The Baskerville family has been cursed for centuries by a hound from Hell due to the foul behavior of an ancestor. Recently, Sir Charles Baskerville had died of fright out on the moor. Dr Mortimer (Lionel Atwill), a believer in the supernatural, requests the aid of Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) and Dr. Watson (Nigel Bruce) to keep the newly arriving heir, Henry (Richard Greene), safe. Holmes can’t leave London, but sends Watson to Baskerville manner. The only other residents of the house are the suspicious butler and housekeeper (John Carradine, Eily Malyon), but there are a few close neighbors besides Mortimer and his wife: amateur archeologist John Stapleton (Morton Lowry) and his attractive sister Beryl (Wendy Barrie), and the overly litigious Frankland (Barlowe Borland). And somewhere on the moor is an escaped maniac.
The Hound of the Baskervilles is the best known Sherlock Holmes adventure, and one of the most popular books ever, which is a little strange since Holmes is missing for about a third. Even more so, it’s not a very good mystery. It’s nearly impossible not to figure out the villain and how he is doing his evil deeds, though a good deal trickier to guess why (is it possible at all?). So as a mystery, it falls short, but as a thriller, or more specifically, as a cinematic Old Dark House story, it comes into its own.
We’ve got an ancient curse and a maniac. We’ve got a group of eccentric characters in a small area, surrounded by deadly moors and the sounds of strange howls. We’ve got a suspicious butler waving a candle in the window at night and an ominous séance. We’ve got dim corridors, oversized halls, and unused rooms in a great stone house. And we’ve got mist to cover it all. This is the stuff of horror—a very specific type of horror—and here The Hound of the Baskervilles is at home.
You see it doesn’t matter what happens, but how it is displayed and this adaption knows exactly what to do: An unknown sound heard from a candlelit room. Then the slow turning of the handle. A gun. The door opens. It’s OK, just Henry. But wait, something is happening and he needs help. An advance down a darkened hallway. A light. A man signaling. And on it goes. Yes, atmosphere is trumping content, but the atmosphere is marvelous. It’s non-stop shadows and wind and strange sounds. When our group find a pleasant moment of relaxation, as in the dinner party, it’s clear that they are in a pinpoint of light, with darkness around. Step away from the table and the illusion of safety is gone.
Rathbone controls the role of Holmes, a sharp, obsessed genius, but unlike in his later appearances (when Rathbone was sick of the part), Holmes has a sense of humor. He’s fun, and having fun. Oh he takes his job as a detective seriously, but he also enjoys it, that is until the job’s finished and then he asks for cocaine. This is my favorite of Rathbone’s Holmes movies, containing his best performance, and probably the best appearance of the character in any film. Nigel Bruce’s Watson is a departure from the books, but I find it charming, and some comedy bumbling, as long as it isn’t taken too far, works for a sidekick when the hero is this smart.
Richard Greene is lackluster (strange now to think they gave him top billing), but then Henry isn’t much of a part and Greene is as good as anyone has ever been with it. The rest of the cast do better, particularly Atwill, Carradine, and Malyon, but then they get the weird and wonderful parts, so plenty for them to dig into.
The film follows the book more closely than most versions, and its departures are improvements, at least for a film (with the exception of eliminating Frankland’s daughter as more suspects would be nice, and of the change to Beryl’s status), as they build suspense, which is vital for the movie if not the novel. And those departures never feel out of place.
The Hound of the Baskervilles was the start of a 14 film run for Rathbone as Holmes (my ranking of those 14), and it is easy to see why. This picture as a whole is enjoyable, wrapping you in to it’s never-never-land of evil criminals and super-detectives, but Rathbone is even better. Both for him and for it’s Dark House horror, this is a film to see.