Holmes Cinema

Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes

HOLMES CINEMA

By TOM SOTER

from COLUMBIA DAILY SPECTATOR
April 1978

There are bad Holmes double-bills and good ones, and considering the number of Homes movies around that 'snot surprising. In 1903, a short silent film was released, Sherlock Holmes Baffled, which marked the first in a line of 130 Sherlock Holmes movies produced by German, French, American and British studios. The most recent incarnations were the fine The Seven Percent Solution, and the rather less fine The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother.

Holmes did have a brother, Mycroft, but whether he was smarter or not is open to question. As for the sleuth himself, it is doubtful that his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle realized what he was beginning when he sat dqwn, in 1887, and wrote the first Holmes adventure, A Study in Scarlet. At the time, he was still hoping to become a successful doctor; instead, he became one of the most popular authors of his day. and by (he time he killed off his creation (from boredom) in 1894, Sherlock was internationally known and publishers were offering up to a thousand pounds for new adventures.

Doyle was forced to revive the sleuth in 1904, and did so through a "previously untold" adventure. It took place before the detective's death. That tale was The Hound of the Baskervilles –one of the most effective of the novels, and also one of the most durable.

Hound has been filmed nine times, the first in 1917 and the last in 1972. The most famous version (though certainly not the. best) starred Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, and will be on view April 14th and 15th at the Thalia Theater along with another Holmes adventure, The Woman in Green, in an example of a bad Holmes double-bill. '

Rathbone and Bruce's Hound – their first appearance together – was tremendously successful when it was first released in 1939, and the duo went on to make 13 other films, and 273 radio appearances. Rathbone had ·been a successful character actor before Hound (specializing in villains) and to many, was an ideal Holmes.

Unfortunately, although he's good, the first adventure he was involved in isn't. It is a badly done rendition of Sir Arthur's original story which had involved a curse of the life of young Sir Henry Baskerville whose uncle had been killed by a phantom hound. The tale naturally included foggy moors, threatening ietters, and the prescribed red herrings. The way things are put forth in the film, however, the letters are more ludicrous than menacing, the red herring obvious as just that, and the moors unmistakable as studio sets. The believability is so necessary for a horror story like Hound to work is glaringly absent.

One can't find anything better to say about The Woman in Green, either. This one was, made six years later and involves a World War II Holmes with a band of hypnotists. After Hound's success, its producer. 20th Century Fox, made one more Holmes film and then bowed out. In 1942, Universal Pictures reaclivated the series with Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, and although it was fastly paced, it was set in contemporary times (for budget reasons) and was the first in an uneven and ever-deteriorating line of B-films.

Woman in Green was Number 11. 1t co-stars Henry Daniell as Holmes' old foe Professor Moriarty and is only notable for depicting – very faithfully – the first meeting between the two adversaries recorded in Doyle's "The Final Problem. "Besides that. however, there's little of interest in this second-rate programmer. Rathbone's performance leans toward the hammy side and Nigel Bruce is downright cretonic as Watson. If the Thalia must revive these things why don't they pick up The Scarlet Claw or The House of Fear? Both have more merit than these two.

The viewer would do better with lhe good Holmes double bill at the Carnegie Hall Cinema on May 12th. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the second and best of the Rathbone-Bruce pairings, and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Billy Wilder's rarely screened tribute (of sorts) to the detective.

Basil Rathbone (right) and Nigel Bruce

Adventures is greal fun and shows wha: Holmes on screen is capablle of if put in the right screenwriter-director's hands. "You have a magnificent brain, Moriarty," the detective intones cooly to his old foe at one point, "I admire it. I admire it so much I'd like to present it pickled in alcohol to the London Medical Society.'"

"It would make an interesting exhibit," replies the Professor with unconcern. This kind of stylish hatred is what made Dolyle
so fun. and is what adds tremendously to one's enjoyment of Adventures: a classy cat-and-mouse game between the detective and his arch-enemy. Rathbone's Holmes has never been better – impatient and incisive – and Moriarty is superbly rendered by George Zucco as a man who operates on a completely different moral system and who is all the more threatening because of that.

The climax is especially fun: melodramatic and exciting in the best Holmes tradition ( "Quick, Watson!" cries Holmes in sudden alarm, "we're wasting time!").

The second film on the program was made over thirty years later. It is charming-and though not much of a mystery story-it has clever dialogue and an engaging performance by Robert Stephens as the detective. It was supposed to be a send-up of Conan Doyle, but became an affectionate tribute to him instead. Wilder once remarked that he wanted to depict Homes the man, not Holmes the thinking machine. If so, he succeeded. and Private Life is certainly worth investigating. It has good performances by Christopher Lee as Mycroft, Colin Blakely as Watson and Genevieve Page as the lady in distress-one of the few women able to outwit the detective. The story involves the Scottish Highlands, Trappist Monks, the Loch Ness Monster, and a top secret weapon. One could do worse during exam week, and certainly no better as far as Sherlock Holmes double-features go.