Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942)

Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) is a propaganda spy crime mystery Nazi wartime suspense serial movie thriller partially composed in the film noir style and the first of the Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes films to be updated to the mid 20th Century and made a crucial cinematic aspect of the war effort of the 1940s.

The handling of the transformation is managed smoothly, and when Holmes leaves for the case he forgoes and eschews and is generally reminded by Watson that he is not to wear the deerstalker hat, and so instead he thereby adopts a more plain hat of the hour, for the simple reason that while the deerstalker was largely associated with the detective, it was sufficiently our of date an item of apparel that it would have made little sense and looked unreal and something of a silliness in the heated moments of 1942.

The voice of terror itself is based upon the exploits of the incredible Nazi known as Lord Haw Haw, a disembodied voice whose real name was William Joyce, and who did actually terrorise the British people, despite what propagandists and revisionists may say, with his well-informed on-the-ground information concerning the minutiae of local matters, in every remote corner of the British Isles.

Lord Haw Haw was however more of a phenomenon and less of an actual person, for the insidious idea shown in this incredible third Holmes outing from Rathbone 'n' Bruce was a real idea, and in fact was as live in the cinema-goers minds as any news reel.

Presumably this played extra well in Britain, where the action was taking place.

The period stretching from the late 1930s into the early 1940s has been characterized by the authors of Universal Horrors as nothing less than “the true heyday of the detective film,” an era in which nearly every major studio maintained at least one ongoing series built upon the exploits of a celebrated fictional sleuth. 

Universal Pictures, though long a purveyor of atmospheric mystery, had curiously refrained from producing a proper detective series. Meanwhile, 20th Century-Fox sought to capitalize on the enduring appeal of Sherlock Holmes by pursuing new adaptations, only to find negotiations with the Conan Doyle estate unyielding. The estate, zealous in its guardianship of the canon, demanded that all scripts adhere strictly to Doyle’s original narratives, disallowing any expansion into novel cinematic adventures. The rigidity of this stipulation brought talks to an impasse.

Warner Bros., sensing opportunity, expressed its own interest in adapting “The Speckled Band,” with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce envisioned as Holmes and Watson. Yet this prospective venture collapsed beneath the legal morass of copyright entanglements. 

The Hollywood Reporter went so far as to announce that difficulties in untangling the “complicated copyright setup covering Holmes yarns” had rendered the project untenable. The trade journal further noted that Bob Jackson had initially been attached as screenwriter, though his exact contributions to the final incarnation of the film remain opaque.

It was not until early 1942 that Universal secured a decisive arrangement with the Conan Doyle estate, paying the substantial sum of $300,000 for the rights to the character. As the authors of Universal Horrors observe, with the partial exception of MGM’s Thin Man cycle, detective pictures tended to be relegated to the status of programmatic second features, produced quickly and with little distinction. 

The Holmes series at Universal, however, was granted somewhat more comfortable budgets and a less frantic schedule, affording the films an aura of seriousness amidst the studio’s otherwise industrial approach. Production commenced on May 5, 1942, under the provisional title Sherlock Holmes Saves London. The picture was entrusted to John Rawlins, the only entry in Universal’s Holmes corpus not to be directed by Roy William Neill, whose hand would later define the series’ visual and tonal identity.

In a newspaper article of 14 September 1939, the radio critic Jonah Barrington of the Daily Express wrote of hearing a gent "moaning periodically from Zeesen" who "speaks English of the haw-haw, damit-get-out-of-my-way variety". Four days later, he gave him the nickname 'Lord Haw-Haw'. He wrote scathingly:

I imagine him having a receding chin, a questing nose, thin yellow hair brushed back, a monocle, a vacant eye, a gardenia in his buttonhole. Rather like PG Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster…

The voice Barrington heard is widely believed to be that of Wolf Mittler, a German journalist, whose almost flawless English accent sounded like that of a caricature of an upper-crust Englishman. However, Mittler made just five or six broadcasts and was quickly replaced by other speakers, leading to uncertainty over whom Barrington had meant. 

