not bad for being a pre-50's rendition of holmes, luckily it was saw fit to trim the fat on this one leaving the movie at just over an hour--which turns out to be exactly as long as it should be. bruce's watson is still too much of a bumbling dolt and holmes is a bit more clever than rathbone's portrayal in other movies, even borderline true to the character. it ends up being one of the must see rathbone/bruce holmes movies.

The train setting makes this a little more memorable than the other Rathbone/Bruce films I've seen, but they're all much of a muchness really. This one has a nice build-up and some interesting supporting characters, but the ending turned out to be rather anti-climactic. Liked the model railway doubling for a real locomotive in the exterior shots, though!

A rather intricate and claustrophilic case, but it leaves some loose ends uncharacteristic of Holmes' classic style. One aspect is particularly difficult to fathom, but the rest of the story makes up for it.

If I'd been born about fifty years earlier and seen this in theaters, I have no doubt I'd have found it to be the awesomest shit ever, but I've seen a million train-set murder mystery films and TV episodes and Death on the Nile and that one episode where Monk solves the murder on the plane, so it just doesn't pack the same punch for me any more. It's still decent fun though.

Pretty good story, and as usual for this series of Holmes films its entertaining enough. Disappointing that Watson is completely useless again.

An engaging mystery that leaves you guessing till the last second. Watson also finally provides comic relief that's consistently funny. Second to last, this is an entry truly worthy of Holmes.

Leaves some dangling loose ends (so why was Lady Carstairs so unconcerned with the death of her son?) but somewhat satisfying. Watson is actually useful for a few seconds, but the rest of the time is his usual bungling self.