Dressed to Kill

Dressed to Kill (1946) is the black-and-white Sherlock Holmes mystery you can watch online on iFILM, directed by Roy William Neill. Basil Rathbone returns as the detective, with Nigel Bruce as a blustering Dr. Watson.

The trail starts inside Dartmoor prison and leads to three ordinary music boxes. Hidden in their tune is the spot where stolen Bank of England printing plates are stashed, and the convict who knows it keeps the secret locked away. Once the boxes scatter to unsuspecting buyers, those buyers begin turning up dead. Holmes has to read the melody before the thieves finish working down their list.

This was the end of an era — the fourteenth and final entry in Universal's Rathbone-and-Bruce run, all wrapped up in a tight 76 minutes. It trades spectacle for a clever puzzle and the easy 1940s rapport between its two leads. Stream Dressed to Kill (1946) online on iFILM.