Film Review
"This blessed plot" is how Sherlock Holmes concludes his second
patriotic outing for Universal Pictures, and if there is one thing this
film is not short of it's plot. There's enough of it to fill a
dozen thirty minute episodes, miraculously crammed into one eighty
minute feature.
Sherlock
Holmes and the Secret Weapon is a fast-moving noir-styled spy
thriller which, despite its tortuous and contrived plot, is one of the most enjoyable films in the series.
It even adopts a plot idea from one of Conan Doyle's original Sherlock
Holmes stories:
The Adventure of the
Dancing Men.
The film features the second showdown between Basil Rathbone's Holmes
and his villainous arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty, this time played by
Lionel Atwill, who had previously appeared with Rathbone in
The Hound of the Baskervilles
(1939). Naturally, the film doesn't waste time explaining how
Moriarty survived an apparently fatal fall from the top of the Tower of
London in
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
(1939), just as the subsequent film
The Woman in Green (1944) would
fail to account for how Moriarty survived his obvious demise in this
film. Apparently, if a villain is as evil and clever as Moriarty,
he can survive anything, even a recurring bashing on
The Goon Show.
Another semi-regular character in the series makes his first appearance
in this film: the slow-witted Inspector Lestrade, played by Dennis
Hoey. Presumably the idea of introducing another dim ally for
Sherlock Holmes (adding to the ranks of the slightly thick Watson and
simple Mrs Hudson) was intended to make Holmes appear even more clever
and sophisticated than he really was. As every politician knows,
if you want to look smart, surround yourself with idiots.
Certainly, the introduction of Lestrade of the Yard (it even rhymes)
does lighten the tone of the later films in the series, somewhat
needlessly.
© James Travers 2009
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Roy William Neill film:
Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943)
Film Synopsis
During WWII, Sherlock Holmes succeeds in smuggling Dr Franz Tobel and
his invention, the Bombsight, out of Switzerland, avoiding the Nazis
who are eager to get their hands on Tobel's creation. Safely
installed in London, Tobel agrees to allow the British to use the
weapon he has developed, providing he is allowed to take charge of its
manufacture. A few days later, Tobel mysteriously
disappears, but only after having left a coded message for Holmes to
decipher. The message contains the names and addresses of the
four inventors to whom Tobel has entrusted the manufacture of the four
components of his Bombsight. Holmes soon discovers that his old
enemy Professor Moriarty is also interested in acquiring the weapon, so
that he can sell it to the Nazis...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.