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
Dr. Watson Here he is direct about a method of preserving discretion and confidentiality that other scholars have inferred from the stories, with pseudonyms replacing the "real" names of clients, witnesses, and culprits alike, and altered place-names replacing the real locations. Bruce McRae created the character of Dr Watson in the 1899 Broadway production of "Sherlock Holmes", a play by William Gillette and Arthur Conan Doyle. Edward Fielding played Watson in the 1916 film "Sherlock Holmes" Roland Young played Watson in the 1922 film "Sherlock Holmes" Ian Fleming played Watson in the 1931" Sherlock Holmes" film series except for "The Sign of