Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon

Set during the Second World War, this mystery adventure follows Sherlock Holmes as he works for the British government. He is sent to Switzerland to bring out Dr. Franz Tobel, an inventor whose precision bomb-sight could change the course of the air war, before the Gestapo can reach him. Holmes succeeds in smuggling the scientist to London, but Tobel is wary of letting the design fall into a single set of hands. He divides his work among four trusted scientists and leaves behind an encrypted message before he disappears. Holmes must decode it, and the trail leads him to the collaborator Professor Moriarty, who has his own plans for the invention and its creator.

Basil Rathbone plays Holmes opposite Nigel Bruce as Doctor Watson, with Lionel Atwill as Moriarty, William Post Jr. as Dr. Franz Tobel, Kaaren Verne as Charlotte Eberli and Dennis Hoey as Inspector Lestrade. Roy William Neill directed from a screenplay by Scott Darling, Edward T. Lowe Jr. and Edmund L. Hartmann. Released by Universal Pictures at the end of 1942, it runs 68 minutes; within Neill's filmography it is the earliest of the titles listed, followed by Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and Sherlock Holmes in Washington.

On IMDb it holds 6.5/10 from around 7,300 votes, and on TMDB 6.4/10 from roughly 150 votes, so the two audiences land in similar territory, a middling but steady appreciation rather than enthusiasm.