Dressed to Kill (1946 film)

John Davidson, a convicted thief in Dartmoor prison (played by an uncredited Cyril Delevanti) hides the location of stolen Bank of England printing plates inside three music boxes (each of which plays a subtly different version of "The Swagman"). The boxes are sold at a local auction house.[1]

When Dr Watson's friend Julian 'Stinky' Emery, an avid collector, pays Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson a visit and tells them about a strange robbery in his house the previous night, in which someone stole a music box, similar to the one that he had bought at the auction house for two pounds. Later that night, Stinky is murdered and the other music box is stolen, and Holmes and Watson realize that someone is willing to kill to obtain the three music boxes. When Holmes and Watson go to the house of the people who bought the second music box, they find it has also been stolen.[2]

Sherlock Holmes is able to buy the third music box, and asks Scotland Yard to track down the suspects. Later it is discovered that the Inspector who had been tracking the suspects has been murdered. Holmes and Watson soon crack the code of the music box and discover the numbers on the keys correlate to letters of the alphabet. Unfortunately they are only partially able to decode the whole message, because the suspects have the other two music boxes.

When Holmes discovers his flat has been ransacked in an attempt to find the third music box, he notices a cigarette with a distinct type of tobacco. Holmes tracks down the lady (Hilda Courtney) who bought the tobacco and confronts her. While Holmes is confronting her he is ambushed, tied up and led to a warehouse and left with poison gas filling the room. Back at Holmes and Watson's flat, Hilda Courtney steals the music box from Dr. Watson. Holmes escapes from the warehouse, narrowly escaping death, and returns to the flat where Watson tells Holmes that the music box has been stolen. While talking to Holmes, Watson cracks the code for the location of the five pound engraving plate, when he tells Holmes about a quote from Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Hilda Courtney and her gang decipher the code, leading them to Dr. Samuel Johnson's house, now a museum. While Courtney is stealing the plates, hidden behind a book shelf Holmes ambushes them and Scotland Yard officers arrest Courtney and her accomplices before they can get away, and the plates are returned to the Bank of England.

• Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes
• Nigel Bruce as Dr. John H. Watson
• Patricia Morison as Hilda Courtney/Charwoman
• Edmund Breon as "Stinky" Emery (as Edmond Breon)
• Frederick Worlock as Colonel Cavanaugh (as Frederic Worlock)
• Carl Harbord as Inspector Hopkins
• Patricia Cameron as Evelyn Clifford
• Holmes Herbert as Ebenezer Crabtree
• Harry Cording as Hamid
• Leyland Hodgson as Tour Guide
• Mary Gordon as Mrs. Hudson
• Ian Wolfe as Commissioner of Scotland Yard
• Anita Sharp-Bolster as the Schoolteacher on a Museum Tour
• Cyril Delavanti as John Davidson (uncredited)
• Harry Allen as William Kilgour (uncredited)
• Topsy Glyn as The Kilgour Child (uncredited)

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• Dressed to Kill at IMDb
• Dressed to Kill at the TCM Movie Database
• Dressed to Kill at AllMovie
• Dressed to Kill at the American Film Institute Catalog
• Dressed to Kill is available for free download at the Internet Archive