It was in 1914 that Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1902 Sherlock Holmes mystery The Hound of the Baskervilles was adapted into the first of thirty movies—and counting, as of last year’s actionized Bengali language effort Saralakkha Holmes. But with all those choices we liked the above poster the most, so the iteration starring Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Richard Greene, and Wendy Barrie is the one we watched.
You probably know the story. For centuries every master of majestic Baskerville Hall has died violently, in what is thought by the superstitious to be supernatural revenge for the death of an abducted peasant girl during the 1600s. Holmes is asked by the Baskerville family physician to look into the demise of patriarch Sir Charles Baskerville, who died of alleged fright near the paw prints of an enormous dog. Helping him out is his sidekick Dr. Watson and the latest Baskerville heir, Sir Henry.
The source novel by Arthur Conan Doyle is regarded by many as the best Sherlock Holmes tale. It’s certainly a creepy one. The movie preserves that horror-adjacent mood, via plenty of nocturnal sneaking around, a candlelit seance, mysterious neolithic stones, and lots of howling from the dread bog known as the Grimpen Mire. “I tell you it’s nothing. Nothing but the wind.” We’ve heard plenty of wind, but never any like in this film.
The longfaced Rathbone is a subtle actor here. He makes good use of his eyes, which can be both penetrating and soulful, particularly during moments when important thoughts coalesce. We can’t imagine a better Sherlock. And for the moment, we can’t imagine a better version of this particular Doyle story. The final line of dialogue is this: “Watson—the needle!” Holmes was a recreational user of cocaine and morphine. How did that ever survive the censors? We’ll never know. The Hound of the Baskervilles premiered today in 1939.
