There is a black and devious Sherlock Holmes mystery in The Woman in Green (1945) in which severed fingers, hypnosis and blackmail are used to direct Holmes and Watson towards one of the darkest encounters they will close with Professor Moriarty. The full length movie of Woman in Green has become a free movie of the cinematic classics and a movie in the public domain, and it is now seen in numerous print editions as well as in HD upgrades.
Movie Background Table
Movie Cast Table
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Basil Rathbone | Sherlock Holmes |
| Nigel Bruce | Dr. John Watson |
| Hillary Brooke | Lydia Marlowe (the woman in green) |
| Henry Daniell | Professor James Moriarty |
| Paul Cavanagh | Sir George Fenwick |
| Matthew Boulton | Inspector Gregson |
| Eve Amber | Maude Fenwick |
| Frederick Worlock | Dr. Onslow |
| Coulter Irwin (Tom Bryson) | Williams, hypnotized ex‑soldier |
| Sally Shepherd | Crandon, Lydia’s maid |
| Mary Gordon | Mrs. Hudson |
| Percival Vivian | Dr. Simnell (club doctor) |
| Olaf Hytten | Norris, Fenwick’s butler |
Full Plot Summary
London is gripped by fear. Murder has struck four young women in rapid turnaround with each being found in possession of her right forefinger being cleanly cut. Scotland Yard headed by Inspector Gregson suspects that this is a madman just like Jack the Ripper but there is no definite pattern in linking the victims. As the people mount pressure Gregson resorts to the help of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
Holmes is puzzled and is interested at first. The fact that the fingers are missing implies that there is some form of symbolism or that it has been posed intentionally and not under a state of madness. At the same time we get to know Sir George Fenwick, a decent widower, who has secretly been dating and courting a sexy lady named Lydia Marlowe. Sir George is one evening hypnotized by Lydia and her unknown partners after a passionate night in Lydia’s flat. Later he wakes up in his own bed in a bewildered state to find a severed female finger in his coat pocket.
Sir George assumes that he is a sleepwalking murderer and he is desperate and withdrawn. His daughter Maude Fenwick observes his weird conduct when she finds him digging something in the garden one night. Once he goes she excavates the hole and discovers a human finger, which she carries to Baker Street. She gets to the rooms of Holmes and Watson, without knowing that she was trailed by one of the henchmen of Moriarty.
Holmes analyses the finger and relates to the new murders. He is worried about the safety of Maude and in turn sends Watson to retrieve Gregson and they proceed to the Fenwick home. And there in his study they find Sir George dead, seemingly shot close quarters. The fake evidence is meant to convince him to be guilty or to commit a suicide, though Holmes is confident that he is silenced to safeguard a bigger conspiracy.
Examining, the detective starts to suspect that his old rival professor Moriarty, who was believed to have been hanged in Montevideo, had survived. On their way back to Baker Street, a false emergency phone call makes Watson go astray by telling him that a woman is collapsing, as she feeds her bird. When Watson leaves, Moriarty casually walks out of the shadows in the sitting room of the house belonging to Holmes and it turns out that the call was a trick to dispose of Watson.
The two rivals exchange verbal insults. Moriarty boasts of the finger murders to Holmes and gives a hint that Watson will not be killed this time, implying that there have been previous close calls. Upon his departure, Holmes finds himself observing that a window shade which had been closed in an empty flat on the other side of Baker Street is raised. Having felt that there is a sniper, Holmes dispatches Watson to check the empty apartment.
In this position, Watson gazes back at their windows and to his horror can see what seems to be Holmes reading his favorite chair and then being shot by a rifleman in the unoccupied flat. However, as Watson runs down the steps, Holmes takes him in stride through the vacant room, and tells him how it was done: he had set a bust of Julius Caesar in his arm-chair to make the assassin shoot him, and rely on the likeness of his figure in outline. Gregson captures and takes away the rifleman, a hypnotized ex-soldier called Williams but later in the night he is killed and tied up and dropped at the door of Holmes, another loose end.
Trying to reconstruct it, Holmes explains the scheme of Moriarty. The accomplishants are: the professor and Lydia, his accomplice.
Killing women and chopping off their forefingers.
Indoctrinating wealthy, single men that they were the ones who did the murders.
Blackmailing these men with the help of the planted fingers and false memories with big sums of money.
Taking advantage of the terror and the shame of their victims to silence them.
On his part, Holmes chooses to spy in the ring by finding himself close to Lydia. He meets her at an invitation-only Mesmer Club which is dedicated to hypnosis and suggestion, and realizes that she was the one he had seen the night he was at dinner with Sir George. Feigning that he is enamored, he lets her lure him into a dialogue, in the mean time seeking indications of possession by Moriarty.
Lydia summons Holmes to her apartment. When she goes there, she gives him a drink tainted with a particular type of drug that is supposed to be called cannabis japonica, a fictional exotic substance that is utilized to provide a greater effect of hypnotic influence. Holmes seems to become sleepy and then soft under her eyes. Moriarty comes in with henchmen and to be certain that Holmes is beneath him, he commands one of the thugs to stab Holmes with a knife on the arm. Holmes does not wince and this makes Moriarty believe that he is under hypnosis.
