Review of Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) by Brad G — 03 Apr 2011

"Good old Watson. The one fixed point in a changing age. But there's an East wind coming all the same. Such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less. And a greener, better, stronger land will be in the sunshine when the wind is cleared.".

This closing quote from His Last Bow is perhaps the best moment in "The Voice of Terror" or "Sherlock Holmes Defeats the Nazi Invasion" as it could more accurately have been called. Holmes and Watson have been well modified and adapted to a wartime setting. Watson chides Holmes when he goes to collect his deerstalker from the hatstand: "Holmes, you said you wouldn't." Unfortunately it's let down by some bad acting, particularly by Evelyn (W) Ankers who has clearly never been anywhere near the East End of London where her character's supposed to be from. There's a lot of arguing between Intelligence officers who start and stop talking at exactly the same moment. Thomas Gomez is very good though, in an intense Nazi kind of way, in his film debut. The biggest fascination of the film for me is Basil Rathbone's hair - I've never seen anything quite like it anywhere else.