Some British media and listeners used the name "Lord Haw-Haw" for all English-language German broadcasters, although other nicknames, such as "Sinister Sam", were occasionally used by the BBC to distinguish among obviously different speakers.

It is a fair splash for the reboot of the Holmes world, although not high class in its flat out layering of the worst of Holmes cliches. Eleven minutes into this hoo haa and we have already heard the phrase 'Elementary, my dear . . .' two times. We have also seen the most ridiculous piece of detection anywhere when Holmes points to one of the war minister's shoes and identifies that he has come that day from Sevenoaks, because on his shoe is a piece of a type of clay only found in Sevenoaks.

It is certainly possible that Sevenoaks could be associated with a distinctive local clay, though whether such a clay would be unique in a strict geological sense is another matter.

Sevenoaks lies in Kent, within the Weald region of southeast England, which is geologically complex and long known for its varied clays. The area contains formations such as the Weald Clay, a Lower Cretaceous deposit, as well as Gault Clay and Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation with interbedded clays. Historically, these clays were exploited in Kent and Sussex for brickmaking, pottery, and tile works.

Local variations in mineral content, colour, and texture could easily give rise to a clay considered distinctive to Sevenoaks itself. For example Weald Clay in some districts produces a heavy, bluish-grey clay that fires to a reddish brick.

Certain local ironstone inclusions might make Sevenoaks clay visually or physically different from clay just a few miles away and brick and tile works often marketed their products as made from “local clay,” which tied the material’s identity to a specific town or parish.

So while Sevenoaks may not have a clay deposit geologically exclusive to that one location, it is entirely plausible that local industries or geologists might identify and refer to “Sevenoaks clay” as a distinct variant of a larger clay formation, particularly if it had unique working properties or coloration.

Noir style and mood for sure in Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942)

If that could even be a possibility it would be more likely Holmes would have mentioned this insanely rare clay by name, but since he did not, and since this has been bothering me now for nearly fifty years, we shall simply have to conclude that this is a poor item of creative scriptwriting, as glaring today as it was in '42.

Every frame of Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) carries the shadow of conflict, the need for unity, and the burden of propaganda. This was the first of the Universal cycle of Holmes features with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, a new chapter after the two more lavish Twentieth Century-Fox productions of 1939. 

Universal, inheriting the actors but abandoning the Victorian trappings, transplanted Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective into the turbulent present. The result is both fascinating and uneasy. The film is not faithful to Doyle, nor does it claim to be. It draws only a few motifs from “His Last Bow,” while inventing a tale of Nazi espionage and subversive broadcasts that speak directly to 1942 anxieties. It is an historical curiosity, but also a work of atmosphere, of noir-inflected photography, and of striking performances that keep it alive long after its overt jingoism has become dated.

The gesture of wrenching Holmes from the gaslit streets of Victorian London into modernity is striking. The credits themselves remind us that Holmes is “ageless, invincible, and unchanging.” The figure of deduction is presented not as a relic, but as a timeless weapon that can be deployed against any adversary. The move was pragmatic. Universal wanted to use the detective’s fame to sell war propaganda. But there is also a metaphysical undertone. 

To declare Holmes timeless is to insist that reason itself, rationality embodied, remains the strongest defense against chaos. The decision was controversial, and even now it can strike viewers as artificial. Yet the urgency of 1942 explains it. Britain was under siege. The United States had entered the war after Pearl Harbor. The population needed myths of resilience. To imagine Holmes still alive, fighting for democracy, was to stabilize morale. If he could not age, then perhaps civilization itself could not be destroyed.

The story is deceptively simple. Britain trembles as a German voice, a sinister radio phantom, announces disasters that immediately come true. The broadcasts, modeled upon the real Lord Haw-Haw, predict train wrecks, bombings, acts of sabotage, and each is fulfilled with chilling precision. The government is shaken. 

