George Zucco of Sherlock Holmes" (1939), opposite Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson. Zucco earned a reputation as a bespectacled, nefarious character in films such as "After the Thin Man", "Fast Company", "Arrest Bulldog Drummond", "Charlie Chan in Honolulu", "The Cat and the Canary", and "My Favorite Blonde". During the 1940s, he took every role he was offered, landing himself in B-films and Universal horror films, including "The Mummy's Hand" (1940), "The Mummy's Tomb" (1942), "The Mad Monster" (1942), "The Mad Ghoul" (1943), "Dead Men Walk" (1943), "The Mummy's Ghost" (1944), "House of Frankenstein" (1944), and "Tarzan
Basil Rathbone produced by Fox in 1939), were set in the late Victorian times of the original stories. The later installments, produced by Universal, beginning with "Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror" (1942), were set in contemporary times. The first three had World War II-related plots. Concurrent with the films, Rathbone and Bruce reprised their film roles in a radio series, "The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", which began in October 1939. Rathbone appeared in the radio series as long as the film series was active, but after the films lapsed in 1946, Rathbone ceded his radio part to Tom Conway.