The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (film) Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. John Watson, the final film produced by Fox, and the last in the Rathbone/Bruce series to be set in the original Victorian London period. The further twelve films produced by Universal Pictures and starring Rathbone/Bruce would take place in contemporaneous times (i.e. the 1940s). George Zucco stars as Holmes's nemesis Professor Moriarty. The picture follows famous detective Sherlock Holmes and his assistant Doctor Watson as they attempt to foil their archenemy Professor Moriarty who targets a wealthy family and plots the theft of the Crown Jewels. The film was supposedly based
Basil Rathbone Basil Rathbone Philip St. John Basil Rathbone MC (13 June 1892 – 21 July 1967) was a South African-born English actor. He rose to prominence in the United Kingdom as a Shakespearean stage actor and went on to appear in more than 70 films, primarily costume dramas, swashbucklers and, occasionally, horror films. Rathbone frequently portrayed suave villains or morally ambiguous characters, such as Mr. Murdstone in "David Copperfield" (1935) and Sir Guy of Gisbourne in "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938). His most famous role, however, was heroic—that of Sherlock Holmes in fourteen Hollywood films made between 1939 and 1946