The Inner Council, is there even such a thing in England, Britain, not the same thing by the way, is led by figures played by Reginald Denny and Henry Daniell, turns to Holmes in desperation. His task is to identify the Voice of Terror, to unmask the network of spies behind the broadcasts, and to restore confidence to the public. 

This is not the kind of mystery Doyle wrote. There are few clues to analyze, few examples of dazzling deductive chains. Holmes is here less logician than avenger, less scientist than symbol. And yet Basil Rathbone, with his hawk-like gaze and sharp diction, imbues the role with gravity. He believes in what he is doing, and his seriousness lends conviction to material that could otherwise collapse into absurdity.

The opening of the film immediately announces its wartime identity. The Council is shown in cavernous chambers, speaking of sabotage, the need for secrecy, the threat of collapse. These sequences echo contemporary newsreels. The emphasis is not on Victorian fog, but on the machinery of war. Even the camera work underscores this. 

The cinematography of Elwood Bredell fills the screen with shadows and oblique light, invoking the language of German expressionism and anticipating film noir. The sets are dominated by vast radios, warehouses, and derelict churches. Each location carries symbolic weight. The council chamber is immense, as if to emphasize the impotence of institutions. 

The Limehouse bar is cramped and smoky, a den of criminals who are nevertheless called upon to serve the state. The church ruins foreshadow both death and rebirth. The film is allegory masquerading as thriller.

At the heart of the story lies Kitty, played by Evelyn Ankers. She begins as a marginal woman, the girlfriend of a murdered informer. She is a figure of the underworld, associated with slums and disreputable spaces. Yet Holmes enlists her help, appealing to her sense of loyalty and her hatred of tyranny. 

Through her eyes we glimpse a transformation: the so-called low elements of society become the defenders of the nation. Ankers delivers one of her most affecting performances, offering a mixture of toughness and pathos. She was often used by Universal in horror films, particularly in The Wolf Man (1941) and Son of Dracula (1943). 

Here she transcends mere genre trappings, giving the film its emotional center. Her speeches to the working-class crowds, urging them to resist the invader, are pure propaganda, yet also undeniably stirring. It is significant that the film places its most rousing patriotism in the mouth of a woman from the margins, not in the voices of the aristocratic council. This suggests that survival depends upon the mobilization of the entire social body, not merely the elite.

From a feminist angle, Kitty’s role is both inspiring and troubling. She is given agency, a voice, and even a sacrificial heroism. She is no passive damsel. She chooses to aid Holmes, and she infiltrates the enemy’s schemes

. Yet her value is framed entirely through service to men and nation. She redeems herself not by pursuing her own desires but by subsuming them into collective struggle. Her identity as lover is swiftly overwritten by her new identity as martyr. The film asks us to admire her strength, but only because it is offered to male authority and national destiny. This pattern reflects the wartime situation of many women. 

They entered factories, served as couriers, took on public roles. Yet these roles were framed as temporary, as necessary only for the duration. The film reflects that logic: Kitty shines only so long as the war requires her. Her death secures her virtue, but also erases her. The feminist reading, then, finds both empowerment and erasure.

The male performances are also central. Basil Rathbone had already distinguished himself as Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939). His angular face, precise enunciation, and capacity for intensity made him the definitive Holmes of his generation. In The Voice of Terror, he is stripped of the deerstalker and cape, placed in modern suits, yet he maintains the aura of superiority.

His performance shows that character can survive costume. He later appeared in The Scarlet Claw (1944), often called the best of the Universal series, and in numerous other entries until 1946. Beyond Holmes, Rathbone was memorable in swashbuckling films such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), where he embodied villainy with elegance. His Holmes is less warm than later portrayals by Peter Cushing or Jeremy Brett, but it is authoritative, and in wartime authority was exactly what was desired.

Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson provides contrast. His version of Watson is often derided as buffoonish. In The Voice of Terror, he is more restrained than usual, though still used for moments of comic relief. Bruce had appeared in films such as Suspicion (1941) by Hitchcock, where he again played a genial companion. 

