JohnHowardReid Director: ROY WILLIAM NEILL. Screenplay: Bertram Millhauser and Lynn Riggs. Based on characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Original story: Bertram Millhauser. Director of photography: Lester White. Film editor: Otto Ludwig. Art director: Jack Otterson. Music director: Charles Previn. Music score: Frank Skinner. Associate producer: Howard Benedict.Copyright 24 September 1942 by Universal Pictures Co., Inc. No recorded New York opening. U.S. release: 30 April 1943. U.K. release: 8 February 1944. Australian release: 17 June 1943. 6,490 feet. 72 minutes.SYNOPSIS: This was the first Rathbone/Holmes film not based at least in part on a Doyle story. Holmes is trying to recover a document microfilmed and hidden in a matchbook by a British agent in the United States. The agent is killed, and the matchbook has been passed to another passenger on the train without her knowing what she is now carrying. Holmes is competing with Nazi agents also eager to recover the document.NOTES: Number 5 of the Rathbone-Bruce series.COMMENT: The Washington setting lent itself very well to Holmes' pro-Allies, anti-Axis, "hands-across-the-sea" patriotism propaganda messages, whilst the script was equally hackneyed.However, Rathbone and Bruce received excellent support in this episode from both a former (Zucco) and a future (Daniell) Moriarty. Although the screenplay had interesting moments, its story was somewhat similar to "Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon". Unfortunately, the script was nowhere near as involving or as adroitly and colorfully characterized as that previous film. This picture must, therefore, be classified as only an average series entry.

alexanderdavies-99382 "Sherlock Holmes in Washington" isn't as bad as some fans make out. For once, the supporting cast don't have to put on their lamentable Cockney accents, as the plot is based in America mostly. Basil Rathbone is very settled as Holmes and his approach is much more natural than Jeremy Brett's. George Zucco is outstanding as the villain, those coal black eyes that could hold their own in the never- ending hell. Henry Daniell is also effective as another villain of the film. The story plays more like an Espionage plot and it works well. The middle section of "Sherlock Holmes in Washington" is rather weak with an unnecessary diversion from the plot. However, the film quickly improves. I found Nigel Bruce's clowning around to be rather irksome but it's not the actor's fault. It is the writers who are to blame. Anyone who is familiar with Nigel Bruce as Watson, might forever identify him as a buffoonish but lovable and loyal companion to Holmes. However, you only need to see Nigel Bruce in the 2 period films of Sherlock Holmes made by "20th Century Fox" and to listen to those excellent radio episodes to know that he could play Watson as the serious character of the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. I do like "Sherlock Holmes in Washington" but it would be overshadowed by the Holmes films from 1944.

bkoganbing Purist fans of Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary detective Sherlock Holmes usually heap scorn and derision on Sherlock Holmes In Washington as it is not based in any way on one of Conan Doyle's stories. It is clearly an inferior product and I'm by no means a Holmes purist.But this was wartime and it would only be natural that world's most famous detective be called on to lend his services overseas when a British agent carrying a vital document disappears, but not before he passes it on to an unsuspecting Marjorie Lord on a train. Holmes and Watson go to America at the behest of British Intelligence to find out just what happened.Holmes and Watson dressed in their Victorian/Edwardian attire seem dreadfully out of place in wartime Washington, DC. Still with the keen intelligence that Holmes has and Basil Rathbone brings to the role, those enemies of democracy had no idea what they were dealing with.As a bow to current radio favorites, Thurston Hall plays a bloviating southern senator very much along the lines of Senator Claghorn from the Fred Allen radio show. Might have been even more interesting if Kenny Delmar who originated that character had been in Sherlock Holmes In Washington. Still Thurston Hall was quite good, possibly the best thing from this film.After some wartime propaganda films, the Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce Sherlock Holmes movies got back to some of Conan Doyle's stories as the material for the films. Good thing too.

ShootingShark When a British agent carrying vital war plans to Washington D.C. is kidnapped, the ace detective Sherlock Holmes flies in to investigate. Can he recover the missing document and apprehend the dastardly culprits ?This fifth film in the Rathbone-Bruce series is a strong entry with an excellent script by Lynn Riggs and Bertram Millhauser, featuring a perfect example of the MacGuffin as we follow the vital matchbook from person to person, cringing as it falls into the hands of the uncomprehending villains. Whilst the movie is padded a little with some pleasant stock footage of the US Capitol, the action moves swiftly along from some early machinations in London to a high-society party to a final showdown in an antiques shop. Rathbone is as effervescent as ever, Zucco and Daniell (both of whom played Moriarty in other films in this series) are suitably creepy as the heavies, and the whole enchilada is laden with thrills, laughs and scares. Trivia - Archer and Lord, who play the young couple, were real life husband and wife, and the parents of noted actress Anne Archer.