The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)
Directed by Sidney Lanfield

Film Review

No one who worked on the 1939 version of The Hound of the Baskervilles - least of all its producer and instigator Darryl F. Zanuck - could have imagined how successful it would be.  The film was such a hit that the company which made it, Twentieth Century Fox, immediately commissioned a sequel, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939).  After that, Universal Pictures took up the baton and made another twelve films in the series, beginning with Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) and ending with Dressed to Kill (1946).  In all fourteen films, Basil Rathbone played Arthur Conan Doyle's elegant English detective, looking as if the  character had been especially created for him, with Nigel Bruce lending moral and comedic support as a bumbling, yet very effective, Dr Watson.

The Hound of the Baskervilles is the most frequently adapted of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories.  To date, there have been around a dozen film versions alone, and too many stage, television and radio adaptations to mention.  This is probably the best of the bunch, despite some obvious departures from the original story (we miss out on the grisly demise of the villain).  The atmospheric photography and realistic shadowy sets give an authentic recreation of Holmes' Victorian England, with mist-shrouded exteriors and sinister gas-lit interiors, cold dark menace lurking in every shadow.   Rathbone and Bruce make an instantly likeable Holmes and Watson, with both actors settled in their roles and clearly enjoying every moment.  Over the next six years they would form one of cinema's most enduring double acts, in a series of superlative Sherlock Holmes films that continue to impress and entertain.

Film Synopsis

On the bleak, misty Devonshire moors, a man is running for his life.  The next day, he is found dead.  The man is Sir Charles Baskerville, the wealthy owner of Baskerville Hall.  Refusing to accept this his friend died of natural causes, Dr Mortimer travels up to London to consult the renowned sleuth Mr Sherlock Holmes.  Mortimer explains that for hundreds of years the Baskervilles have been haunted by the ghost of a fierce hound, and he is convinced that this has something to do with Sir Charles' death.  He fears that the same fate may befall Sir Charles' young heir, Sir Henry Baskerville, who is due to arrive in England to claim his estate within a few hours.  Intrigued, Holmes asks his friend and colleague Dr Watson to accompany Sir Henry to his Devonshire mansion and to watch over him.  If Holmes is right, Sir Henry is in the greatest of danger...