His Watson is less a partner in deduction than a foil, a figure who allows Holmes to explain his reasoning to the audience. Some critics dislike this, arguing that it diminishes the dignity of Doyle’s original doctor. Yet within the propaganda framework it makes sense. The public is Watson, confused and worried, needing Holmes to reassure them. Bruce’s bumbling is therefore functional. It is the populace learning from the master.

Thomas Gomez makes a remarkable film debut as the duplicitous Meade, the supposed German agent who becomes Holmes’s adversary. Gomez, later seen in Key Largo (1948) and in noir works such as Ride the Pink Horse (1947), had a long career playing ambiguous and often villainous figures. His oily charm in The Voice of Terror anticipates these later roles. He brings menace and sophistication, preventing the propaganda villain from slipping into caricature. 

His eyes glint with calculation, and his voice conveys intelligence rather than brute evil. In doing so he enriches the film, making Holmes’s triumph more satisfying. Gomez is an example of how even within formula a strong actor can carve out an enduring impression.

Reginald Denny appears as Sir Evan Barham, a member of the council. Denny had a varied career, including appearances in Rebecca (1940) and later in Cat Ballou (1965). In earlier silent films he had often played leading men. 

By the 1940s he was reduced to character roles. His presence here is authoritative, if somewhat stiff. The irony is that his character is eventually revealed to be compromised, part of the infiltration that Holmes must expose. The betrayal of the elite is a central motif. Authority is not to be trusted. Only Holmes, detached and incorruptible, can identify the traitor. 

This plot device reinforces suspicion of hierarchy, reminding audiences that class and title do not guarantee loyalty. In a sense, it is democratic propaganda, suggesting that treason may come from the top, while salvation comes from the people, from figures like Kitty.

Henry Daniell, another council member, deserves mention. He later played Professor Moriarty in The Woman in Green (1945), one of the more chilling entries in the series. Daniell specialized in icy, aristocratic villains. H

is sharp features and cutting voice were ideal for menace. He appeared in noir contexts as well, such as Camille (1936) and The Body Snatcher (1945), a Val Lewton production with horror-noir resonance. In The Voice of Terror, his role is limited, but his aura adds weight. To have him on screen is to suspect duplicity, even when he is ostensibly loyal. His career illustrates how Hollywood relied on certain physiognomies to signify evil.

The narrative itself unfolds with mechanical inevitability. A man collapses on Holmes’s doorstep, stabbed, whispering a clue. Holmes ventures into Limehouse, confronts the underworld, recruits Kitty, and gradually closes in on the traitor.

 There are attempted assassinations, confrontations in bars, chases through warehouses, and a final revelation in the ruins of a church. The structure is that of pulp melodrama rather than classical detective fiction. What matters is not the intricacy of reasoning but the atmosphere. And here the film excels. Bredell’s cinematography fills each scene with chiaroscuro, with beams of light cutting through smoke. 

The influence of film noir is unmistakable. Although noir is usually associated with crime in American cities, its style—oblique angles, shadows, moral ambiguity—is evident here. The Limehouse sequences, with their sense of lurking violence, are pure noir. Even Holmes himself, usually a beacon of rational clarity, is filmed as a silhouette, half-concealed, a figure of mystery. The war setting pushes the film into noir territory, where certainty is fragile and danger omnipresent.

In June 1942, the Battle of Midway shifted momentum in the Pacific. In North Africa, Rommel’s forces pressed hard. The Soviet Union was engaged in desperate struggle. Britain endured bombings. American audiences, newly mobilized after Pearl Harbor, were uncertain of the future. Against this backdrop, The Voice of Terror is more than entertainment. It is reassurance. 

It tells viewers that the enemy is insidious but vulnerable, that reason and courage will prevail, that even the lowest criminal can rise to patriotic duty. The closing speech of Holmes, borrowed almost verbatim from Doyle’s “His Last Bow,” is pure oratory. He speaks of an east wind, bitter and cold, yet destined to cleanse and strengthen. To hear such words in 1942 was to glimpse hope. The speech situates Holmes not merely as detective but as prophet. He becomes the mouthpiece of history itself.

