
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon was the first film in
the Rathbone/Bruce series to be directed by Roy William Neill, and also the
first with Dennis Hoey as Lestrade. The film was originally titled "Sherlock
Holmes Fights Back." The credits at the beginning state that it is based on Conan
Doyle's story "The Adventure of the Dancing Men." The only thing that Conan
Doyle's story and this film have in common is that Sherlock Holmes broke a code made up of
stick figures ("dancing men"). Whereas the Conan Doyle story concerned the
murder of an English gentleman by a gangster from Chicago (who used the code to
communicate with his ex-girlfriend, now the gentleman's wife), the film "Sherlock
Holmes and the Secret Weapon" concerns Professor Moriarty's attempts to get his hands on a
revolutionary new bomb site developed by a Swiss scientist, Dr. Tobel. The story takes
place during World War II.
In a Swiss restaurant an old bookseller (Sherlock Holmes
in disguise) sits down with two
men from the Nazi Gestapo and talks to them about capturing Dr. Tobel for
the Führer. The Nazis are expecting Tobel to leave his house
with the old bookseller, so Tobel's two servants, disguised as the bookseller and Tobel, leave, luring the Gestapo away. Thus the way is clear for Holmes and Tobel
to escape back to England with Tobel's bomb site.
When Tobel and Holmes arrive at 221B Baker Street,
Holmes calls Sir Reginald Bailey about the bomb site testing. Holmes asks Watson to keep an eye on Tobel
while he meets with Sir Reginald. Although Holmes has warned Tobel that he
isn't safe, Tobel doesn't seem to believe it, or care. Watson falls asleep
and Tobel leaves to visit his girlfriend Charlotte Eberli.
While at Charlotte's apartment, Tobel makes a curious
drawing of dancing men. He puts it into an envelope asks Charlotte to
deliver it to Holmes if anything should happen to him. As he leaves the
apartment he is assaulted, but a nearby policeman rescues him. When Tobel returns to Baker Street, Holmes demonstrates his
cleverness at deducing that Tobel has been with a woman. He asks Tobel
not to disobey him any more.
The next morning, Tobel demonstrates his bomb site. Sir Reginald
is thrilled and wants to begin production immediately. Tobel will not
give up the secret, however. He offers the bomb site to the British government but
insists on supervising manufacturing himself; no one else will know the
secret. He does not want police watching
him because it will attract attention. The government
complies with Tobel's wishes because he is Swiss and under no obligation to
give the bomb site to the British.
Tobel divides his bomb site into four parts, each of
which is meaningless without the
others, and gives them to four scientists with instructions to reproduce
his own part in quantity. No one but Tobel knows who has the four parts;
these are the names written in the "dancing men" code. Then Tobel
mysteriously disappears.
When Holmes learns that Tobel is missing, he visits Charlotte
Eberli, and she gives him Tobel's envelope. It
contains the message "We meet again, Mr. Holmes!" Charlotte is
puzzled and tells him about the dancing men. She says no one has been in
the apartment except an electrician who had "eyes like a snake." Holmes knows that the
"electrician" was in reality Moriarty.
In the guise of a murderous lascar who was once in
Moriarty's employ, Sherlock Holmes tracks down Moriarty in Angel's Court. |
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Moriarty: |
My men have instructions to bring anyone here who inquires
for me. They haggle while I watch. An admirable disguise by the way; it
fooled them completely. Of course it didn't fool me. |
Holmes: |
I never intended that it should. I meant only that it
should bring us face to face.
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Moriarty: |
Just like old times, eh?. a battle of wits, of superior
intellects. I may say I have been expecting you since I made off with your
precious Dr. Tobel. |
Holmes: |
And his code. |
Moriarty: |
Ah, yes, and his code. But valuable as your doctor and his
code are to my business, I think my main interest in this affair is the
chance it gives me to battle with you again. |
To eliminate Holmes, Moriarty
forces him to get into the false bottom of a sea chest, which then will be
dumped overboard from a ship as soon as it's out of sight of land.
Lestrade and Watson, who are outside
keeping watch notice two men are staggering under the weight of
the sea chest, and stop them, rescuing Holmes. 
Having learned that Moriarty plans to sell the bomb site to the
Nazis, Holmes returns to Charlotte Eberli's apartment to find some
clue to the "dancing men" message, which would reveal the names of the
four scientists who have parts of the bomb site. He takes the tablet
upon which Dr. Tobel wrote his message, and is able to make the message
appear on the second sheet by soaking the page in a chemical solution.
Watson recognizes the symbols as an alphabet substitution code. Holmes explains that
the code is more complicated than that. He's able to decipher the first three names
and addresses, but the fourth one doesn't fit the code. Moriarty has
also broken the code for the first three names, and murdered those
scientists. Holmes manages to break the code for the fourth name before
Moriarty. By the time Moriarty's gang
gets to Frederick Hoffner's house, Holmes is there in disguise; they
kidnap Holmes and bring him to Moriarty. Moriarty tells Holmes that, since
he didn't get the crucial fourth part of the bomb site, he will sell Tobel to Germany instead.
Moriarty gloats that he will kill Holmes and that no one
will be able to find him, not even Scotland Yard. As they sit and discuss what method of execution
Moriarty will use on Holmes, Holmes offers his own suggestions.
"Gas, poison, bullets. I assure you, Professor, were
our positions reversed, I should have something more colorful, more
imaginative to offer. . . . You didn't trap me here. I came here because I
wanted to, to prevent your getting Hoffner. And all you can do in return
is to commit ordinary murder, to relieve your sense of frustration."
