Sherlock Holmes And The Secret Weapon

Mori-Nazi!

Sherlock Holmes And
The Secret Weapon
USA 1942 Directed by Roy William Neill
Universal Blu Ray Zone B

Sherlock Holmes And The Secret Weapon is the fourth of the fourteen big screen adventure’s of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's popular literary sleuth to star Basil Rathbone as Holmes, Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson and Mary Gordon as their housekeeper Mrs. Hudson. So that would make it the second one in from when Universal took over the franchise and shifted it to a contemporary setting. This one was directed by Roy William Neill, who must have gelled pretty well with the principal actors because he would also go on to direct the remaining ten in this series of films.

I actually don’t think the direction on this one is as compelling as the previous installment, Sherlock Holmes And The Voice Of Terror (reviewed here), with its stark lightning, long held silent expressions and minimal musical scoring but, that’s not to say this one isn’t a great film in its own way. There’s a marvellous shot where one character is introduced playing the piano as a reflection in a close up of a mirror, for example, before the camera swings around away from the mirror and into the room itself... which is a nice, visually interesting way of doing it. Neill put together some great movies here and obviously cemented the reputation of this body of work for years to come. Despite the lack of accuracy to the source material, I still think these are, for my money, the most watchable Holmes movies ever committed to celluloid, that’s for sure.

Case in point, Sherlock Holmes And The Secret Weapon purports to be based on Conan Doyle’s The Dancing Men but, while the coded figures certainly take a front row seat in the proceedings, the story around them is mostly fabricated from original material. And once more it’s Holmes versus the Nazis, for the opening at least and then continuing to fight for the war effort less directly but no less effectively. The film starts off with Holmes in one of his many disguises in Switzerland... which is actually a pretty good disguise until Rathbone reveals himself to the audience... as he snatches a leading scientist away from the Nazis and gets him safely to London, England. The scientist has perfected the secret weapon of the title, a new bomb sight which will allow the UK and US planes to effectively target their weapons against the Germans. However, after the scientist has hidden the four parts of the invention with four different scientists, he is captured by Holme’s nemesis, Professor Moriarty, played in this one by Lionel Atwill. Moriarty can’t make the captured scientist talk so the rest of the film is a race against time as both Holmes and Moriarty hurry to decipher The Dancing Man code, to locate the names and locations of the four scientists before the other.

And, yeah, it’s a nice, fun movie with Rathbone and Bruce both showing off thier remarkable talents as one of the best loved duos in cinematic history... at least as far as I’m concerned. Bruce obviously excels at Watson who, by now, has lost any wit he showed in the very first movie and is much more the bumbling, incompetent side kick he mostly became known for in the part. But he does it so well and so charmingly that it’s impossible not to love him in the role. Rathbone also has Holmes captured perfectly and he excels equally at playing England’s greatest detective.

This installment also features Dennis Hoey playing his trademark role of Inspector Lestrade for the first of six times in the series. He’s not quite as dumb a sidekick as Watson in this one but it wouldn’t take long for the character’s IQ points to plummet as the series of movies progressed, if memory serves. Now, Lionel Atwill looks a little different, to my eyes, playing Moriarty. I could just about tell it was him but his face seems to be a little more changed, it seemed to me, to what I am usually seeing from the actor. He’s certainly up to the job, though... and the cat and mouse dialogue between Holmes and Moriarty continues... although Atwill seems to be playing the role in a more laid back manner than that of his predecessor in the role, George Zucco in The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes (reviewed here). Of course, 1942 was also the year Atwill was indicted before a jury for various incidents which occurred at a pornographic orgy that took place the year before in his home. After this the industry mostly shunned him although, he was still getting in some good work... until his death just four years later of lung cancer at the age of 61.

There’s an interesting comment from Atwill’s Moriarty in this, though and... I wonder if the censor missed it at the time. The films of that period couldn’t and were certainly not likely to mention Holmes fondness for a seven percent solution of cocaine injected into him to help his sleuthing abilities. However Moriarty certainly refers to it after Holmes devises his own death by slow draining of his blood, Moriarty quips, “The needle to the last, eh, Holmes?” Obviously, if you are unfamiliar with the literary depiction of the character, you would not realise this was a reference to Holmes drug habit so, they managed to sneak it in there for people ‘in the know’.

Once again, Moriarty falls to his supposed death in water (in a trap devised for Holmes or whoever followed him on his escape route) and the scientist and his invention is saved to help the war effort. And, of course, as in the last film, this one would end with Holmes making a short patriotic speech to remind audience members that the war they were fighting off screen was a worthwhile cause. In the last film the words had been culled from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s source story itself... here the lines are freely adapted from Shakespeare’s Richard II.

Once again, Sherlock Holmes And The Secret Weapon is another fine cinematic adventure for Holmes and Watson and I can only recommend it to pretty much anyone. And once again, Rathbone puts on some great disguises in the role, two of which may well fool you the first time around if you’ve never seen this one before. Make-up was always good at Universal (just think of those classic monster movies) and when Rathbone takes off his old Swiss bookseller make-up, in close up in a mirror in the early stages of the film, you can see just how much work has gone into the make-up to give a thoroughly convincing look. Great stuff and I will always gravitate back to these films at various stages of my life, I think.