Diverting detective mystery in which the principal investigator's name happens to be Sherlock Holmes. If nothing else, it's good for late night viewing when drowsiness seems elusive. Also, Hillary Brooke carries around a lapidary glow that makes one long for the days when women's bathrobes had padded shoulders.
This is the one about hypnosis. A number of young women have been killed around London and one of their fingers amputated and carried off. Men of prominence have been hypnotized by Hillary Brooke and Professor Moriarty and wake up near the murder site with the detached digit in their pockets. They are subsequently blackmailed. That's the plot in a nut shell.
In the course of the investigation, Holmes plays a bit of violin music, the bumbling and muttering Nigel Bruce gets to be hypnotized during a visit to the Mesmer Club and make a fool of himself, and Holmes pretends to be hypnotized and coaxed into walking off a penthouse balcony.
An incident is stolen from Conan-Doyle's "The Empty House," but nothing else will look very familiar to aficionados. The story and its execution are perfunctory. Holes are not worth going into. But, well, okay -- just one. The "hypnotized" Holmes must write a suicide note and he does so without looking down at what he's writing. It's just a small point but it's a signal that no one was paying much attention any longer to a series that was being ground out to keep the customers coming in and being entertained in a way that challenged nobody's sensibilities or intelligence.
The device used to hypnotize Watson at the Mesmer Club is called an Archimides spiral and is useful for hypnotic inductions. I used one while collecting psychological data on visual after effects and one or two subjects began promptly nodding out. If anyone want to see what a visual after effect is like, he should locate a spiral -- they're around -- activate it and stare at it for about thirty seconds, then shut it off. You might not believe what happens next.
This is the one about hypnosis. A number of young women have been killed around London and one of their fingers amputated and carried off. Men of prominence have been hypnotized by Hillary Brooke and Professor Moriarty and wake up near the murder site with the detached digit in their pockets. They are subsequently blackmailed. That's the plot in a nut shell.
In the course of the investigation, Holmes plays a bit of violin music, the bumbling and muttering Nigel Bruce gets to be hypnotized during a visit to the Mesmer Club and make a fool of himself, and Holmes pretends to be hypnotized and coaxed into walking off a penthouse balcony.
An incident is stolen from Conan-Doyle's "The Empty House," but nothing else will look very familiar to aficionados. The story and its execution are perfunctory. Holes are not worth going into. But, well, okay -- just one. The "hypnotized" Holmes must write a suicide note and he does so without looking down at what he's writing. It's just a small point but it's a signal that no one was paying much attention any longer to a series that was being ground out to keep the customers coming in and being entertained in a way that challenged nobody's sensibilities or intelligence.
The device used to hypnotize Watson at the Mesmer Club is called an Archimides spiral and is useful for hypnotic inductions. I used one while collecting psychological data on visual after effects and one or two subjects began promptly nodding out. If anyone want to see what a visual after effect is like, he should locate a spiral -- they're around -- activate it and stare at it for about thirty seconds, then shut it off. You might not believe what happens next.