'The Hound of the Baskervilles' supposedly has no less than 24 film versions. I think I've seen three of them. The 1959 Hammer edition with Peter Cushing as Holmes was as I recall quite good. But I always come back to the most popular one, the first teaming of Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. I was reading excerpts from Bruce's diary a while back and it was quite refreshing to learn, after hearing about so many co-stars who constantly fought or were jealous of each other, that he and Rathbone were very close, dear friends. Basil Rathbone insisted that Nigel Bruce play the role of Dr. Watson, both in the film series and also on radio broadcasts they did later. Even though the Watson character is quite different in the movies than in the original stories, nearly everyone agrees that both Nigel Bruce and Basil Rathbone were born to play their respective roles, and public demand was such that they would continue as Watson and Holmes for a total of fourteen films over seven years. The first two, produced by 20th-Century Fox, were fairly prestigious 'A' pictures, while the dozen done for Universal were more modestly budgeted, a continuing series of 'B' films. But the Holmes stories didn't seem to require a big production, as long as they had the Rathbone/Bruce chemistry. 'Hound of the Baskervilles' takes a few liberties with Arthur Conan Doyle's novel; I doubt most people will notice unless they have the book committed to memory. Even though Dr. Watson is, shall we say, 'dumbed down,' he is as portrayed by Bruce such an enjoyable foil for Rathbone's Holmes that it merely seems like a slightly different interpretation of Doyle's work. The story of the demonic hound who haunts generation after generation of Baskervilles at their estate near the foreboding Grimpin Mire remains intact. In best old Hollywood tradition, the film is rich in atmosphere and often suggests something of the supernatural, though in reality everything can be explained in strictly rational terms, which of course Sherlock Holmes does, in due course. Dr. Watson figures into the proceedings more prominently here as Holmes himself is absent during much of the film's mid-section. The scenes at the estate and out on the moor are appropriately gloomy and dark, even during the day, as the region seems shrouded in a perpetual fog. The assorted other characters range from amusing (old Mr. Frankland, constantly threatening the others with lawsuits) to eerie (the butler Barryman, played by John Carradine) to predictable (Sir Henry Baskerville, a wooden performance by Richard Greene, who got top billing!). One of the best scenes between Rathbone and Bruce is the first one, where an unknown visitor to Holmes' Baker Street residence leaves behind his walking stick and Holmes prods Watson to utilize 'elementary observation' to describe the person. This Watson does to Holmes' amusement, as everything he guesses turns out to be wrong, while of course Holmes' assessment is proved unerringly accurate. In the end, Sherlock Holmes solves the mystery of the hound and the murders (we would expect no less) and his final words are, "Oh Watson, the needle!" I wonder what film audiences back in 1939 made of that!
Review of The Hound of the Baskervilles
