Sherlock Holmes (1939 film series)

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A series of fourteen films based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories was released between 1939 and 1946; the British actors Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce played Holmes and Dr. John Watson, respectively. After 20th Century-Fox released the first two films in the series in 1939, Universal Pictures acquired the rights from the Doyle estate and produced a further twelve films. The two films from Fox had large budgets, high production values and were set in the Victorian era. Universal produced the series as B pictures with lower budgets and updated the films' settings to the then-present time of the Second World War, with Holmes fighting the Nazis. Both Rathbone and Bruce continued their roles when the series moved from Fox to Universal, as did Mary Gordon, who played the recurring character Mrs Hudson. In the 1970s, four of the Universal-produced films fell into the public domain when their copyrights were not renewed. These four films were restored and colourised. Some of...

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