Terror by Night is the penultimate adventure of Basil Rathbone’s and Nigel Bruce’s Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. It lifts elements from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s works, The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle, The Adventure of the Empty House, The Disappearance of Lady Carfax, and The Sign of Four, but is predominantly an original story.

It also looks like the franchise is suffering from budget woes. there isn’t even a Universal backlot used in this one. Almost the entire story is confined to a train, and its station barring the opening sequence. That introduces us to Vivian Vedder (and Renee Godfrey’s horrible and wandering accent).

The story sees Holmes and Watson joining Lady Margaret Carstairs (Mary Forbes) on her way back to Edinburgh. The duo have been hired to guard her, and more specifically the Star of Rhodesia. A fabulous diamond in her possession.

But there is murder, and someone has made off with the jewel. But Holmes, Watson, the train’s staff and Lestrade (Dennis Hoey) – who is also around to keep an eye on things will figure it all out. And this time they’ll resolves everything in under an hour.

I like some of the dialogue. But once again, the ridiculously short runtime means there’s no real character or narrative development. And it’s too bad, considering this is the next to last film.

The film makes the best use it can of the confines of the setting and the short script, and it has some fun moments – Watson’s discussion on curry is pretty fun. Watson is a bit goofy in this one, though he also has a physical moment at the end of the film. And the story also outfits him with an old friend, Major Duncan-Bleek (Alan Mowbray).

But it doesn’t take a trained eye to see the constraints of the budget, and the fact that the train when glimpsed in motion is nothing more than a model.

And the villain of the piece. Well since Moriarty seems to be no more, they had to come up with another diabolical evil genius. Someone named Colonel Sebastian Moran. And despite a couple of red fishes, and some bad accents, its easy to figure out who the culprit is.

That being said, I enjoyed this one a little more than Pursuit to Algiers, that’s for sure.

Next time, I finish my time with this version of Holmes and Watson and they will be Dressed to Kill.