From the perspective of American cultural history, the film is revealing. It demonstrates how Hollywood absorbed British icons and redeployed them for Allied purposes. Sherlock Holmes, originally a symbol of Victorian rationalism, is turned into a weapon of wartime propaganda, a spokesman for Anglo-American unity. 

Universal’s decision to modernize him reflects America’s own desire to connect with Britain, to share in its endurance. The film, though set in London, was made in California, with sets that often betray their artificiality. 

Yet for American audiences, the illusion sufficed. The point was solidarity. Holmes became an emblem not just of Britain but of the larger democratic cause. This transatlantic appropriation shows how cultural figures can be retooled to serve national myths.

The noir elements deserve deeper exploration. The film’s very texture is noir: the shadows, the treachery, the atmosphere of paranoia. The enemy is invisible, a voice on the radio, a phantom. The sense of infiltration, of betrayal within the government, is classic noir territory, later explored in works such as The Ministry of Fear (1944) or Journey into Fear (1943). Noir thrives on uncertainty, on the blurring of good and evil, and even within propaganda constraints 

The Voice of Terror allows ambiguity. Holmes himself is more ruthless here than in earlier incarnations, willing to manipulate Kitty, to risk lives, to employ deception. He is not the purely benevolent genius but a strategist in war. The film may not be noir in theme, but it borrows noir’s techniques to convey unease. It is a fusion of detective myth, wartime thriller, and stylistic experiment.

The flaws are obvious. The plot is riddled with conveniences. The villains act with implausible carelessness. Holmes often seems to know more than he could possibly deduce. The patriotic speeches halt momentum. Yet these flaws are secondary. 

The film’s power lies not in logical coherence but in mood. It creates a world where shadows conceal enemies, where voices spread terror, where loyalty is tested. And it provides catharsis by revealing that intelligence and courage will triumph. For audiences of 1942, logic mattered less than reassurance. For modern viewers, the film survives because of its style, its performances, and its historical position.

The supporting cast contributes to the texture. Montagu Love, Hillary Brooke, and Edgar Barrier appear briefly, each adding color. Love, nearing the end of his career, lends gravitas. Brooke, later seen in The Woman in Green (1945), adds elegance. Barrier, who voiced the broadcasts, creates menace through sound alone. Each demonstrates how Universal used a repertory of actors to sustain the series. The familiarity of faces created continuity across the cycle, much as Universal’s horror films relied on recurring performers.

The direction of John Rawlins is efficient rather than inspired. Rawlins had worked on Universal adventure and serial projects. He was no auteur, but he knew how to keep pace brisk and visuals clear. His handling of crowd scenes, especially Kitty’s speech to the underworld, is competent. He lacked the Gothic flair of Roy William Neill, who would later direct most of the series. Yet The Voice of Terror benefits from his straightforward approach. The propaganda requires clarity, not subtlety. The film is lean, just over an hour, and never drags.

It is worth comparing this entry to later Universal Holmes films. Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942) also pits Holmes against Nazis, but adds Professor Moriarty. The Scarlet Claw (1944) returns to a quasi-Gothic murder mystery, and is often considered the series’ masterpiece. The Woman in Green (1945) offers psychological crime. 

Oh yeah I would argue, go so far to argue that The Voice of Terror is transitional. It announces the new wartime setting, it experiments with noir style, but it does not yet perfect the formula. It is a beginning rather than a culmination. Yet beginnings matter. Without this experiment, the later entries would not have found their balance.

The ending, with Holmes’s speech about the east wind, crystallizes the film’s meaning. It is both quotation and prophecy. Doyle wrote it in 1917, at the close of World War I, imagining an older Holmes reflecting upon sacrifice. The filmmakers transplant it to 1942, giving it new resonance. The east wind becomes the Nazi assault, but also the cleansing force that will renew England. To reuse the line is to insist upon continuity of struggle. 

