Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes film series

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Tony Stucchio, Sep 3, 2014.

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  1. Tony Stucchio

    Tony Stucchio Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    New York City
    Any fans here? For the uninitiated, there were 14 films made, co-starring Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson.
    The first 2 were made at 20th Century Fox, and were set in the proper period. The final 12 were made at Universal, and were set in the 1940's, with several plots revolving around wartime themes.

    If you are even the least bit of a Sherlock Holmes fan, do yourself a favor and watch The Scarlet Claw. While not based specifically on a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle story, it is very reminiscent of The Hound of the Baskervilles, which was actually the first film in the Rathbone series. In fact, in the opening scenes, Watson actually refers to the Baskerville case.

    The Scarlet Claw is an extremely atmospheric foray into the mystery/horror/supernatural genre. Every frame exudes a foreboding atmosphere. (Keep in mind that it was filmed at Universal, home to Dracula, The Wolfman, and the Frankenstein monster.) Although it is considered a "B" picture, with a short running time of
    74 minutes, the picture packs in more mystery and suspense than a current-day blockbuster. Yes, this movie is that good.

    Don't read the wikipedia entry on this movie. It contains many spoilers.

    For this movie to have the greatest effect, watch it with the lights turned down, at night of course, and with several other people. Popcorn is optional, but highly recommended. And have everyone shut off their cell phones, for crying out loud.



     
  2. rburly

    rburly Sitting comfortably with Item 9

    Location:
    Orlando
    In the 60's and 70's I got the complete Sherlock Holmes and the only video/movies of Sherlock Holmes were the Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce versions. They've been my favorite versions for many, many years. I'm a huge fan.
     
  3. Tony Stucchio

    Tony Stucchio Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    New York City
    Which is your favorite?

    I have most of them in either Super 8 or 16mm.
     
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  4. rburly

    rburly Sitting comfortably with Item 9

    Location:
    Orlando
    I'd have to say The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939). It's always been my favorite.
     
  5. Solaris

    Solaris a bullet in flight

    Location:
    New Orleans, LA
    I rewatched all of these a few years ago, one per day. I grew up watching them and have fond memories. The Scarlet Claw is quite good, as is The Spider Woman. Really, only the last few flag in quality, with Dressed to Kill be particularly cheap looking.
     
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  6. Tony Stucchio

    Tony Stucchio Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    New York City
    Good choice. I give the slight edge to The Scarlet Claw, though. I would love to see how Hound would have turned out if made at Universal.

    The Spider Woman is lots of fun. I always thought Dressed to Kill was a good entry -- just not one of the best. Pursuit to Algiers is my least favorite. That's the only one I never watched regularly as I never kept it on tape since I didn't like it. But I must admit that when I watched it a few years ago on TCM, I was surprised at the ending since I didn't remember it.

    Faces Death, Pearl of Death, The House of Fear, The Woman in Green, and Terror By Night are all solid entries as well.

    Around that time, a person by the name of Leo Gutman bought TV rights to the Holmes pictures. All ancillary rights (theatrical and video) remained with Associated Artists, later Allied Artists (formerly Monogram), who bought the package from Universal and reissued them theatrically. Gutman's licensed them to Niles Films (in Super 8mm, and perhaps 16mm), and it was actually illegal, but nobody cared. (Remember the trade ads where Gutman would dress up as Holmes?) When Key Video released the pictures on tape, the license was from Lorimar, who owned the Allied Artists package. Bart Pierce at Key (a CBS subsidiary then) was given a road map of how to properly restore the Universal openings from the surviving introductions so that the orchestrations would match those of the films they were being attached to (each Holmes film contained a new rendition of the Main Title theme). It was all for naught. Chace Sound destroyed the tracks and made them all, except two, sound like mud. However, the print they used for The Spider Woman came from the BFI and was used as the basis for King World's TV negative. I have seen one and it's a doozy, with full Universal credits.
     
    Last edited: Sep 3, 2014
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  7. schugh

    schugh Forum Resident

    I got the blu-ray set a year ago. They look great and are quite enjoyable.
    The Rathbone films were my first introduction to Sherlock Holmes after we immigrated to Canada in the early 70s.
     
  8. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Had the honor of licking several of the camera negatives in 1989. A great series.
     
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  9. Tony Stucchio

    Tony Stucchio Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    New York City
    I'm envious. Do you remember how many of the original camera negatives still exist? According to Wikipedia:

    I don't totally believe this quote, or, more accurately, its intent: "the copies of the films that survive are many generations removed from the original." I haven't seen all the recent restorations (kudos to Hugh Heffner, UCLA, and Warner Bros.), but the ones that I did see looked great. Even a 35mm release print in the 1940's would have been many generations removed from the original camera negative. It goes something like this: camera neg -> positive (lavendar/fine-grain)->dupe neg-> release print. So the latter is already 3 generations removed. (There maybe another 2 steps in there between dupe neg and release print -- I've never been totally clear on that.) The prints I have were mostly made up in the '70s, and they look great -- even in Super 8.

    Ever go to La Mort Rouge? :nauga:
     
  10. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    In Chicago they used to show them on Sunday mornings, perfect time slot. I even liked the WWII "spy" episodes. Basil Rathbone is Sherlock Holmes to me the same way that Sean Connery is James Bond.
     
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  11. Tony Stucchio

    Tony Stucchio Active Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    New York City
    Me to. Some Sherlock Holmes snobs dislike the series, mainly because of Nigel Bruce's interpretation of Watson -- although that was really up to the screenwriters.

