Sherlock Holmes (1939 film series) "Rathbone "was" Sherlock Holmes". The choice of Nigel Bruce as Watson was more contentious, with Davies pointing out that "Bruce's characterisation bore little relation" to the written Watson, even though the portrayal eventually produced "an endearingly avuncular figure". The historian David Parkinson agrees, and wrote that Bruce's "avuncular presence provided the perfect counterbalance to Rathbone's briskly omniscient sleuth". Barnes notes that, despite the criticisms against him, Bruce rehabilitated Watson, who had been a marginal figure in the cinematic Holmes canon to that point: "after Bruce, it would be a near-unthinkable heresy to show Holmes without him". With the combination of
Sherlock Holmes (1932 film) Sherlock Holmes (1932 film) Sherlock Holmes (a.k.a. Conan Doyle's Master Detective Sherlock Holmes) is a 1932 American Pre-Code film starring Clive Brook as the eponymous London detective. The movie is based on the successful stage play "Sherlock Holmes" by William Gillette, in turn based on the stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, and is directed by William K. Howard for the Fox Film Corporation. Brook had played Holmes previously in "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" and the "Murder Will Out" segment of "Paramount on Parade". Reginald Owen plays Dr. Watson, and Ernest Torrence is Holmes's arch-rival, Professor Moriarty. Reginald Owen played