Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror starts with the revelation that 1940's war-torn London is having it's airwaves hijacked by the Nazi's who broadcast sinister, boasting & fear inducing radio messages from Germany, these broadcasts have become known as 'The Voice of Terror'. The British 'Intelligence Inner Council' decide they can't let these broadcasts continue & Sir Evan Barham (Reginald Denny) takes the unusual step of calling in the worlds foremost detective Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone), an idea the rest of the council is not happy about but go along with it. Together with his trusty assistant Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) Holmes sets about unmasking the voice of terror & the ulterior motivations behind it. Holmes has little to go on until one of his scouts named Gavin (Robert Barron) is murdered on his doorstep, Holmes locates Gavin's girlfriend Kitty (Evelyn Ankers) & persuades her to help. As Holmes gets closer to revealing the voice of terror attempts are made on his life & on those of the council, Holmes feels the answers lie a lot closer to home than in Germany...
Directed by John Rawlins Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror was the third out of fourteen films to star the duo of Rathbone & Bruce as Holmes & Watson. The script by Robert Hardy Andrews, Lynn Riggs & John Bright is based on the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel 'His Last Bow', running for about an hour the film moves along at a nice pace & is never boring or dull but the war time propaganda is there for all to see. This isn't really the sort of thing I want in a Sherlock Holmes mystery, it overshadows the story somewhat & the notion that Holmes foils a Nazi plan to invade Britian while the entire ministry of defence can't is a little silly to say the least. I also felt that the plot was a bit predictable, I'm not usually very good at guessing how these mysteries turn out but I was pretty much spot on with this one, both who did it & why. Inspector Lestrade is absent from this particular adventure while the usual closing speech by Holmes is present & correct.
Director Rawlins piles on the war time propaganda & patriotism, he keeps reminding us how great a nation Britain is & how horrible the Nazi's are, I really would have preferred the film to concentrate on Holmes as a central character more. Apart from a Gothic Church setting at the end there isn't any real horror overtones as is usually the case with Holmes. He doesn't give the film much style & it is somewhat forgettable. The footage of the (model) train crashing at the beginning is taken from The Invisible Man (1933).
Technically the film is good, the black and white photography is perfectly adequate & as a whole the film is generally well made with nice production values although some of the special effects are somewhat dated & that fight in the warehouse lacks any real enthusiasm from anyone involved. The acting is OK but as one would expect some of the lesser cast members are somewhat wooden.
Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror is a pretty good mystery film, it's not the best Holmes ever as I found the story a bit predictable & the wartime setting just didn't feel right, but I think it's still just about worth a watch all the same.
Directed by John Rawlins Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror was the third out of fourteen films to star the duo of Rathbone & Bruce as Holmes & Watson. The script by Robert Hardy Andrews, Lynn Riggs & John Bright is based on the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle novel 'His Last Bow', running for about an hour the film moves along at a nice pace & is never boring or dull but the war time propaganda is there for all to see. This isn't really the sort of thing I want in a Sherlock Holmes mystery, it overshadows the story somewhat & the notion that Holmes foils a Nazi plan to invade Britian while the entire ministry of defence can't is a little silly to say the least. I also felt that the plot was a bit predictable, I'm not usually very good at guessing how these mysteries turn out but I was pretty much spot on with this one, both who did it & why. Inspector Lestrade is absent from this particular adventure while the usual closing speech by Holmes is present & correct.
Director Rawlins piles on the war time propaganda & patriotism, he keeps reminding us how great a nation Britain is & how horrible the Nazi's are, I really would have preferred the film to concentrate on Holmes as a central character more. Apart from a Gothic Church setting at the end there isn't any real horror overtones as is usually the case with Holmes. He doesn't give the film much style & it is somewhat forgettable. The footage of the (model) train crashing at the beginning is taken from The Invisible Man (1933).
Technically the film is good, the black and white photography is perfectly adequate & as a whole the film is generally well made with nice production values although some of the special effects are somewhat dated & that fight in the warehouse lacks any real enthusiasm from anyone involved. The acting is OK but as one would expect some of the lesser cast members are somewhat wooden.
Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror is a pretty good mystery film, it's not the best Holmes ever as I found the story a bit predictable & the wartime setting just didn't feel right, but I think it's still just about worth a watch all the same.