Sir Henry Baskerville (Lawrence Grossmith) invites Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Wontner) and Doctor Watson (Ian Fleming) to stay with him at Baskerville Hall during the Barchester races as he hasn’t seen them since Holmes cracked the Hound of the Baskervilles case some twenty years earlier. Meanwhile a bookmaker called Miles Stanford (Gilbert Davis) stands to lose £15000 if the favourite Silver Blaze wins the Barchester Cup so he pays a visit to Professor Moriarty (Lyn Harding) and Sebastian Moran (Arthur Goullet) to ask for their help.

Holmes and Watson arrive at the Baskerville Estate near Dartmoor and meet up with Sir Henry, his daughter Diana (Judy Gunn) and her fiancée Jack Trevor (Arthur Macrae). They soon receive a visit from Inspector Lestrade (John Turnbull) and Silver Blaze’s owner Colonel Ross (Robert Horton) who reveal that the horse has been kidnapped from the nearby Kings Pyland stables and that his groom has been killed (body discovered by fellow stablelad Simpson played by Ronald Shiner) and the trainer missing. Jack Trevor is initially suspected as he visited the stables the night before, has multiple debts and his betting book shows a hefty bet wagered on the Barchester Cup second favourite Desborough.

Holmes and Watson set off to Kings Pyland stables to investigate and soon discover that the groom was poisoned with opium and that the horse was led away over the Moors where they find the dead body of Silver Blaze’s trainer James Starker (Martin Walker). Holmes follows the horses’ tracks further to the Capleton stables run by trainer Silas Brown (D. J . Williams) and locates a disguised Silver Blaze in one off the boxes - Holmes requests Silas to keep the horse safe and to make sure it lines up for the Barchester Cup the next day.

Back at Kings Pyland and later Barchester Hall, Holmes learns from various other clues that Jack Trevor could not be responsible for the kidnap and a telegram in Straker’s pocket leads him to suspect that Moriarty is behind the plot. This theory is confirmed when Moriarty and Moran shoot at the car carrying Holmes, Watson and Lestrade on their way to the station and run it off the road.

Then comes the day of the Barchester Cup with Holmes, Watson and Lestrade, guests in the box of owner Colonel Ross, all cheering on Silver Blaze who has made the line-up despite the shenanigans. The favourite looks all set to win the feature race but Moran disguised as a cameraman shoots an air gun at the jockey and sends him crashing to the turf leaving the second favourite Desborough to take the Cup.

Holmes had been watching the end of the race through his binoculars and had witnessed the shooting – later in the members bar he suspects bookmaker Stanford is somehow involved, as he stood to lose a fortune on Silver Blaze, so gets Watson to tail him back to London. Sure enough, Stanford heads back to Moriarty’s London hideout to pay for services rendered and Watson is discovered snooping outside by Moriarty’s henchman Bert Prince (Ralph Truman) who then takes him hostage. Just before Moriarty sends Watson to his last walk of doom, Holmes and Scotland Yard turn up in the nick of time to arrest the villains and save the day.

Silver Blaze, directed by Thomas Bentley and released by Twickenham Studios, was loosely based on the Arthur Conan Doyle short story “The Adventures of Silver Blaze” which was first published in 1892. This was to be Arthur Wontner’s last film playing Sherlock Holmes and his fifth in total, the first being “The Sleeping Cardinal” back in 1931, before being replaced by Basil Rathbone. Silver Blaze was eventually released in the US in 1941 but renamed to “Murder at the Baskervilles” to capitalise on the success of Basil Rathbone’s 1939 rebooted film “The Hound of the Baskervilles”.

The racing scenes for the Barchester Cup were primarily filmed at Newbury racecourse and the train station behind the stands and parade ring can clearly be seen in several clips. However, there is one shot of the horses running down the home straight which looks very much like Lingfield to me with the jumps course on a cutaway to the left and the downhill bend and trees in the distance (Newbury being a flat track). Looking at a map of Lingfield raceourse from around the time (included in the movie stills below immediately after the shot in question) the jumps course can clearly be seen to the left and also the rails to the right showing where a separate course used to cut through the middle of the track just before the winning post. The race action itself is fairly engaging with the Colonel enthusiastically cheering on his horse and in addition the jockey falling off Silver Blaze just before the finish looks very authentic and painful. It was also nice to see Ronald Shiner appear as one of the grooms at Kings Pyland stables and he appears more than any other actor in all of the racing films I've reviewed.

This is probably the first racing film I have seen where the equine protagonist doesn’t triumph in the feature race but in the original book Silver Blaze did win the Barchester Cup albeit with his distinctive white markings covered in dye. That is just one of many differences between the film and book and I have to say the plot summary of the book sounds much more appealing than that which is portrayed in the film. In fact, I would have probably enjoyed reading the book more due to the poor sound quality, dark camerawork and weak dialogue in “Silver Blaze”, especially when compared to the colourful “Wings of the Morning” released a few months earlier. The London theatre audiences of the time agree with me as they “ruthlessly mocked the film’s stilted melodramatic touches, ironically cheered the hero and jeered the villain, and laughed throughout it’s more earnest passages” (Picturegoer, 14 August 1937).

Sir Henry Baskerville: "Holmes is a creature of habit, he likes to bury himself in Baker Street and work out his problems with the aid of, oh I don’t know how many ounces of tobacco."

Jack Trevor: "Well I must say I would like to meet him, sounds a terribly brainy sort of chap, wonder if he’s any good at spotting winners."

Sir Henry Baskerville: "No, no, Holme’s hobby is spotting criminals James, I don’t think racing is quite in his province."