The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

Victorian England. Consulting detective Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and his friend and partner Doctor Watson (Nigel Bruce) are asked to help ensure the safety of Sir Henry Baskerville (Richard Greene), who has come to England to take possession of his inheritance in the Great Grimpen Mire of Dartmoor. Rumours of a supernatural hound haunting his lineage abound, and many secrets are kept on the moors.

This first in its series of Sherlock Holmes movie produced by Fox , in this case directed by Sidney Lanfield, was a major hit in its time. Apart from the natural and perennial popularity of Holmes, this is certainly thanks to the casting of Basil Rathbone in the role, who has the accent, the profile, the energy and the acting chops to pull off an interesting Great Detective; he also has great chemistry with his Watson, real-life friend Nigel Bruce.

I’ve never liked the Bruce Watson much – he’s too stupid to be believable as a doctor, a military veteran that survived anything more dangerous than stepping over a puddle or as a friend to Holmes. In fact, in his worst moments – most of them to come in later films of the duo – this too stupid Watson tends to damage his Holmes, because this version of Holmes apparently needs to travel with the dumbest person alive to feel properly clever and is the kind of guy who drags around the learning disabled to berate them for being “bunglers”.

My tastes in Watsons aside, while The Hound is the most popular, and certainly the best, of the Holmes novels, it is a curious case to start a series with a particularly weak Watson with. For here, Watson is really meant to take the lead role in the investigation for at least half of the narrative, something Bruce’s character never believably manages in between comedy routines and empty bluster. He isn’t helped at all by being surrounded by the sort of extremely unmemorable actors Old Hollywood loved as their young romantic leads. Only Lionel Atwill provides some memorable moments.

The script pretty much makes a hash out of Doyle’s novel, changes everything that might be morally complex even more so than the Production Code would have necessitated, and just barely manages to get in some of the book’s set pieces. Those certainly are made very pretty by the use of some nice looking sets. Sidney Lanfield’s direction is generally unremarkable, and at its most effective whenever he just lets Rathbone or Atwill do their respective thing, which, unfortunately, isn’t all too often.