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Spider Woman (1944)
Country of Origin: USA
Year of Production: 1944
Running Times: 59 mins 22 sec (UK - video)
62 mins 17 sec (UK - theatrical) 63 mins
Format: black and white 35mm
Ratio: 1.37:1
Sound: mono
CREDITS
PRODUCTION
Production Company: Universal
Producer: Roy William Neill
SCRIPT
Script: Bertram Millhauser
Stories: The Sign of Four and The Final
Problem by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
DIRECTION
Director: Roy William Neill
PHOTOGRAPHY
Director of Photography: Charles Van Enger
EDITING
Editors: William Austin, James Gibbon
MUSIC
Musical Director: H.J. Salter
Music: Hans J. Salter, Frank Skinner (uncredited)
SOUND
Sound Director: Bernard B. Brown
Sound Technician: Paul Neal
Sound System: Western Electric
MAKE UP AND COSTUMES
Gowns: Vera West
DESIGN AND SET CONSTRUCTION
Art Directors: John B. Goodman, Martin Obzina
Set Decorators: R.A.
Gausman, Edward Ray Robinson
CAST
Basil Rathbone (Sherlock Holmes)
Nigel Bruce (Dr John H. Watson)
Gale Sondergaard (Andrea Spedding)
Dennis Hoey (Inspector Lestrade)
Vernon Downing (Norman Locke)
Alec Craig (Radlik)
Arthur Hohl (Adam Gilflower)
Mary Gordon (Mrs Hudson)
Lydia Bilbrook (Colonel's wife)
John Burton (announcer)
Harry Cording (Fred Garvin)
Marie De Becker (charwoman)
Teddy Infuhr (Larry)
Stanley Logan (Colonel)
Belle Mitchell (fortune teller)
John Roche (croupier)
John Rogers (clerk)
Angelo Rossitto (pygmy)
Gene Roth (real name: Gene Stutenroth) (Taylor)
Donald Stuart (Artie)
SUMMARY
'Resurrected' following his faked suicide while
on a fishing trip in Scotland, Sherlock Holmes returns to London to
investigate a series of bizarre suicides that he comes to believe are
actually murders. He and Watson find themselves tangling with the alluring
but deadly Andrea Spedding who keeps a nasty secret in her trunk...
CAPSULE REVIEW
Full bloodied horror this time, in a story that
mixes elements of The Final Problem (Holmes' faked
suicide) and The Sign of Four (the thing in the trunk)
to excellent effect. Gale Sondergaard is outstanding as Andrea Spedding,
at last a worthy opponent for Holmes, and the penultimate scene, of
Holmes trying to escape his doom on a sideshow shooting range, is almost
unbearably tense. Neill had really come to grips with the series by
now and in this and the subsequent film, The
Scarlet Claw (1944), the series
hit its peak.
AVAILABILITY
UK
Theatrical Distributor: General Film Distributors
Video Distributor: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (7786)
USA
Theatrical Distributor: Universal Pictures
CENSORSHIP HISTORY
Sweden
Rating: 15
UK
Rating: A (1943); U (1990)
USA
Rating: unrated
TIMELINE
1943
December
9: UK - rated A by the BBFC (for theatrical release)
November
1: UK - rated A by the BBFC (for theatrical release)
1944
January
21: USA - theatrical release
March
27: Sweden - theatrical release
1954
September
9: USA - television broadcast (on CBS)
1960
April
7: UK - television broadcast (on Rediffusion)
1990
June
12: UK - rated U by the BBFC (for video release)
1992
May
11: UK - video release (Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (7786))
1995
September
19: UK - video deleted (Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment (7786))
2000
July
5: UK - television broadcast (on BBC2)
POSTER TAGS
Mistress of Murder!
Trapped in the Deadly Web of a Silken Killer!
ALTERNATIVE TITLES
La donna ragno - Italian title
Sherlock Holmes - Italian title
Sherlock Holmes and the Spider Woman
Das Spinnennetz - German title
LINKS
SEQUEL TO
The Hound
of the Baskervilles (1939)
The
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)
Sherlock
Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942)
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret
Weapon (1942)
Sherlock Holmes
in Washington (1943)
SEQUELS
The Scarlet Claw (1944)
The Pearl of Death
(1944)
The House of Fear
(1945)
Pursuit to Algiers
(1945)
The Woman in Green
(1945)
Terror by Night
(1946)
Dressed to Kill
(1946)
REFERENCES
MAGAZINES
Kinematograph Weekly no.1918 (20 January
1944) (UK)
review
Monthly Film Bulletin vol.11 p.6 (UK)
credits, review
Motion Picture Herald vol.154 no.3 (15
January 1944) (USA)
review
New York Motion Picture Critics Reviews vol.1
no.1 (20 March 1944) pp.493, 494 (USA)
credits, review
Today's Cinema vol.62 no.4981 (14 January
1944) (UK)
review
BOOKS
Universal Horrors by Michael Brunas, John
Brunas and Tom Weaver (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Co (1990))
credits, review
KEYWORDS
Sherlock
Holmes; detectives; sequels
Last Updated:
10 August, 2009
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