Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943)

This movie is the proof that the world is becoming a sick and dumb place

A different way of telling a story

If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

This above-average entry in the Rathbone/Holmes canon sees the normal procedure of adapting a story for the screen abandoned in favour of some wartime propaganda. Here, Holmes is up against an international ring of spies whose job is to transmit top-secret information to the enemy. Cooperation between the British and American sides is emphasised in this film and the propaganda makes it quite interesting to watch as a measure of the times. On top of that, it's got a cracking story too involving some missing documents which have fallen into the wrong hands. The plot twists and turns repeatedly as clues and events come and go; they've really packed a lot into the seventy minute running time.Rathbone and Bruce are excellent together as always, with Rathbone on top commanding form as a fearless Holmes who always manages to stay two steps ahead of the enemy. Bruce milks his comic value for all its worth as the culture gap between countries is played for laughs; we witness Watson discovering chewing gum and mulling over the newspapers while in America. A black porter also provides some comic relief, although of the borderline racist variety. Thankfully the bad guys in this film are played by excellent, menacing actors. Henry Daniell, who would later go on to be Moriarty in THE WOMAN IN GREEN, is an evil henchman. One look at his face and you can realise why they cast him repeatedly in this series - cruel is too kind a word for it.Horror fans will also enjoy the rather brief presence of George Zucco, star of countless B-movies in the '40s. Zucco plays the chief Nazi war criminal and has some excellent banter with Rathbone - the pair really bring out the best of their acting abilities in each other. Suffice to say, he makes for one of the finest villains in the long-running series, even if he doesn't get much in the way of screen time. Then there's the beautiful woman in peril; the delight of Holmes pretending to be a clumsy antiques expert as he infiltrates the enemy base; lots of peril (Holmes nearly gets a block dropped on him and almost dies as a result of a spring-loaded trap); a gun fight and plenty more. Add to this Bruce's excellent support, an amusing travelogue interlude where all of the capital's landmarks are helpfully pointed out, truly nasty baddies and, perhaps most importantly, a sense of fun, and this turns out to be an entertaining highlight of the series.

With only a one picture hiatus in between ('Secret Weapon'), Universal revisited a plot element from "Sherlock Holmes and The Voice of Terror", in as much as the lead villain here was a German masquerading as an American antiques dealer. It's only slightly more credible in this story, since Heinrich Hinckel, posing as Richard Stanley (George Zucco) arrived in the U.S. in 1914 and could have assumed his new identity at any point along the way. In 'Terror', a German agent killed a British diplomat in 1918 and impersonated him for another twenty four years!! Sherlock Holmes was pretty reliable uncovering these impostors, but boy, did things have to fall into place for him to get there.In this story for instance, Holmes deduces that a secret document that originated in England with a British courier was placed on microfilm and hidden inside a matchbook cover. All this after visiting the British agent's home and investigating various articles laying around amid a treasure trove of collectors' items. Which by the way seemed rather suspect in itself; the agent's mother simply allowed Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Watson (Nigel Bruce) to snoop around her son's room for no other reason than they asked her to. Okay, she knew them when they arrived, but who does that really? Well there's some intriguing suspense with that matchbook cover, particularly when it shows up at a lavish engagement party attended by Stanley's main henchman William Easter (Henry Danielle) and his cohorts. It's done quite cleverly too, with the doo-dad skipping along from smoker to smoker and alighting on a handful of serving trays. Holmes is more than clever by half when he insists that the person who eventually has it doesn't even know it.The kicker for me in this picture was catching an old favorite in the lead female role. I've only seen Marjorie Lord as Danny Thomas's wife in the mid-Fifties TV series "Make Room For Daddy", so having her pop up here was kind of cool. Fortunately her kidnapping by the bad guys occurred off screen so you didn't have to watch her rolled up inside a rug. I imagine she survived the ordeal since Holmes solved the case, but it could have been a lot worse if he didn't know about the old 'sword inside a spring trap cabinet' trick.

A British agent carrying important secret documents is abducted en route from London to Washington, DC, and the papers go missing. Sherlock Holmes is called in to solve the case and retrieve the documents before they fall into enemy hands. "Sherlock Holmes in Washington," the third in Universal Studios's Holmes series, is a top notch entry. The dependable duo, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, fly to the United States and tangle with a pair of familiar foes. Both George Zucco, who played Moriarty in "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," and Henry Daniell, who was a member of the Council in "Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror," return to battle Holmes with wits and bullets over the stolen documents. Familiar names are not only before the camera, but also behind. Roy William Neill, an experienced director of silents and early talkies, directs the master sleuth for the second time, and his direction is sure and well paced. Although lacking the atmospherics of his work on the previous Holmes film, "Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon," cinematographer Lester White provided bright clear images, and stock footage of Washington and New York provide interesting glimpses of those cities during World War II.Rathbone is in fine form as Holmes; his authoritative manner commands attention whenever he appears on screen, and, although he has no opportunity for disguises, Rathbone avoids an expected stereotype when he mimics a fussy antique collector during his inquiry. Bruce shows Watson to be an avid sports enthusiast, who, like Charters and Caldicott, the quintessential Englishmen of Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes," dismisses world events in favor of team scores; when Watson arrives in Washington, his attempts to use American slang are an amusing aside. Also reminding viewers of Hitchcock is a clever scene that follows a book of matches from hand to tray to purse through a cocktail party. Thurston Hall, familiar from the "Topper" television series and numerous screen comedies, provides humorous support as Senator Henry Babcock, and Marjorie Lord, later Danny Thomas's wife in "Make Room for Daddy," plays Nancy Partridge, a young woman on the train to Washington.Despite a lackluster title, "Sherlock Holmes in Washington" is a first rate entry in the Holmes series at Universal. Despite working outside their familiar London milieu, Holmes and Watson adapt well to the U.S. With a good supporting cast, experienced direction, an intelligent original story by Bertram Millhauser, this entry in the series used the Wartime era to good advantage without heavy handed propaganda. However, bowing to patriotic necessity, Holmes delivers an inspirational quote by Winston Churchill to bring the film to a satisfying conclusion.

Not one of the best of the series like Hound of the Baskervilles, Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Scarlet Claw, but of the wartime-based Sherlock Holmes films Sherlock Holmes in Washington comes across as the best one. That is not to say the others were bad, Secret Weapon was fun and Voice of Terror had some good things too, though generally it was lacking and the, or one of the, weakest of the series. Sherlock Holmes in Washington can feel padded, particularly in the middle, the ending could have done with more punch and some of the propaganda is rather in-your-face(not as badly as Voice of Terror though). However, it is smoothly directed and photographed with evocatively rendered sets. The music is jaunty and atmospheric, the dialogue is generally thoughtful and the story has a good amount of mystery, suspense and fun. It is also very intriguing, and scenes like at the dinner party and Holmes in the antique shop are very well done. Basil Rathbone, apart from a very distracting hair-do, is wonderful as Holmes(regarding Holmes in movies he was without peer though second only to Jeremy Brett in general). Nigel Bruce is amusing as Watson, he can be too much of a blustering, bumbling fool in the series but it's not so bad here. George Zucco brings the right amount of menace for his villainous role despite him having too few scenes, while Henry Daniell is similarly creepy. The secondary roles of some talented character actors add to the fun too. Overall, a good entry, while not one of the best of the films starring Rathbone- the series works so much better in the Victorian era with the odd horror element amongst the suspense and mystery- it was the best of the ones based in the wartime. 7/10 Bethany Cox