Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942)

Fresh and Exciting

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

I really like this film. It is filled with forgotten actors and actresses that are great in their roles. I especially enjoy Thomas Gomez as the head bad guy. I have no problems with the updating of the stories to modern times. I enjoy Rathbone and Bruce interacting together in their roles.I know a lot of people, especially critics constantly criticize Nigel Bruce. I find he is fine in his role. You can see that in this series Holmes and Watson care about each other. Dr. Watson also shows some observations that pivotal to the case. You can also see that holmes and watson have a sense of humor. They are not afraid to show it. I think these are three dimensional. I have watch the Brett series, (and others), but they seem to be distant to each other. The only other portrayals that i think comes this close in Plummer and Mason in Murder by Decree.

It's 1942 and the inner council of the British War Cabinet are struggling to 'keep calm and carry on' thanks to The Voice of Terror, a German radio broadcast that announces Nazi acts of sabotage in mainland UK, striking fear into the heart of the British. Who can the top brass call upon in these troubled times? Why, Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and his best bud Watson (Nigel Bruce), of course!During the Second World War, every man was expected to do his part for queen and country, even Britain's greatest Victorian detective—which is why this third adventure for Holmes and Watson features a contemporary setting, allowing the pair to lend their incomparable deductive abilities to thwart the Third Reich. Sadly, while this thinly disguised propaganda no doubt rallied the nation back in the day, now it all comes across as rather crude, with characters pausing mid-action to give rousing patriotic speeches and even the lowly criminal class displaying some bulldog spirit to bash the Nazis.While Voice of Terror is commendable stuff as far as helping to build morale is concerned, it's far from the most satisfying outing for Conan Doyle's creation, lacking the appeal, atmosphere and intrigue of Rathbone's earlier on-screen cases.

To anyone who has been - and is - an avid fan of Conan Doyle's detective, this movie is hardly inspiration. Although created in typical B&W during the cash-strapped war years, like most of the Basil Rathbone works, it is deplorably underfunded. And there really is no excuse for this. As a flagrant piece of nationalist propaganda it should have enjoyed the same support as some of the other crowd-rousers, like Coward's 'In Which We Serve' for example.However - it didn't. And instead, a mediocre best is made of almost entirely studio-based set pieces, and a mish-mash script that owes little or nothing to Conan Doyle except passing inspiration. Here, they are trying to unmask a 5th-columnist passing intelligence to those beastly Nazis. The two stars do their best, of course - though I must say that Rathbone's hair appears decidedly ill-groomed for the star.In my DVD there's an interesting commentary about restoration and how some adventures have been partly or completely lost. It helps to explain the occasional flaws in sound and vision, though nothing in my copy detracted from the experience.It's an old, very cheaply and not terribly well made attempt to bring the famous duo into a WW2 placing. It just about succeeds, but certainly no cigar.

"Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror" is an entertaining installment in the Rathbone/Bruce series, the first film of the series made for Universal. There's some rubbish at the beginning of the film letting us know that Sherlock Holmes is ageless, etc. to explain why he's fighting the Nazis all of a sudden. I'm not a big fan of Sherlock Holmes in spy mode, not in the films (which are still entertaining enough, but don't quite feel right), and not in the Arthur Conan Doyle stories either, including the one on which this is loosely based and directly quotes for its (superb) final scene, "His Last Bow". That particular story was a World War I story, however. This film runs for only 65 minutes, a good running time for this story, any longer would have stretched things out a bit too much. There's some typically fun sleuthing from Holmes, the performances are all good, and the photography and direction are excellent. All in all a high quality production that isn't fully to my taste but succeeds at what it's doing.