I love Sherlock Holmes....at least the way it was originally written by Arthur Conan Doyle. In these wonderful stories, Watson was Holmes' friend and, at times, important assistant. He was no bumbler but was brave and passionate. Unfortunately, in many films, especially the Basil Rathbone ones, Watson is essentially an idiot....one of the big problems I have with any of the Fox/Universal Holmes films. Yet, despite Watson once again being amazingly dense in "Pursuit to Algiers", it is an enjoyable B-movie.When the story begins, some clues are thrown at Holmes in order to get him to an important meeting. Once there, he learns that there's been an assassination and a country's new king needs to be brought out of hiding and brought to his native land. But some dark forces are at work and they plan on killing the young man the first chance they get. Who the dark forces are, exactly, is never mentioned--but WWII just ended, so it cannot be Nazis and the West's love of the USSR hadn't yet soured significantly....so I had no idea who the assassins were working for...but they did, naturally, show and Homes is there to stop them on an ocean liner...or die trying.Compared to other B-mystery films of the era, this one is a big better than usual. Sure, it has idiot Watson and there were some plot elements that didn't make perfect sense (why take an ocean liner....why not send him back home on a US or British warship, for example). But it is entertaining and Rathbone is quite good as Holmes.

The consensus of other reviewers here is that this is not one of the better Sherlock Holmes stories coming out of Universal during this period. I'd have to agree on that, though at times the picture does have it's moments. Catching Nigel Bruce sing 'Loch Lomond' was definitely out of the ordinary, I'd be curious whether that was actually him or not. As for the 'Giant Rat of Sumatra' story, well I wish the film makers had let us all in on it.The thing that bothered me about the story came after villain Mirko's (Martin Kosleck) assassination attempt on Holmes (Basil Rathbone), resulting in his own broken wrist at the hands of the detective. The rest of the cruise continued for the travelers as normal as if nothing happened! That didn't hold any credibility for me at all. You would think Holmes and Watson (Nigel Bruce) would be just the slightest bit peeved about the whole incident.And say, what about that plane crash - how did that conveniently fit into the story to make it look like Holmes might have died in it? That was a bit too coincidental to try to throw the assassination conspirators off track, OR, did Holmes have something to do with the plane going down? Hmmm, obviously can't go there, but if I thought of it, maybe someone else did too.Say, keep an eye on that scene when the huge thug Gubek (Wee Willie Davis) manhandled Holmes. After Gubec knocks him out and throws him on the cot in the stateroom, actor Rathbone re-positions himself using his legs! Well there's no mystery here to speak of since Holmes and Watson were performing a bodyguard mission, but I must say the revelation of Sanford (Morton Lowry) as the undercover King Nikolas of Rovenia came as a bit of a surprise. When all was said and done it didn't make any difference that the phony Watson nephew (Leslie Vincent) had the same name, but you'd think the ever clever Holmes would have used a different handle on the younger Watson if he wanted to work the identity ruse for maximum effect.Say, wait just a minute... who's going to solve the case of the stolen Duchess of Brookdale emeralds?

Stolen emeralds, an endangered prince, a fog-bound steamship, a plane crash, a revolver hidden in a purse. Through a clever series of encounters, which Sherlock Holmes deciphers with his usual sharp intellect, Holmes and his dear friend, Doctor Watson, are directed to a specific address at a specific time in a foggy London back alley; there, Holmes is engaged by a group of foreign gentlemen to escort an important personage from England back to his home country. While Holmes and Watson do not battle spies in "Pursuit to Algiers," the sleuths do return to matters of foreign intrigue. Leonard Lee wrote the first of two Holmes screenplays for this, the tenth in Universal's Sherlock Holmes series. Lee's screenplay is light on suspense, and, despite the assured direction of veteran Holmes' director Roy William Neill, the film can only be rated better than average among the Rathbone-Bruce movies.Despite some sinister fog-shrouded scenes in London's back streets, cinematographer Paul Ivano shoots most of the film aboard the S.S. Friesland, a steamer bound for Algiers. While interior shots are crisp black-and-white images, the deck scenes are murky and layered with obviously fake fog. Although the producer-director and the two above-the-title stars are back, not only the writer and cinematographer, but most of the supporting cast are fresh faces in the series. Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce are in good form, and Watson is given a bit more to do than usual, including a song entitled "The Bonnie Banks o'Loch Lomond" that spotlights Nigel Bruce's own fine voice; the retelling over dinner of a Holmes adventure, "The Giant Rat of Sumatra;" and a few solo errands of responsibility at Holmes's direction. None of the supporting players stand out, although lovely Marjorie Riordon as a young singer from Brooklyn has a nice voice, and the cold sexually ambiguous Martin Kosleck is appropriately sinister as the knife thrower.Perhaps after ten episodes the Universal Holmes series had become routine and perfunctory to the participants. The proceedings play out almost entirely aboard a ship, and the plot lacks a single diabolical villain of the caliber of Professor Moriarty or Adrea Spedding, the Spider Woman. However, most Holmes fans should be pleased, and even the sharpest viewers may not guess Holmes's final revelation. While not the best of the series, "Pursuit to Algiers" is good fun and definitely entertaining.

Pursuit to Algiers is the 12th Basil Rathbone and Bruce Nigel Sherlock film, and it's based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's characters. The movie is noted to have taken some characters and elements from Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Red Circle.The movie's plot is quite ingenious, as it takes you unawares in the way things just turn up, with Sherlock proving to be a mastermind genius from the way he disguised the King, to the way he got himself on the boat, after sending Dr. Watson ahead.Majority of the movie is shot in a boat setting, and the movie even ends on the boat, which gave way for us to see some nice cinematography and the plot shows a little of what many people think Sherlock is, a guy who is too smart for we the rest of the world. Before this was The Woman in Green (1945) and that was also directed by Roy William Neill, who actually did a better job here than he did in The Woman in Green. The screenplay was done by Leonard Lee, who did a good job making sure each time you spent watching this movie, anticipation is created as you are curious to see how Holmes is going to pull it off, and the final twist in the movie was just the icing on the cake of this masterpiece.The movie's plot starts with our duo planning a vacation to take a load off the unending cases that they seem to be swamped in, when some series of fortunate events start to happen on their way home, Sherlock was able to deduce from the series of events that he was been called for a meeting.After he had solved the events to deduce the address (which was basic elementary if I could say so myself) and time of the meeting, he attended it and he is giving a task which he took. The task was given to him by the prime minister of the fictional country of Rovinia, who begs Holmes to escort Prince Nikolas back to his country Rovinia. It turns out that his father has been assassinated, and Nikolas is the next in line to be king, but since he left the country at birth to be raised in England no one but the prime minister and a few knows what he looks like, and the assassinators of the father will stop at nothing to kill Prince Nikolas.The movie is a nice watch, it is one movie that you watch, and then you gather your friends around to watch with you and just telling them that there is something at the end that they can't guess what it is. It is a nice addition to anyone's shelf of movie collections. The ending joke of the movie had Sherlock telling Watson that no matter what, Watson should not take up a career as an actor as he is a bad actor, which is why sometimes he (Sherlock) has to keep things from him.www.lagsreviews.com