MusicChat It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

CrawlerChunky In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

Curapedi I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Kimball Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

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.

mark.waltz Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes once again crosses swords (or at least gunfire) with Professor Moriarty, or at least the actor who played the role several years before, villain extraordinaire, George Zucco. In modernizing Holmes, the setting is switched to modern day London, ultimately leading Rathbone and Nigel Bruce's Dr. Watson to Washington DC where they seek to protect an important document from getting into Nazi hands. By integrating the Holmes stories with current events, the writers made the character not only timely but eternal, and other writers have followed suit in putting detectives of certain eras in modern settings to make them more relevant. In Holmes' case, it's a first visit to the land of baseball and apple pie, where a shot of the Lincoln memorial sets the theme for democratic ideals, always worth fighting for to preserve. Ironically, Rathbone and Bruce are decked out in their period costumes while everybody else is in modern dress. In addition to the villainy of Zucco, there's also the prickly Henry Danielle as another nasty Nazi and veteran character actor Bradley Page, here a reporter rather than the American criminals he usually played. Zucco shows up as the proprietor of a Washington D.C. antique shop (with Ian Wolfe as his well spoken but suspicious assistant), reminding me of Conrad Veidt and Judith Anderson as Nazis who ran an auction shop in "All Through the Night". Of course, in keeping with the pro democracy propaganda, Rathbone ends the film with a little speech on the values of freedom, followed by the theater's promotion of war bonds as money lent, not spent.

alexanderdavies-99382 "Sherlock Holmes in Washington" isn't as bad as some fans make out. For once, the supporting cast don't have to put on their lamentable Cockney accents, as the plot is based in America mostly. Basil Rathbone is very settled as Holmes and his approach is much more natural than Jeremy Brett's. George Zucco is outstanding as the villain, those coal black eyes that could hold their own in the never- ending hell. Henry Daniell is also effective as another villain of the film. The story plays more like an Espionage plot and it works well. The middle section of "Sherlock Holmes in Washington" is rather weak with an unnecessary diversion from the plot. However, the film quickly improves. I found Nigel Bruce's clowning around to be rather irksome but it's not the actor's fault. It is the writers who are to blame. Anyone who is familiar with Nigel Bruce as Watson, might forever identify him as a buffoonish but lovable and loyal companion to Holmes. However, you only need to see Nigel Bruce in the 2 period films of Sherlock Holmes made by "20th Century Fox" and to listen to those excellent radio episodes to know that he could play Watson as the serious character of the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. I do like "Sherlock Holmes in Washington" but it would be overshadowed by the Holmes films from 1944.

mrbill-23 Once again Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce deliver the goods in "Sherlock Holmes in Washington." I like this film from 1943.... A great cast that includes Henry Daniell, George Zucco and some other fine actors of note......If I have any gripe at all about the series of 'Holmes' films that Rathbone and Bruce made is, they are all between 60 to 75 minutes long.... To me, that means rather short... I'd prefer longer scripts and films that run at least 80 to 90 minutes long.... For the 1940s, that is a normal run......I love these old-time co-stars like "Henry Daniell, George Zucco, Lionel Atwill & Dennis Hoey." All them guys were pluses for the series of 'Holmes' films produced from 1939 to 1946...... Good quality there...MR.BILL