" SHERLOCK HOLMES VS. LORD HAW-HAW" STORY OUTLINE BY...[wrapper title. Released as: SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE VOICE OF TERROR]

Book Description

[Los Angeles: Universal Pictures], [14 February 1942].. [2],51 leaves. Quarto. Original typescript, typed on rectos only of canary yellow onion skin stock. Bradbound in typescript wrappers. Old vertical fold down middle, a few corner creases, otherwise very good or better. Perhaps the earliest available draft for this 1942 contribution to the Holmes film canon, based in part on HIS LAST BOW, updated to a setting in the years immediately preceding WWII. This is an original typescript of Andrews's outline/treatment for the film, here under the working title, which was later changed to THE VOICE OF TERROR. Although this typescript is undated, we have handled a carbon of it which is explicitly dated as above. The film was directed by John Rawlins, and starred Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Robert H. Andrews, John Bright and Lynn Riggs shared final screen credit for the shooting script, and in the final version, the particular reference to Lord Haw-Haw was altered, and the mysterious broadcaster referred to as "The Voice of Terror." Script material relating to any of the pre- 1950 Holmes films is uncommon, particularly material from such an early stage of development. Both the wrapper and the first leaf denote this typescript is "For: Mr. Howard Benedict" - the film's producer. Although well over one hundred and fifty adaptations of Sherlock Holmes to the screen are known, beginning with SHERLOCK HOLMES BAFFLED (1903), the Rathbone-Bruce portrayals have become almost canonical, beginning with THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (March 1939), and concluding with the twelfth in sequence, DRESSED TO KILL (1946). DE WAAL 5148.

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