Moriarty is a confident person and he dictates the fate of Holmes. He tells Holmes to write a suicide note, and then to go out on the balcony and take a step off the ledge to his death. Holmes carefully writes the note and walks to the window with Lydia and Moriarty observing them as they relish their apparent victory.
But when it comes to the point of need, Watson and Scotland Yard men burst in. Lydia and the henchmen are grabbed, but Holmes is standing back on the ledge as he is in complete control. Holmes turns out to be actually never hypnotized; he had previously taken a drug that numbed him to pain, and enabled him to act in a trance-like manner but be mentally awake. He allowed Moriarty to hold onto the fantasy so that he can bring forward the whole blackmail process to light.
During the mishap of arresting, Moriarty escapes to the rooftop. He tries to get away by jumping off the building of Lydia onto an adjoining roof holding onto a drainpipe on the way. His weight causes the pipe to rip open and Moriarty plummets to death in the alleyway below. Gazing down Holmes asks in a dry tone that it is better than he deserved, thus bringing to a rather grim end this chapter of their rivalry.
Genre and Key Themes
The Woman in Green is a combination of mystery, crime, horrors vibe, and a psychological thriller in the traditional context of Sherlock Holmes.
Key themes include:
Hypnosis and control
Hypnosis becomes a weapon in the film and it is revealed that suggestion can be used to rewrite history, ruin a reputation and even convert an otherwise innocent individual into an accomplice.
Respectability and blackmail.
Moriarty is very specific in the type of men she approaches, rich, respectable men who will die before they are caught. The social status is a weakness that he takes advantage of.
Perception vs. reality
The story keeps on playing with what the characters believe they are viewing and what is actually being observed, including hypnotically altered memories, the bust-in-the-chair decoy, etc.
Mental duel Holmes vs. Moriarty.
There is very little physical movement; the actual struggle is mental and psychological as every man attempts to outsmart and outmanoeuvre the other out of traps, tricks and mental stress.
Fear as a tool
The cut-off fingers, the anonymous threats and the fake evidences are all meant to create paralyzing fear and later cash in on it by blackmail.
The Woman in Green (1945) Full Movie Watch and Download
Watch The Woman in Green (1945) on Internet Archive:
🏛️ See Also
Woody Woodpecker in Pantry Panic (1941) – Classic Winter Survival Cartoon Full Movie
The Last Time I Saw Paris (1954) – Elizabeth Taylor Romantic Drama Classic | Free Public Domain Full Movie
Sabotage (1936) – Alfred Hitchcock London Terror Thriller | Free Public Domain Full Movie
Love Laughs at Andy Hardy (1946) – Mickey Rooney Postwar College Romance | Free Public Domain Full Movie
Movie Review
The Woman in Green has occasionally been distinguished as one of the more sinister and noir-filled books of the Rathbone-Bruce Sherlock Holmes series. Basil Rathbone handles Holmes with his usual razer-sharp accuracy in a mixture of cold analysis and flashes of sardonic wit, particularly when he is opposite Henry Daniell as Moriarty. Daniell makes the professor cold and restrained, not as flamboyant as previous versions and all the more chilling.
Nigel Bruce repris his regular role of Dr. Watson: clumsy here and there, good-natured, and faithful. Although this comic Watson is at odds with the more competent doctor portrayed by Conan Doyle at times, his interactions with Rathbone are one of the largest sources of appeal of the series. The presence of Hillary Brooke to Lydia Marlowe is classy, mysterious, and she convincingly plays romantic interest, chilly hypnotist, and accomplice of Moriarty.
Director Roy William Neill, whose films directed most of the Universal Holmes movies, maintains the pace at a high level throughout the brief length of the film. London streets clouded with fog, dark interiors and the spooky Mesmer Club help to create a light gothic feel which borders on horror without forsaking the basic detective format. The hypnosis and the sniper decoy sequences through Baker Street are particularly well-acted and have been popular among the fans.
On the negative note, The Woman in Green 1945 movie squeezes a relatively intricate plot into less than 70 minutes, and, as such, certain elements of the blackmail process and its victims are still vague. The gimmick with the cut finger, though memorable, is a more macabre image than a psychological symbol that is not fully developed. And, like most of the middle-40s B-mysteries, some of the supporting characters are thinly drawn.
The critics and fans of the show consider this particular public domain Holmes work to be its strongest example because they identify three main elements which include its atmospheric design and its portrayal of Moriarty and its smart implementation of hypnosis. The complete The Woman in Green movie exists in the public domain which allows for its distribution through both low-quality copies and high-quality restored versions making it an accessible entry point for new viewers who want to experience the RathboneBruce period.
Movie Tags
The Woman in Green full movie, The Woman in Green 1945 film, Sherlock Holmes Rathbone Bruce, Moriarty hypnosis plot, severed finger murders, London serial killer mystery, Roy William Neill Holmes film, Universal Pictures Sherlock Holmes, Hillary Brooke Lydia Marlowe, Henry Daniell Professor Moriarty, blackmail and hypnosis story, classic black and white mystery, public domain movie, free classic movie, 1940s Sherlock Holmes thriller