Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes film series

There was a piece in one of the radio broadcasts were Watson recounts a story while at his home in "sunny California". This was noted in the MPI DVD liner notes.

 

Rathbone looked silly with his self created Sherlock Holmes hairstyle. He looked mush better with his hair combed back and the longer sideburns. Rathbone sbould also be remembered as one of Hollywood's greatest fencers. His duels with Errol Flynn in "Robin Hood" and Tyrone Power in "Zorro" are the 2 greatest duels in film history.

 

I thought his hair was just okay, but he may have needed it to create his character. I think Rathbone has written that he was afraid of hurting Flynn, who was not nearly as adept at the art of fencing, as Rathbone insisted it was. He was quite a Renaissance Man, having also written plays and directed as well as acted.

 

I thought this thread was dead -- last alert I got from it was Sunday -- though I'm getting other alerts. Anyone know what's up with that? I'm glad I checked -- now I have to catch up.

 

It shows the thread as "watched" so I'm still not sure what is wrong.
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Update: OK, so now I got an alert for Steve's post.

 

OK thanks -- I thought you were a mod, lol.

OK, so the Fox films were considered "A" pictures, as I suspected in a previous post? So then what was the excuse for the lack of music in Hound?

The Wontner films were modernized, too. It never bothered me.

I still need to give this one a fresh viewing. Last saw it maybe 4 years ago. I don't dislike it, but it is one of my least favorites.

BTW, VOT has 2 insanely gorgeous actresses in it with Hillary Brooke and Evelyn Ankers. I'm not quite sure why neither ever became "A" leading ladies.

 

Rathbone and Bruce as Holmes and Watson have cameos along with many other Universal stars in Olsen and Johnson's "Crazy House".

 

Tony,
I am an avid fan of these 14 films so you can bet I will do my best to keep this thread alive from now until Dressed to Kill.

 

Nobody here but myself has bought the blu-ray set?

 

I not only have the blu-ray set, but the MPI DVD set, all the Key Video VHS tapes and countless public domain versions on VHS and DVD. One DVD set I bought from Costco which had terrible versions of the 4 public domain films, had several hours of the radio broadcasts as well. Haven't had a chance to listen.

 

What do you think of the picture quality?

 

Oddly enough, I was surprised to see both the DVD and Blu-ray, that the blu-ray looked so scratchy and worn compared to the cleaned up DVD. Was it that the blu-ray brought out all the scratches that were not visible in the DVD?

 

Did you notice the lack of contrast, like I was complaining about?

Someone earlier posted a screenshot from one of the episodes and it reminds me of what the set looks like:



Detailed and clean, no doubt, but almost clinically clean.

 

I watched the MPI DVD set many times, and I think it has good contrast in most cases.

 

I meant the blu-ray set.

 

Trivia about the Voice of Terror:
Thomas Gomez, who played Meade, last film appearance was in Beneath The Planet of the Apes. He died the following year in a car accident.

 

I pulled out my blu-ray set, but instead of watching it on my Samsung LCD, I watched in on my old Sony Vega and it looked so much better. You are right, it was cleaned up and clearer. If you read the liner notes about the restoration process, the original negatives were on nitrate film. Backup copies were made on nitrate fine grain positives, but those too started to deteriorate over time as well. Then as luck would have it, many copies were made in the 1960's and 1970's onto 35mm and 16mm acetate stock. The restoration was then made with many combinations of nitrate negatives, nitrate positives and acetate stock, finding the best intact reels for each film, mainly from England, France and the US.
If you compare the Universal films to the Fox films, in which those two were not restored, you can see the difference. The Fox films are very nice, but many film artifacts are present, much of which was cleaned up in the archive process for the Universal series.

 

I thought all 14 films were restored by UCLA?

 

Tony,
No all 14 films were not given the restoration by the UCLA film archives. It was pointed out that they only restored the Universal series. If you looked at the MPI DVDs, all the Universal films are prefaced with a "restored by..." title, but the two Fox films did not have such a title, although those versions are not all that bad, but they could be better.

 

There were two scenes that were shot with a film noir quality. One was the Limehouse scene when Holmes was talking to Kitty about Gavin's death. The other was when Kitty was talking to Mead after he returns from Seven Oaks. Evelyn Ankers has such an odd look on her face when they do a closeup while Mead describes his dream to Kitty.

 

I didn't know that -- I don't have the MPI box set. I wrongly assumed that since they were all in one box set that they were all newly restored.

My recent viewing of Hound was from a tape from TCM from about 5 years ago. Even in low definition, I was impressed by how good it looked. For Adventures, I watched a tape made over 30 years ago from the CBS late-night movie showing. It looked quite good as well. Did they give a reason for not restoring them further? I'm guessing it was budgetary.

 

In the Universal series, not only did Rathbone, Bruce and Mary Gordon migrate from the Fox series, but so did Holmes dressing gown worn at his Baker Street lodgings and a tobacco holder shaped like shoe.
Another note: This is the first in the Universal series that we meet a college chum or army comrade of Watson's. There are a few more to follow. In this case, it was sdfg;sdlkfgjsdfg;lkjsdfg;lkjsdgf;lkj, who turned out to be the mastermind criminal.

SPOILER REMOVED.

 

Though I am huge Jeremy Brett fan, I have been happily surprised by just how good the Rathbone Holmes episodes are. At the end of the day, it really is "all good" as the young folks like to say.