Plot: Sherlock Holmes is asked by a war comitee to locate a group of Nazi saboteurs, who regularly announce their exploits on a pirate radio program hosted by "The Voice of Terror".
Comments: Finally got to see the first of the Sherlock Holmes films starring Basil Rathbone set in the 1940s. The series' first two films (this one would be the third) placed Holmes in the Victorian era, as it should be, but at this point somebody had the idea of moving Holmes to "present day" and make him fight the Nazis.
And well... it's a pretty lame movie, to be fair. The problem, though, is not the central idea. In the stories by Conan Doyle Holmes often fought against invisible powers, specially Moriarty's organisation, so it shouldn't be a problem to pit him against the Nazis as far as the plot is contained in a small scale. However, the writing this time around is extremely weak. Many scenes lead nowhere, and we are not allowed to follow Holmes' train of thought to solve the "mystery". There aren't many clues out there, and when Holmes finally rounds up the suspects in a derelict church and proceeds to unmask them, the proceedings are to similar to a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat.
Good things? Well, the chemistry between Rathbone and Nigel Bruce is intact, although Holmes is here more bitter than in the previous outings. And the modern setting almost works. There's still too much of a contrast between Holmes' room at Baker Street and the rest of the locations, but at least the modern settings allow Holmes to become a bit more of a hard boiled detective, with the help of a modern hat -Watson objects to the classical one in a funny bit- and sets almost entirely covered in shadows. His visit to a pub in the harbor area to gather information is one of the best scenes in the movie, and so is another scene later where he is confronted by a Nazi spy who emerges out of the shadows gun first.
The following Rathbone / Holmes film is "The Secret Weapon", and although it retains the Nazi element and the "modern" setting at least the writers had the good sense to have Moriarty back. I hope that makes it a far better film than this one.
