At one point Holmes says to Watson, "If you ever see me getting too sure again, fancying myself more clever then Adrea Spedding, just whisper one word to me: pygmy." This line was inspired by the short story "The Adventure of the Yellow Face," in which Holmes tells Watson, "If it should ever strike you that I am getting a little over-confident in my powers, or giving less pains to a case than it deserves, kindly whisper 'Norbury' in my ear, and I shall be infinitely obliged to you."
Shooting lasted from May 10-early June, 1943, released January 21, 1944 (copyright 1943) .
A follow-up, The Spider Woman Strikes Back (1946), has no relation to the HOLMES feature, as Gale Sondergaard plays a completely different character.
The uncredited actor who played the pygmy was a pseudo achondroplastic dwarf in blackface makeup. A real pygmy would have been taller and better-proportioned.
The seventh of fourteen films based on Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional consulting detective Sherlock Holmes starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Doctor Watson.