    I'm a fan of the original stories, the Rathbone series, the Brett series, and the Benedict Cumberbatch series. To me, it's not a competition. I've enjoyed some of the one-off movies as well. I've never seen, however, nor intend to see, the "Elementary" show on CBS.
    The Downey films are enjoyable, but in a different way. I really dislike the Ronald Howard series from the '50s, mainly because of very poor production values. For example, instead of showing something happening, a character tells you what happened -- if that make sense.
     
    Last edited: Sep 4, 2014
  12. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    We're on the same page with Holmes. My family and I also like the Cumberbatch series, as well as the Downey ones, but the CBS TV show is a bridge too far.

    And I believe you were referring to "exposition" -- adding detail by having someone explain something, so they don't have to spend money filming it. In the Austin Powers movies, they have the character Basil Exposition, who provides all necessary background information for the plot.

    And every few years I re-read the Sherlock Holmes book I've had since I was a kid. Great characters, great stories, a lot of great films.
     
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  13. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Not necessarily. They can and do make theatrical prints directly from the OCN (original camera negative) in some cases, especially if it's a short run. What we generally use for the home video transfers is the master positive (sometimes called a finegrain), struck right off the OCN. In the case of the Holmes movies, the negs would be nitrate, and the master positive could be on safety stock or could be on nitrate.

    I did the video transfer on Terror by Night for Bart at Fox (and he was a great guy, lots of fun and very knowledgeable about film history), and I sweated blood to make it look as good as we could back in 1989. I wish I could've done them all, but I was glad to at least get my hands on one of them. (My memory is that there was a scheduling issue, and Fox used a bunch of mastering houses all over town to get the films ready very quickly.)

    I think Chace did the best they could with the elements they had. I know of cases where different studios execs made specific decisions on EQ and noise reduction that were out of Chace's hands, so don't necessarily blame the company. I'd say that 25 years ago, the noise-reduction options were a lot more primitive than they are now. Today, they could probably knock out 10-15dB of optical crud and have zero artifacts. Rick Chace himself knew the different from too much NR and not enough, and he had a lot of taste and experience with this stuff.

    What is true is the cleaner the original, the less noise reduction you have to do. The problem with those old variable-density soundtracks is they often sound really awful on modern equipment (though I'm not 100% certain what the Holmes prints were). What I can say is that the pictures I saw on those new late-1980s transfers were the best those movies ever looked -- far from the usual "underwater dupe" 16mm TV syndication prints we saw for the previous 30+ years. I'm curious if any of the original negatives survive, or if the change in ownership several times allowed some of the elements to slip away over time.
     
    Last edited: Sep 4, 2014
  14. Commander Lucius Emery

    Commander Lucius Emery Forum Resident

    The Jeremy Brett series I respect but the Basil Rathbone series I love. Perhaps that is because as a teenager the Rathbone films (except Hound of the Baskervilles) was a weekly Saturday feature on New York television. I even prefer Nigel Bruce's interpretation as Watson. True, Watson falls into a lot of bogs in Canada and is often fooled by villains in disguise. But he is a competent doctor and on one occasion is smarter than Holmes. In one film (Spider Woman?) Holmes describes a skeleton as belonging to a child and Watson corrects him, saying it's a pygmy. The best film is "House of Fear". And kudos to Dennis Hooey as in inept, egotistical Inspector Lestrade.
     
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  15. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    In 1990 WB got all the Monogram/Allied Artists movies and in there (due to the original crazy Universal selling off of the Holmes stuff) were most (not all) of the Uni Holmes camera negs. Good times. I licked THE QUEEN OF OUTER SPACE as well.
     
  16. john greenwood

    john greenwood Senior Member

    Location:
    NYC
    Pretty sure I've seen them all. I recall my surprise when Patricia Morrison, who I knew as the original Broadway star of Kiss Me, Kate, showed up as the villain in Dressed to Kill.
     
  17. Jack White

    Jack White Senior Member

    Location:
    Canada
    I'm assuming 'licking'/ 'licked' is technological jargon or slang. Would you please explain its meaning.
     
  18. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Just my expression for paying homage.
     
  19. rockclassics

    rockclassics Senior Member

    Location:
    Mainline Florida
    It has been many yeasrs since I have seen any of these. But I do remember watching a lot of these on TV back in the early 80s. A station was running these - I think lste on Sunday nights - and my wife and I always enjoyed watching them.
     
  20. albert_m

    albert_m Forum Resident

    Location:
    Atl., Ga, USA
    I enjoy them all, though a few stand out that have been mentioned. I picked up the UCLA DVD complete set some years back (the awkward "book" package) and got a great deal from Amazon on the blu version set (nicely packeged in a standard disc container).
     
  21. noahjld

    noahjld Der Wixxer

    Classics.
     
  22. erniebert

    erniebert Shoe-string audiophile

    Location:
    Toronto area
    Sort of like how I sometimes say I "rubbed my crotch" on something.

    We bought the blu-ray boxed set:

    [​IMG]

    The movies were clean and clear, but where was the contrast? :shrug:
     
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  23. Steve Hoffman

    Steve Hoffman Your host Your Host

    Too much grain reduction? Overmastered? Dunno, haven't seen the set.
     
  24. smilin ed

    smilin ed Senior Member

    Location:
    Durham
    Interesting that after the success of the first two (three) movies, Conan-Doyle's sons got in on the act and hawked the property around, allowing the studio to make changes - hence the later films set later than the actual stories.
     
  25. HominyRhodes

    HominyRhodes Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    '"...the usual 'underwater dupe' 16mm TV syndication prints we saw for the previous 30+ years..."

    That's a great description of what I saw on TV while growing up, including Sherlock Holmes, Charlie Chan, Blondie and Dagwood, Flash Gordon, etc.
     
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