Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) allows arrogance to get in the way of common-sense, disarming a museum's alarm system to highlight its inadequacies, and giving criminal mastermind Giles Conover (Miles Mander) the ideal opportunity to make off with a legendary pearl in the process. Conover is quickly apprehended, but not before he has had a chance to stash the valuable gem inside a plaster Napolean bust.

In order to restore his tarnished reputation, Holmes sets out to locate the missing gem, following a trail of broken bodies and smashed crockery left in the wake of Conover's murderous henchman, a massive brute known as The Hoxton Creeper (Rondo Hatton), who is also looking for the pearl, snapping the back of anyone unlucky enough to have purchased one of the ornaments.

I have mixed feelings about The Pearl of Death: as perversely satisfying as it is to see London's greatest sleuth make a complete ass of himself for a change, I find it hard to accept that Holmes's mistake, a result of his pomposity, ultimately results in several innocent people being snapped like a twig by The Creeper; likewise, I struggle with the absurd level of buffoonery displayed by both Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) and Inspector Lestrade (Dennis Hoey)—while admittedly funny, it's extremely hard to swallow that they could really be that stupid.

In the end, it is Rondo Hatton's Hoxton Creeper that qualifies this film as essential viewing: born with the disfiguring condition acromegaly, which causes enlarged features, Hatton's ominous physical presence makes him a truly menacing foe, one guaranteed to send a chill down the spine (immediately before snapping it!).