Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes once again crosses swords (or at least gunfire) with Professor Moriarty, or at least the actor who played the role several years before, villain extraordinaire, George Zucco. In modernizing Holmes, the setting is switched to modern day London, ultimately leading Rathbone and Nigel Bruce's Dr. Watson to Washington DC where they seek to protect an important document from getting into Nazi hands. By integrating the Holmes stories with current events, the writers made the character not only timely but eternal, and other writers have followed suit in putting detectives of certain eras in modern settings to make them more relevant. In Holmes' case, it's a first visit to the land of baseball and apple pie, where a shot of the Lincoln memorial sets the theme for democratic ideals, always worth fighting for to preserve.
Ironically, Rathbone and Bruce are decked out in their period costumes while everybody else is in modern dress. In addition to the villainy of Zucco, there's also the prickly Henry Danielle as another nasty Nazi and veteran character actor Bradley Page, here a reporter rather than the American criminals he usually played. Zucco shows up as the proprietor of a Washington D.C. antique shop (with Ian Wolfe as his well spoken but suspicious assistant), reminding me of Conrad Veidt and Judith Anderson as Nazis who ran an auction shop in "All Through the Night". Of course, in keeping with the pro democracy propaganda, Rathbone ends the film with a little speech on the values of freedom, followed by the theater's promotion of war bonds as money lent, not spent.
Ironically, Rathbone and Bruce are decked out in their period costumes while everybody else is in modern dress. In addition to the villainy of Zucco, there's also the prickly Henry Danielle as another nasty Nazi and veteran character actor Bradley Page, here a reporter rather than the American criminals he usually played. Zucco shows up as the proprietor of a Washington D.C. antique shop (with Ian Wolfe as his well spoken but suspicious assistant), reminding me of Conrad Veidt and Judith Anderson as Nazis who ran an auction shop in "All Through the Night". Of course, in keeping with the pro democracy propaganda, Rathbone ends the film with a little speech on the values of freedom, followed by the theater's promotion of war bonds as money lent, not spent.