirsty bishop. Where shall he go? Deep down below. Away from the thunder, let him dig under.