Dressed to Kill (1946 film)

Dressed to Kill, released in 1946, also known as Prelude to Murder (working title) and Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Code in the United Kingdom, is the last of fourteen films starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Doctor Watson.

Dressed to Kill
Directed byRoy William Neill
Produced byRoy William Neill
Written byFrank Gruber
Leonard Lee
Based onThe Adventure of the Six Napoleons
1903 short stories (56)
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
StarringBasil Rathbone
Nigel Bruce
Patricia Morison
CinematographyMaury Gertsman
Edited bySaul A. Goodkind
Production
company
Universal Pictures
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date
  • May 24, 1946 (1946-05-24) (New York City, New York)
  • June 7, 1946 (1946-06-07) (United States)
Running time
76 minutes
(copyright length)
72 minutes
(restored version)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Plot

A convicted thief in Dartmoor prison (played by an uncredited Cyril Delevanti) hides the location of stolen Bank of England printing plates inside three music boxes (each of which plays a subtly different version of "The Swagman"). The boxes are sold at a local auction house.[1]

When Dr Watson friend Julian 'Stinky' Emery a avid collector, pays Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson a visit and tells them a about a strange robbery in his house the previous night, in which someone stole a music box that he had bought at a auction for a measly two pounds. Later that night it is discovered that Stink is Murdered, and Holmes and Watson realize that someone is willing to kill to obtain the three music boxes. When Holmes and Watson go to the house of the people who bought the second music box, they find it stolen as well.[2]

Sherlock Holmes is able to buy the third music box, and ask Scotland Yard to track down the suspects. Later it is found out that the Inspector who had been tracking the suspects has been murdered. Holmes and Watson soon crack the code of the music box and discovered the numbers on the keys correlates to a letter in the alphabet, unfortunately they are only partial able to de code the whole message because the suspects have the other two music boxes.

When Holmes he discovers his flat has been ransacked in a attempt to find the third music box, he notice a cigarette with a distinct type of tobacco. Holmes tracks down the lady (Hilda Courtney) who bought the tobacco and confronts her. While Holmes is confronting her he is ambushed and tied up and led to a warehouse. Back at Holmes and Watson flat Hilda Courtney steals the music box from Dr. Watson. Holmes escapes from the warehouse nearly escaping death and returns to the flat where Watson tell Holmes that the music box has been stolen. While talking to Holmes, Watson cracks the code for the location of the five pound engraving plate, when he tells Holmes about a quote from Dr. Samual Johnson.

Hilda Courtney and her gang decipher the code leading them to go to the house of Dr. Samuel Johnson. While Courtney is stealing the plates Holmes ambushes them and Scotland Yard arrest Courtney and her constituents before they can get away and returns the plates back to the Bank of England.

Cast
gollark: Well, they didn't have that.
gollark: I was going to say that "magic is magic mostly because we can't really do it in reality", but actually there is fiction where magic does approximately the same things as what modern tech does but with a slightly different aesthetic.
gollark: I'm sure there are others, I just can't immediately think of any.
gollark: Um. I have never actually *read* it but apparently Robert Jackson Bennet's *Foundryside* has a programmingish magic system?
gollark: I'm sure this has been done, depending on how strictly you define it.

References
  1. "Dressed to Kill". AllMovie. Retrieved August 9, 2016.
  2. Dressed to Kill (1946) - IMDb, retrieved 2020-07-14
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