Sherlock Holmes (1940's)

On his uncle's death Sir Henry Baskerville returns from abroad and opens up the ancestral hall on the desolate moors of Devonshire. Holmes uncovers a plot to have Sir Henry murdered by a terrible trained hound.

When Sherlock Holmes arrives in court moments too late to give evidence against Professor Moriarty, the professor is acquitted. Soon afterward, he develops a scheme for stealing the crown jewels from the Tower of London. In order to get Holmes involved, he persuades a gaucho flute player to murder a girl.

When a German saboteur jeeringly predicts to the nation new depredations via the radio "Voice of Terror", the Homeland Security Inner Council summons Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) to help in the crisis. Holmes and his companion, Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce), receive a visitor on the first night of their investigation, but he dies from a knife in the back. His last word leads Holmes into the slums where he encounters Kitty (Evelyn Ankers), the sweetheart of the slain man, who promises to help the investigation in any way she can.

Sherlock Holmes helps a scientist escape the clutches of the Gestapo in Switzerland and gets him to England. The man has invented a revolutionary new bombsight that will significantly aid Britain's war effort. Now that he's in England he should be safe, right?

Sherlock Holmes is engaged by the Home Office to locate a British subject traveling for his law firm to Washington, D.C. The man had flown to New York City and then took the train to Washington. On the outskirts of the city, the man was kidnapped and has not been seen for several days now. Holmes learns from the Home Office that the man was in fact a government agent who was delivering a highly secret, two page document to the US government. In verifying the contents at his flat, Holmes concludes the document had been reduced to microfilm. The question becomes whether he may have had the opportunity to pass the microfilm to someone else on the train before he was taken.

During WWII, several murders occur at a convalescent home where Dr. Watson has volunteered his services. He summons Holmes for help and the master detective proceeds to solve the crime from a long list of suspects including the owners of the home, the staff, and the patients recovering there.

Sherlock Holmes takes on a case that the press has dubbed the pajama suicides. Eminent men are going to bed in the safety of their own homes, with everything seemingly being normal, only to commit suicide in the night. Holmes fakes his own death in the hopes of giving him a freer hand in the investigation and is convinced that a woman, a female Moriarty as he describes her, is behind the deaths. The dead men were all eminent and very wealthy. He impersonates a wealthy retired Indian military officer in the hope of drawing out the woman and he soon meets Adrea Spedding but she quickly sees through his disguise and proves herself to be the challenge Holmes predicted she would be. She is a worthy adversary and soon traps him setting him up in a carnival shooting gallery that seems to assure his death.

While attending a conference in Quebec City, Sherlock Holmes and his good friend, Dr. Watson, are drawn into a murder investigation in the nearby village of La Mort Rouge. Holmes had received a letter from Lady Penrose asking for his assistance as she feared for her life. It was too late, however, as she had already been killed by the time he received it. Her throat was torn out and the local villagers are spreading rumors about monsters and evil spirits as being the cause. Holmes doesn't believe any of that and sets out to find the killer. He believes that Lady Penrose's past as an actress may have something to with her death. As others in the village are attacked, Holmes believes the killer is among them, impersonating a local villager as he goes about his business.

After a pearl with a sinister reputation for causing misfortune to its owners is stolen from a museum by a master criminal - because of Sherlock Holmes' show-boating - he is naturally obliged to find it. Soon, he learns of a series of brutal murders that seemed to have been committed by a malevolent man mountain known only as the Creeper. Now, Holmes must deal with the seemingly overwhelming menace of this man and his boss in order to retrieve the pearl.

Seven rich men retire to a Scottish castle and promptly begin to die in violent fashion. Each death is preceded by the delivery of orange pips to the next target. As all the likely victims are heaviliy insured, Sherlock Holmes is asked by the insurance companies to investigate.

Holmes and Watson investigate a series of bizarre and apparently unconnected murders, and the death of a possible suspect. The trail leads to a society of hypnotists and a mysterious, glamorous woman. The fiendish Dr James Moriarty, though reported hanged in Montevideo, is suspected of being involved.

Holmes and Watson are recruited in a serpentine fashion to escort the heir to a European throne back to his native country following his father's assassination. Because the prince has been educated in Great Britain, Holmes persuades him to masquerade as Watson's nephew Nikolas on an ocean liner bound for Algiers. Unfortunately, the ship is filled with red herrings as well as real assassins and Holmes is challenged to outwit them all and deliver his charge to his destination. Among the suspects are a knife-throwing circus performer, two shadowy archaeologists, a hulking deaf mute, an enigmatic ship's steward, a chanteuse with a mysterious song case, and a gun-toting British dowager.

Holmes is hired by Roland Carstairs to prevent the theft of the Star of Rhodesia, a 423 carat diamond owned by Carstairs' mother, Lady Margaret. Suspecting the diamond will be stolen on a train trip from London to Edinburgh in Scotland, Holmes deftly switches diamonds with Lady Margaret while in her compartment admiring the jewel. Soon after, Roland is murdered and the fake diamond is stolen. Red herrings abound as Holmes, aided by Dr. Watson and Inspector Lestrade, discover the murderer's hiding place and deduce that long-time nemesis Professor Moriarty's henchman, Colonel Sebastian Moran, is somehow involved in the crime.

Sherlock Holmes is intrigued when Dr. Watson's friend, Julian 'Stinky' Emery, visits and tells them of a strange robbery at his flat the previous night. Stinky is an avid collector of music boxes and has several quite expensive pieces in his vast collection. The previous night, someone broke into his flat and knocked him unconscious when he tried to intervene. All they took however was a simple wooden music box he had bought at auction that day for a mere £2. The box was one of three available for sale and as Holmes and Watson begin to trace the other purchasers, it becomes apparent that someone will stop at nothing, including murder, to retrieve all three. When Holmes learns the identity of the music box maker, he is convinced it contains directions to the retrieval of something very valuable that the government has kept from the public.