PURSUIT TO ALGIERS (1945)

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are supposed to be heading to Scotland for a fishing vacation. As they stroll through the nighttime city streets, chatting about the recent theft of the Duchess of Brockdale's emeralds, they are followed by mysterious men who drop coded messages which lead them to a meeting with the prime minister of Rovenia. The king has just been assassinated and his son Nikolas, who is in London, needs safe conduct back to his country. Plans are made for Holmes to fly to Algiers and from there to Rovenia, but there is no room for Watson, so he takes a passenger liner. On the ship, Watson hears news that a small plane has crashed on its way to Algiers, and he assumes Holmes is dead, but of course, he's not: having his own suspicions, Holmes has arranged for Nikolas to accompany him on the liner. The problem now is that practically everyone they come into contact with seems suspicious. There are two sneaky looking men skulking about, mumbling about a king; Sheila Woodbury, a singer who becomes flustered when she learns that Sherlock Holmes is on board, and who may have tried to push Nikolas, posing as Watson's nephew, overboard in the fog; Agatha Dunham, an older socialite and health nut who has a revolver and wants to throw a big dinner party on the ship; Sanford, a porter who seems to be skulking about everywhere. When the ship makes an unscheduled stop in Lisbon, three more men get on: the sinister looking Mirko, the nondescript Gregor, and the burly mute Gubec. Holmes catches Mirko in the act of trying to throw a knife through his window and slams Mirko's hand in the porthole, injuring him. Eventually, all is sorted out, strange behaviors are explained, villains are thwarted, and even the stolen emeralds from the first scene of the movie are recovered.

The tenth film in the Universal series, after THE WOMAN IN GREEN, is often looked down on as the worst of the batch, but I'm not sure why. The main thing I have against it is that it is less a detective story than a bodyguard story: Holmes is hired not to do detecting but to guarantee safe delivery of a person. Of course, he does do some detecting eventually, but the mysterious tone of many of the previous films is gone here, except for a couple of scenes set in fog. There is no crime mastermind, like Moriarty or the Spider Woman, to contend with. There is no Lestrade or Mrs. Hudson. However, there is the enclosed area of the ship, which lends this some of the cachet of a train movie. There is also Martin Kosleck, who made his name playing Nazis in the 1940s, who is very good as Mirko. Marjorie Riordan, as Woodbury, gets to sing, as does Nigel Bruce (Watson) who gives a brief but effective performance of "Loch Lomond."  Rex Evans (Gregor) and Morton Lowry (Sanford) are fine; Gubec is played by Wee Willie Davis, a pro wrestler. Of course, Rathbone is Rathbone (pictured with Bruce), soldiering on even though he was certainly no longer challenged by the role. Watson relates the unpublished Holmes tale of The Giant Rat of Sumatra (a tale mentioned but untold in the Doyle canon), though we only hear the beginning and end. There is a nice twist that leads to a satisfying ending. The closing line is not patriotic or inspirational, but fun. Watson is upset that he was kept in the dark about a secret, and Holmes explains that Watson has too honest a face to keep such a secret, then says, "If you ever decide to take up another profession, never think of becoming an actor!" [DVD]