Sherlock Holmes in Washington Sherlock Holmes in Washington Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943) is the fifth film in the Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce series of Sherlock Holmes movies. The plot is an original story not based on any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes tales. British secret agent Alfred Pettibone carrying a vital secret document is murdered on his way to deliver it in the USA. The British government turns to Holmes for help. He deduces that Pettibone converted the document to microfilm. Avoiding an assassination attempt, he hurries to Washington with Watson to retrieve it before it falls into the hands of an "international
Sherlock Holmes novel "Psmith, Journalist" (neither spoken by Holmes). The exact phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson" is used by protagonist Tom Beresford in Agatha Christie's 1922 novel "The Secret Adversary". It also appears at the end of the 1929 film "The Return of Sherlock Holmes", the first Holmes sound film. The phrase became familiar with the American public in part due to its use in The Rathbone-Bruce series of films from 1939 to 1946. Conan Doyle's 56 short stories and four novels are known as the "canon" by Holmes aficionados. Early canonical scholars included Ronald Knox in Britain and Christopher Morley in