Author of England's Secret Weapon - the Wartime Films of Sherlock Holmes

Amanda Field is a film historian who specialises in the classic 'studio era' of Hollywood. She studied art history at Winchester School of Art and took her Masters in Film Studies at the University of Southampton, where she recently completed her doctorate. Before embarking on academic study, she had a long career in corporate communications producing publications for blue-chip organisations including IBM, Vodafone, The Science Museum and British Gas. She is a member of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London and is a long-standing volunteer at Portsmouth Museum where she is helping to catalogue the world's largest collection of Sherlock Holmes material.

Her latest book is England's Secret Weapon - the Wartime Films of Sherlock Holmes, published on June 30 2009 by Middlesex University Press. It examines the way Hollywood used Sherlock Holmes in a series of fourteen films that spanned the years of World War II in Europe, from The Hound of the Baskervilles in 1939 to Dressed to Kill in 1946. Basil Rathbone's portrayal of Holmes has influenced every actor who has subsequently played this popular character on film, TV, stage and radio, yet the film series has, until now, been neglected in terms of detailed critical analysis. England's Secret Weapon looks at the films themselves in combination with their historical context.

Though the first two films were set in the detective's 'true' Victorian period, Holmes was then 'updated' and recruited to fight the Nazis. He came to represent the acceptable face of England for the Americans - the one man who could be relied upon to ensure an Allied victory. Enthusiasm for a Nazi-fighting Holmes soon waned, and the series moved first into ghost-and-ghouls chillers, and finally into visceral horror films in which Professor Moriarty, Holmes' old enemy, had been replaced by a new breed of villain - a deadly female.

The book examines the way the studio steered a careful course between modernising the detective and making sure he was still recognisable as the 'old Holmes', something that is visible in the spaces he and Dr Watson inhabit, the clothes they wear and the way they behave - all of which are slightly out of step with the contemporary. It also looks at the reasons for moving away from the 'classic detective' genre, including the need for Hollywood studios to be seen to support the war-effort; commercial pressures, such as the emerging challenge from the hardboiled genre; and societal pressures such as the unease about newly empowered women in the workplace.

England's Secret Weapon combines academic rigour with an approachable style. It draws on much previously unseen archive material and features over 50 black and white illustrations. You can read an extract from the book here or buy it online here for £10 including UK postage.

Dr Field's other research interests include the boxing genre of the 1930s-1950s, the imaging of Victorian London and the films of Fu Manchu.