Holmes suggests that he would place Moriarty on an operating
table, and draw off his blood, drop by drop until Moriarty dies. So that's
exactly what Moriarty decides to do to Holmes.
Meanwhile Watson and Lestrade are on the trail. The real
Hoffner attached a leaky can of luminous paint to the undercarriage of
Holmes' abductors' car, and it has left a trail of paint spots on the road. They
follow the spots to Moriarty's lair, and rescue Holmes just in time.
Everyone in Moriarty's gang is captured, but Moriarty
accidentally falls through a trap door while trying to escape, and is
apparently killed--again. (Moriarty was apparently killed at the end of
"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes;" he resurfaces in "The Woman in Green"
and plunges to his apparent death at the end of that film as well.) 
At the end of the film, as Holmes and Watson watch the
take-offs of planes equipped with the new bomb sites, Watson remarks,
"Well, this little island is still on the map." In his closing
patriotic speech characteristic of these wartime Sherlock Holmes films,
Holmes responds with a quote from Shakespeare: "This fortress built
by Nature for herself . . . This blessed plot, this earth, this realm,
this England" (Richard II, Act II, Scene 1).
The "Dancing Men" code in the Conan Doyle story
"The Adventure of the Dancing Men" was a simple
alphabet-substitution code in which each letter of the alphabet was represented by a
different stick figure. Holmes needed several messages in code in order to decipher it,
and some of the letters were guessed at. (Holmes would say they were logical
deductions.) He explained it to Watson and Inspector Martin, who were amazed.
In the film, Dr. Tobel wrote important information in "Dancing Men" code on a
single sheet of paper and made it more complicated than the simple alphabet-substitution
code, believing that only Holmes would be able to solve it. (Moriarty was able to solve it, too.)
Holmes hardly had to think
about the code. He just looked at the figures and started calling out letters. Even the
simple alphabet-substitution code isn't THAT simple, and cannot be broken with only one sample. The Conan Doyle story was more realistic and
believable.
In spite of the incredible code-solving, the film is
suspenseful and very entertaining. Rathbone enjoyed the opportunity to wear
several disguises: a Swiss bookseller, a suspicious-looking "wharf rat," and
a bearded scientist. The scenes between Rathbone and Atwill are especially
engaging. Atwill is positively fiendish as Moriarty.
In The Films of Sherlock Holmes, Chris Steinbrunner
and Norman Michaels state: "A baffling bit of casting in Sherlock Holmes and
the Secret Weapon was the use of splendidly saturnine Henry Daniell, . . .
here in the brief role of a Scotland Yard man in the final car pursuit of the
Professor." (The Films of Sherlock Holmes, by Chris Steinbrunner and
Norman Michaels, Citadel Press, 1978, page 99.) I watched the final car pursuit scene carefully and didn't see
Henry Daniell. Although it's difficult to see all the bit players' faces
clearly, I do not believe Daniell was one of them. The
Internet Movie Database claims to have a
complete list of cast and crew for this film, and Daniell is not listed as part
of the cast.
More pictures on Page
Two.
Cast
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Credits
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Basil
Rathbone............... |
Sherlock Holmes |
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Production Co. .............. |
Universal |
Nigel Bruce..................... |
Dr. Watson |
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Producer.......................... |
Howard Benedict |
Kaaren Verne................. |
Charlotte Eberli |
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Director........................... |
Roy William Neill |
Lionel Atwill................... |
Prof. Moriarty |
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Screenplay...................... |
Edward T. Lowe, |
Dennis Hoey.................. |
.Inspector Lestrade |
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W. Scott Darling, |
Edmund Hartmann |
William Post, Jr. ............ |
Dr. Franz Tobel |
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Cinematographer............ |
Lester White |
Holmes Herbert.............. |
Sir Reginald Bailey |
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Editor............................... |
Otto Ludwig |
Mary Gordon.................. |
Mrs. Hudson |
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Music Composer........... |
Frank Skinner |
George Burr MacAnnan |
...Gottfried |
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Stock Music................... |
Richard Hageman, |
Paul Fix............................ |
Mueller |
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Hans Salter |
Harry Cording................ |
Jack Brady |
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Music Director............... |
Charles Previn |
Leyland Hodgson......... |
R.A.F. Air Officer |
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Sound Director.............. |
Bernard Brown |
Henry Victor................... |
Frederic Hoffner |
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Sound Technician......... |
Paul Neal |
Harold de Becker........... |
Peg Leg |
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Art Director.................... |
Jack Otterson |
Vicki Campbell............... |
Aviatrix |
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Assoc. Art Director...... |
Martin Obzina |
Paul Bryar....................... |
Waiter |
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Costumes....................... |
Vera West |
Rudolph Anders (credited as Robert
O. Davis).............................. |
Braun |
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Set Decoration............... |
R.A. Gausman,
Edward R. Robinson |
Philip Van Zandt............ |
Kurt |
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Harry Woods................. |
man |
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Gerard Cavin................... |
Scotland Yard Man |
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Guy Kingsford............... |
Policeman |
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George Eldredge............ |
Policeman |
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Michael Mark................. |
agent disguised as bum |
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John Burton................... |
bit part |
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Leslie Denison............... |
bit part |
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James Craven................. |
Second Officer at test |
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Note: Sherlock Holmes and the
Secret Weapon is one
of the four Sherlock Holmes films that is in the public domain. That means
that anyone can legally produce and sell a DVD of this film. Consequently,
it's easy to find cheap DVDs of Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon. But these cheap ones
are also cheap quality. The links above are for the digitally remastered,
high-quality DVDs produced by MPI Home Video. Don't waste your money on
anything else!
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