Leofwine_draca This above-average entry in the Rathbone/Holmes canon sees the normal procedure of adapting a story for the screen abandoned in favour of some wartime propaganda. Here, Holmes is up against an international ring of spies whose job is to transmit top-secret information to the enemy. Cooperation between the British and American sides is emphasised in this film and the propaganda makes it quite interesting to watch as a measure of the times. On top of that, it's got a cracking story too involving some missing documents which have fallen into the wrong hands. The plot twists and turns repeatedly as clues and events come and go; they've really packed a lot into the seventy minute running time.Rathbone and Bruce are excellent together as always, with Rathbone on top commanding form as a fearless Holmes who always manages to stay two steps ahead of the enemy. Bruce milks his comic value for all its worth as the culture gap between countries is played for laughs; we witness Watson discovering chewing gum and mulling over the newspapers while in America. A black porter also provides some comic relief, although of the borderline racist variety. Thankfully the bad guys in this film are played by excellent, menacing actors. Henry Daniell, who would later go on to be Moriarty in THE WOMAN IN GREEN, is an evil henchman. One look at his face and you can realise why they cast him repeatedly in this series - cruel is too kind a word for it.Horror fans will also enjoy the rather brief presence of George Zucco, star of countless B-movies in the '40s. Zucco plays the chief Nazi war criminal and has some excellent banter with Rathbone - the pair really bring out the best of their acting abilities in each other. Suffice to say, he makes for one of the finest villains in the long-running series, even if he doesn't get much in the way of screen time. Then there's the beautiful woman in peril; the delight of Holmes pretending to be a clumsy antiques expert as he infiltrates the enemy base; lots of peril (Holmes nearly gets a block dropped on him and almost dies as a result of a spring-loaded trap); a gun fight and plenty more. Add to this Bruce's excellent support, an amusing travelogue interlude where all of the capital's landmarks are helpfully pointed out, truly nasty baddies and, perhaps most importantly, a sense of fun, and this turns out to be an entertaining highlight of the series.

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.

BA_Harrison Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Watson (Nigel Bruce) are sent to Washington to retrieve a top secret document hidden inside a book of matches before it falls into the hands of an international spy ring led by evil German Heinrich Hinckel (George Zucco).The third in Holmes's rather tedious wartime adventures, this film is one of the weakest in the entire Rathbone/Bruce series with very little intrigue and not nearly enough suspense to sustain interest, even over a scant 71 minutes run-time. It's a full twelve minutes before Rathbone even appears on screen, even longer before he gets to Washington, and once in the capital of the good-old US of A, he's given a guided tour of the city, taking in all of its landmarks (this bit's more like a travelogue than a thriller).Finally, the action begins proper, but it's far from exciting stuff, with a clue leading Holmes' to trawl Washington antique shops in search of the bad guys' lair. Meanwhile, the matchbook is passed from person to person, all of whom are unaware of the secrets it contains, eventually landing in the lap of Hinckel, who also remains oblivious to the microfilm within. When Holmes at last arrives on the scene, he must try and get the matchbook from the evil German without giving the game away. Yawn!Little more than a flag-waving exercise for the allies during WWII, Sherlock Holmes in Washington marks an all-time low for the series; thankfully, this would be the last film to pit Rathbone's Holmes against the threat of the Third Reich, the great detective getting back to solving domestic crimes in his next outing.4.5 out of 10, rounded up to 5 for IMDb.

JoeKarlosi Serviceable third entry in the Universal series takes Sherlock (Basil Rathbone) and Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) to America where Holmes attempts to secure valuable documents being kept on microfilm after the man carrying them is murdered. Among the bad guys who'd like to get their hands on it are the reliable George Zucco (sporting an unusual head of hair for a change) and Henry Daniell. One rather tedious element involves the coincidental passing around of a mysterious matchbook, which always rather conveniently just manages to change hands. This film reportedly did not fare very well at the time and so from the next feature onward it was decided to drop the early formula Universal had employed; instead of featuring Sherlock Holmes as some sort of superhero who battles Nazi spies, they got him down to more traditional sleuthing. This approach was deemed more preferable by most fans of the legendary detective. **1/2 out of ****