The Scarlet Claw The Scarlet Claw The Scarlet Claw is a 1944 Sherlock Holmes film directed by Roy William Neill and starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. It is the eighth film of the Rathbone/Bruce series. David Stuart Davies notes on the film's DVD audio commentary that it's generally considered by critics and fans of the series to be the best of the twelve Holmes films made by Universal. Holmes and Watson are in Canada attending a conference on the occult, when Lord Penrose receives a message that his wife Lady Penrose has been murdered in the small village of La Mort Rouge.
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon of a Swiss scientist by their nemesis Professor Moriarty, to steal a new bomb sight and sell it to Nazi Germany. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson have to crack a secret code in order to save the country. The film is one of four films in the series which are in the public domain. Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) pretends to be a Nazi spy to aid scientist Dr. Franz Tobel (William Post Jr.) and his new invention, a bombsight, in escaping a Gestapo trap in Switzerland. Holmes and Franz fly to London, where Holmes places him under the protection