PURSUIT TO ALGIERS (1945)
Article #664 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-8-2003
Posting Date: 6-7-2003

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are bodyguard escorts to a prince who is the target of assassins.

The criteria by which I include movies in this series is that the movie is listed in one of my movie guides that purport to cover Horror, Fantasy and/or Science Fiction movies. So far, all of the movies I’ve covered have some slight connection to these genres (and in some cases, very slight indeed), but the connection is there. This is the first movie that leaves me baffled as to why it would be included in a book that covers those genres. I’ve covered one other of the Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies (SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE SPIDER WOMAN), and there was enough of a real horror element there to make it qualify; that is not the case here. It’s not even really a mystery; it’s more of a thriller than anything. This is not to say that the movie isn’t entertaining; both Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce had a lot of fun with their roles, and there is also some nice work from Martin Kosleck here. I also spotted John Abbott (THE VAMPIRE’S GHOST) in a smaller role. Entertaining, but I’m afraid it doesn’t even qualify as fantastic cinema marginalia.