History repeats, but so does resilience. The speech is moving even now, despite its propagandistic purpose. Rathbone delivers it with solemnity, his voice resonant, his gaze steady. It is a reminder that cinema in wartime is never mere diversion. It is sermon, exhortation, ritual.

Why does the film still matter? Not because it is a great detective story. It is not. It is clumsy, contrived, and unsubtle. It matters because it embodies the intersection of popular culture and history. It shows how a literary icon can be repurposed for survival. It reveals how Hollywood absorbed noir aesthetics to dramatize paranoia. It preserves performances of actors who would go on to enrich noir and horror alike. And it testifies to the anxieties of 1942, when the outcome of the war was uncertain, and when cinema had to do more than entertain—it had to console, inspire, and mobilize.

The legacy of Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror is complex. For purists of Doyle, it is a travesty. For historians, it is invaluable. For cinephiles, it is a minor noir curiosity. For fans of Rathbone, it is the beginning of his long identification with Holmes. 

Its flaws are inseparable from its strengths. The propaganda, heavy-handed though it is, grants the film urgency. The transposition to modernity, awkward though it seems, keeps Holmes alive for new audiences. The noir style, inconsistent though it is, grants visual power. In the end, the film achieves what it must: it transforms fear into narrative, anxiety into resolution, chaos into story.

The film remains worth watching. Not as pure Holmes, not as pure noir, not as pure history, but as a strange hybrid that captures the tension of its time. In its shadows, speeches, betrayals, and sacrifices, we glimpse a world struggling to endure. To watch it now is to hear the echo of that east wind, bitter yet cleansing, carrying with it both terror and hope.

This Holmesry pokery was pitted at the public with the following flashy fables tagged on the lobby cars and posters:

THE MASTER MINDS OF MYSTERY! 

From Conan Doyle's gripping books! From your favorite radio mystery! THE MASTER MINDS OF MYSTERY...leap to life to challenge the menace of modern crime!

HEINIES OF TERROR...blasted by London's Master Sleuth! 

For the first part, "Heine" most commonly refers to the 19th-century German poet Heinrich Heine or a short form of the Germanic personal name Heinrich, meaning "home ruler" or "ruler of the home".

However, in American English, the word can also refer to a derogatory term for a German person or the buttocks, or the brand name of the Dutch brewery Heineken. So there it is, buttock German man beer, as a tag line.

There are touches of uberwald in this mis en scene, most especially in the ruined abbey where the climax takes place, a gathering point for Nazis in England it appears. And in fine film tradition, the Nazis wear their full dress uniforms for the climax in the abandoned ruined abbey, it does seem a little odd but it does provide major visual markers and looks great.

Title Card: Sherlock Holmes, the immortal character of fiction created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is ageless, invincible and unchanging. In solving significant problems of the present day he remains ~ as ever ~ the supreme master of deductive reasoning.

The resuscitation of Arthur Conan Doyle's immortal detective in Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) signals not merely a relocation of character but a transfiguration of genre. This third outing for Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as Holmes and Watson inaugurates the Universal series, which significantly reimagines Holmes not as a denizen of gaslit Victorian streets, but as a contemporary figure stalking the shadows of a world ravaged by fascist aggression. 

This modernization of Holmes has incensed a select chorus of purists, whose reverence for canonical precision eclipses any appreciation of interpretive elasticity. But in eschewing the drawing rooms and hansom cabs of yesteryear, Universal's wartime Holmes acquires a new urgency—he becomes a figure fit for a world on fire.

Set against the chaos of the London Blitz, the film aligns Holmes with the British war effort, a patriotic rebranding that deepens rather than dilutes his mystique. Holmes now battles not merely individual malefactors, but a metastasizing political evil. 

