Review of Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942) by Anna N — 06 Oct 2007

Holmes smuggles a scientist out of Nazi Germany and into Britain because he wants to sell a new bomb-scope to the government. How utterly absurd, but the Brits need some new secret weapon to crush the Krauts. When he arrives in London he is promptly snatched from under the careless supervision of Doctor Watson. The culprit is none other than Moriarty (even though he clearly died in an earlier Rathbone/Bruce adventure).

There's plenty of the usual Holmes atmosphere (heightened by the black and white photography), double-crosses and cunning within the plot but the 'modernisation' of Holmes in a 20th century setting just does not and will not ever fit. The patriotism of it all just made me roll my eyes too many times. Especially at the end when Holmes does the now totally overused 'This other Eden, this England' Shakespeare quote. And I bet Moriarty returns even though his off-screen 'death' sounded pretty definite.

Fun, but certainly no classic.