Keeping the Holmes Fires Burning

Chris Hallam reveals how Sherlock Holmes did his bit to defeat the Nazis

- Chris Hallam

The months leading up to the outbreak of World War Two saw 20th Century Fox release two new films starring Basil Rathbone as the great Baker Street detective, Sherlock Holmes, and Nigel Bruce as his loyal sidekick, Dr Watson. Though far from the first screen adaptation of a Holmes adventure, The Hound of the Baskervilles, released in March 1939, did mark a definite turning point, in that for the first time, the drama had a clear Victorian setting.

With the original stories still written relatively recently, all previous Holmes screen adaptations had simply updated the action to the present day. For this film, however, Holmes and Watson's exploits on Dartmoor were specifically set in 1889 (a period then still within living memory) and such conventions as Holmes’ deerstalker and his “elementary, my dear Watson” were introduced to the Holmes legend for the first time.

The second film, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, shifted the action on to 1894. This time, there is one glaring historical anachronism. At one point, a disguised Holmes sings I Do Like to Be Beside the Seaside, a ditty not written until 1907. Most viewers were probably too distracted to notice, however. The film was released on 1 September 1939, the same day Germany invaded Poland. Britain was at war just two days later.

Rathbone and Bruce continued to play the characters on radio. By the time Universal Pictures took on the franchise in 1942 and started making the films again, the United States was at war, too. With the world riven by global conflict, it was felt continuing to base the great detective’s adventures in the past might risk making them seem irrelevant.