The film's antagonist, the eponymous "Voice of Terror," evokes the real-world broadcasts of William Joyce, known as "Lord Haw-Haw," a propagandist whose silky tones once punctuated Allied airwaves with venomous treason. In crafting a villain modelled after Joyce, the screenplay anchors its melodrama in historical specificity. 

The year of the film's release, 1942, marks a particularly precarious juncture: El Alamein and Stalingrad had not yet shifted the war's momentum. England remained under siege, its survival uncertain. This film is thus not escapism, but a cinematic counter-offensive.

Did Haw Haw see this film? It is possible, indeed!

Voice of Terror: [off-screen] Germany broadcasting. Germany broadcasting. People of Britain, greetings from the Third Reich. This is the voice you have learned to fear. This is the Voice of Terror. Again, we bring you disaster: crushing, humiliating disaster. It is folly to stand against the mighty wrath of the Fuhrer. Do you need more testimony of his invincible might to bring you to your knees? Very well. Are you ready, Operative Number 7? This is the Voice of Terror. A secret airplane factory somewhere in England. Listen. Screams of the dying can still be heard. This is the Voice of Terror. Are you there, people of Britain, shivering in your cellars? Listen, Operative 41. The fuse is lighted. Oil to fuel your navy, to feed your tanks, there it goes up in smoke by the millions of gallons. This is the Voice of Terror. Do you still believe that there are secrets unknown to the Fuhrer? Listen. Tonight at 7:10 an important diplomat boarded a train at a little station outside Liverpool. Each split second is accounted for. The rails divide, the train hurtles through the air, the diplomat will make no report in London. This is the Voice of Terror. Englishmen, do you still await your doom in your stupid, stuffy little clubs? It will come, I promise you. Operative 23, the time is now. We strike you on the high seas as well as on the land. This is the Voice of Terror. Englishmen, the Fuhrer strikes you now as he pleases. Water pours through your greatest dams, smashing everything before it, even as our invincible armies roar toward their objectives. 

The supporting cast is uniformly effective. Thomas Gomez, in his film debut, is compelling as Meade, the ersatz revolutionary who channels the twisted ambitions of the disaffected intellectual. A man who, like Joyce, wraps his betrayal in rhetoric of national salvation. Henry Daniell and Reginald Denny bring bureaucratic elegance to roles that are more archetype than character. 

Yet it is Evelyn Ankers who surprises most. Often cast as the imperiled ingenue in Universal's horror canon, here she inhabits Kitty, a Limehouse siren whose loyalty to country eclipses her loyalty to the criminal world from which she springs. Her monologue—a fiery exhortation to the underworld to stand with England—is the film's moral fulcrum. Though she begins as a gangster's moll, she emerges as something more: a woman who mobilizes her agency within a system that grants her little.

Indeed, her character affords the film a glancing commentary on gender and power. The British government’s intelligence machinery is shown to be male, patrician, and ineffectual. It is Kitty, a woman of no official capacity, who becomes indispensable to the unmasking of fascist treachery. Her political conscience arises not from the stability of state institutions, but from the visceral loss of her lover and the existential threat posed by Nazi tyranny. That her personal grief can be transmuted into national resistance suggests a vision of heroism rooted not in privilege but in suffering. In the midst of a genre known for side-lining women, Kitty’s arc is anomalous. She is not merely rescued; she acts, she fights, she persuades.

Doctor Watson: Holmes, the girl waiting. What an extraordinary thing.

Sherlock Holmes: Elementary, my dear Watson.

Doctor Watson: No, no, no. It's an amazing deduction. How on earth did you arrive at it?

Sherlock Holmes: Barham told me.

Should be said here too, and will ne noted, that this is the film debut of Thomas Gomez, and although may not be auspicious that ye turne up on yor first day as a film actor only to find that you are wearing a Nazi uniform.

Doctor Watson: ...But Holmes, that's impossible.

Sherlock Holmes: Anything is possible until proven otherwise. 

