Film Review
The film in which Sherlock Holmes utters the immortal line "put it away, Watson"
and has Watson reciting American
colloquialisms to make himself better understood in the United States
clearly isn't going to be the most sober entry in the series, but
amidst the silliness and obvious wartime propaganda there's plenty of
fun to be had. Holmes's deductive powers are put to good use as
he unravels a mystery that may well have been conceived by his creator,
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, and the only thing that is obviously wrong is
the location, which is a clumsy and unnecessary attempt to bolster the
popularity of the series in America.
On the plus side,
Sherlock Holmes in
Washington is well-scripted, well-directed, imaginatively shot and offers some solid
performances. George Zucco plays the bad guy again - he had
previously crossed swords with Holmes as Professor Moriarty in
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
(1939) - aided and abetted by Henry Daniell, who would subsequently
play Moriarty in
The Woman in Green
(1945). Alas, by this stage, only five films into the
series, Dr Watson has been well and truly reduced to a figure of fun -
Holmes's comedy sidekick, who is a million miles from the thoughtful
and helpful ally that Conan Doyle created to assist Holmes in his fight
against crime. You can easily imagine that, by the time the
series reaches its conclusion, Watson will be wearing a big red nose,
complete with a full clown's apparel, and performing hilarious
pratfalls in every scene. Is that a writer I can hear spinning in
his grave?
© James Travers 2009
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Roy William Neill film:
The Pearl of Death (1944)
Film Synopsis
When a British secret agent named Alfred Pettibone disappears on a
train bound for Washington D.C., Sherlock Holmes is called in to
investigate. Pettibone was the courier for vital state documents
from the British to American governments and calamity would ensue if
these were to fall into the hands of a foreign power. Visiting
the home of the missing agent, Holmes discovers that he reduced the
documents to microfilm, which he then concealed inside a match
folder. On his arrival in Washington with his associate Dr
Watson, Holmes learns that, just before he was kidnapped, Pettibone
managed to pass the match folder to a young woman who is about to get
married. Unfortunately, Holmes makes this deduction too late, and
the woman also disappears...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.