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.
AaronCapenBanner
Roy William Neil directed this entry, not directly based on an original story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The setting is still WWII, and a British agent carrying a vital document is kidnapped by Axis powers, but are unable to locate the document. Sherlock Holmes(played by Basil Rathbone) & Doctor Watson(played by Nigel Bruce) are called in to investigate, and discover the document had been put on microfilm, and currently resides inside a matchbook, though they are the only ones who know that, and must race against time to save an innocent woman being held captive as well. Incongruous entry has Holmes more of a secret Agent than private detective, and is otherwise a bit too silly.
lugonian
SHERLOCK HOLMES IN WASHINGTON (Universal, 1943), directed by Roy William Neil, marks the fifth entry of the popular series and third installment in the newly updated format starring Basil Rathbone (Sherlock Holmes) and Nigel Bruce (Doctor Watson). Once again there's assurance for its movie going audience this is the Holmes and Watson of modern times by lifting the original titled opening from SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE VOICE OF TERROR (1942) to read, "Sherlock Holmes, the immortal character of fiction created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is ageless, invincible and unchanging. In solving significant problems of the present day, he remains - as ever - the supreme master of deductive reasoning." Since Tarzan can go to New York (TARZAN'S NEW YORK ADVENTURE (MGM, 1942)) and/or every other movie sleuth venture around the world solving individual murder cases, why not Sherlock Holmes leaving his natural surroundings of England? This is what Holmes and Watson get to do for their next assignment, coming to America and visiting our nation's capital, Washington, D.C. Though Holmes doesn't get to have tea with the president in the White House lawn, he does, however, have opportunities getting a glimpse of many of its landmarks while doing what he does best, deductive reasoning.The 12 minute prologue opens at the London Terminal Transatlantic Airport where an assortment of passengers come on board an airplane bound for New York City, one of them being Sir Henry Marchmont (Gilbert Emery), a British diplomat who, unknowingly, is being carefully observed by William Easter (Henry Daniell). Arriving at the last moment before the plane's departure is the seemingly drunken, accident prone John Grayson (Gerald Hamer) who seats himself across from Easter. While on the Washington Express bound for Washington, D.C., Grayson, senses great danger as he notices Easter and his spies, Cady (Bradley Page) and Howe (Don Terry), keeping close eye contact on him. While conversing with other passengers, Grayson permits himself by lighting a cigarette for Nancy Patridge (Marjorie Lord) before placing a match folder with well concealed microfilmed documents inside her purse. Moments after a sudden blackout, Grayson is abducted. Because Grayson has never reached his destination, Mr. Ahrens (Holmes Herbert) of the British Empire, assigns Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and his associate, Doctor Watson (Nigel Bruce) to Washington, D.C. Aside from being in constant danger themselves, Holmes and Watson attempt to solve Grayson's disappearance, some murders, and locate the now missing Nancy Partridge, believed to be connected with Grayson's missing document by Richard Stanley (George Zucco), a local antique shop owner.For the first time in the series, the story reportedly doesn't use any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "Sherlock Holmes" stories as its sources, but borrows in areas from its previous installment, SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SECRET WEAPON (1942). Though the opening titles credit Bertram Milhauser for its original story, the screen treatment repeats the idea of subject matter, this time a London lawyer turned secret agent, falling victim of enemy spies, and Holmes called to locate a secret document before reaching enemy hands. While Holmes in SECRET WEAPON finds its ringleader to be his arch rival, Professor Moriarty (Lionel Atwill), he matches wits here with the an earlier Moriarty, portrayed by George Zucco (THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (20th-Fox, 1939)) and future Moriarty, Henry Daniell (THE WOMAN IN GREEN, 1945). Such a missed opportunity by not having Zucco reprise his most memorable role, considering how his new character, using the frequent saying of "Permit me!" to contain enough ingredients of the sinister Moriarty. For classic moments, be on the lookout for Rathbone's most amusing guise of an eccentric art collector and Zucco's method of introducing the captured Holmes to his hostage Nancy: "Allow me to present Mr. Sherlock Holmes, the world's famous detective. He's here to rescue you."SHERLOCK HOLMES IN WASHINGTON, the most Americanized of the Rathbone-Bruce installments, contains familiar American types including Thurston Hall (Senator Henry Babcock); Edmund MacDonald (Detective Grogan); Clarence Muse (George, the train waiter); and John Archer, Nancy's fiancé, Peter Merriam, lieutenant in the United States Navy. There's also some fine insight centering upon Doctor Watson's interest in America customs as drinking milk shakes, chewing gum and reading the comics and sports pages from newspapers. Though Sherlock Holmes smokes a cigarette or two, which he's done before in prior modern day London installments, he does get to recite a then current speech by Sir Winston Churchill. Overall, how that match cover passes in and out of enemy agents' hands without them knowing about it, should rank this another winning entry. And yes, Mary Gordon returns briefly as Holmes' landlady, Mrs. Hudson, for one brief scene.Distributed to video cassette by Key Video (1988) and two decades later onto DVD, SHERLOCK HOLMES IN WASHINGTON, along with other Rathbone/ Bruce installments, premiered December 26, 2009, on Turner Classic Movies as part of the cable channel's tribute to the legendary detective. Permit me in concluding the next installment being SHERLOCK HOLMES FACES DEATH (1943) by adding to the pun, "When didn't he?" (**1/2)
Robert J. Maxwell
It's not an offensive entry in the series but I couldn't find much new in it except that it's set in a rear-projected Washington, DC. There are some stock footage shots of the Capitol Building and the Washington Monument when Holmes arrives. "Magnificent," he comments. And at the end he gives the expectable pep talk. "Yes, Watson, democracy. And some day these two great nations will walk under the same flag, holding hands, indulging in the occasional kiss, while under the bright blue skies of freedom from tyranny." Something like that.A British courier carrying microfilm in a matchbook is waylaid and murdered and his killers search for the tiny microfilm with the secret document or something. It hardly matters.The matchbook changes hands a number of times and beautiful young Marjorie Lord in swept up in the chase, chloroformed or etherized, then menaced in some unspecified fashion by one of the goons working for George Zucco, playing Heinrich Hinkel, the notorious German agent. I swear I didn't make that name up. Another goon, a little higher up the scale as far as elegance is concerned, is the nasal Henry Daniell, he of the square but flabby jaw and thin lips. He was Lord Wolfingham who buckled swashes with Errol Flynn in "The Sea Hawk." All through the final scene, involving an ordinary shoot out in a fake antique store, I kept wondering what Zucco's brawny subordinate had done to Marjorie Lord to try to get her to talk about the hidden document. I couldn't get it out of my mind. What's happening to me, Doc? Zucco was almost always an up-tight heavy in cheap films of the period. That includes a Sherlock Holmes venture in which he was Professor Moriarty. But I was impressed here with his aplomb, his sense of comme il faut. How easily he lights his pipe during a duel of wits with Holmes.The other surprise was watching Basil Rathbone doing his best to imitate a pouf while haggling with the owner of the antique shop over the price of a broken vase, and whether it was from the Ming dynasty or the Tang. It wasn't nearly as successful as Humphrey Bogart's similar riff in the rare book shop in "The Big Sleep." Altogether pretty routine stuff.