Thomas Gomez in Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942)

As a narrative, Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) is curiously bifurcated. On one axis, it is a tale of espionage and wartime subterfuge. On another, it is a reflection on national identity and the spectre of internal betrayal. 

The film is haunted by the possibility that the enemy is not simply across the Channel, but ensconced within the walls of power itself. The climactic revelation—that the Voice has infiltrated the very heart of British leadership by assuming the identity of a trusted council member—draws on the conceits of E. Phillips Oppenheim’s The Great Impersonation (1920). The notion of identity theft as national treason resonates particularly in a war where espionage blurred the lines between citizen and traitor.

Sherlock Holmes: This is still a free country, a man may walk where he pleases.

Lime Street thug: And live to regret it.

Sherlock Holmes: Live yes, regret it? I think not

Rathbone, sleek and razor-edged, remains the quintessential Holmes—a brain incarnate, impervious to sentiment, always ten paces ahead. Here, his demeanor acquires a new strain of gravity, sharpened by the stakes of world conflict. His strange hairstyle, absurdly anachronistic, borders on the grotesque, yet even this oddity contributes to the otherworldly quality of the man—as though he were not merely out of time, but beyond it. 

Bruce continues to offer his now-familiar interpretation of Watson, a kind of garrulous teddy bear whose befuddlement never quite masks his loyalty. Though maligned by some for reducing Watson to comic relief, Bruce's incarnation of the doctor paradoxically humanizes the detective's otherwise chilly brilliance.

Meade: Your false courage is not impressive Holmes. Of course you realise you and friends are going to die.

Sherlock Holmes: As all men must, sooner or later.

Though its source is ostensibly Doyle's "His Last Bow," the film shares little with its literary progenitor beyond a character name and a scrap of dialogue. What it gains instead is a texture that owes more to cinematic noir than to Edwardian detective tales. 

The director John Rawlins and cinematographer Elwood Bredell furnish the film with chiaroscuro compositions worthy of Lang or Welles. Limehouse alleys glisten with menace; silhouettes slink through alleyways with grim intent. The film's visual grammar is unmistakably noir, its London more akin to the mythic darkness of postwar Vienna than to Baker Street. 

Bredell, whose later work includes Phantom Lady (1944) and The Killers (1946), brings a noir idiom to what might otherwise have been mere war-time agitprop.

The film ends with a direct quote from His Last Bow:

Watson: It's a lovely morning, Holmes.

Holmes: There's an east wind coming, Watson.

Watson: I don't think so. Looks like another warm day.

Holmes: Good old Watson. The one fixed point in a changing age. There's an east wind coming all the same. Such a wind as never blew on England yet. It will be cold and bitter, Watson, and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But it's God's own wind none the less. And a greener, better, stronger land will lie in the sunshine when the storm is cleared.

In its day, they do say that the British were outraged at this movie, with its suggestion of treachery and we also include treason at the highest levels of government, and the country owing its salvation to the bravery of a prostitute. Who gets shot. Thanks a bunch.

Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942)

Directed by John Rawlins

Genres - Crime, Horror, Mystery-Suspense, Spy Film, Thriller  |   Sub-Genres - Detective Film, Spy  |   Release Date - Sep 18, 1942  |   Run Time - 65 min. | Tis based upon, loosely mind, the story called "His Last Bow" (1917)

During the Second World War, Holmes is consulted by the British Inner Council to capture a Nazi agent who broadcasts under the name the "Voice of Terror", and who appears to be running a sabotage ring in England. After Gavin, one of his underworld contacts, is killed on his doorstep, Holmes convinces Kitty—Gavin's wife—to find out the meaning of a clue Gavin had uncovered. She does so, and manages to inveigle her way into the house of Meade, the main Nazi agent in the ring. After being given a tip off from Kitty, Holmes takes the Inner Council to an abandoned church on the coast of southern England, where they thwart a German invasion. Holmes then uncovers the mole in the council, Sir Evan Barham, head of the council and the German spy Heinrich von Bork, who had been posing as Barham for the previous twenty years.