THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES remains the most popular of the Sherlock Holmes stories and has been the most frequently filmed. There are at least 12 versions out there with the best known being the famous 1939 Basil Rathbone vehicle and the 1959 Peter Cushing/Hammer Films version. There’s also a Peter Cook & Dudley Moore parody and even a TV movie with Stewart Granger as Holmes and William Shatner as the villain. Up until recently I had never known that these German silent versions existed but thanks to Flicker Alley I now have had the chance to see them courtesy of this new Blu Ray/DVD combo.
Flicker Alley is no stranger to Sherlock Holmes having earlier given us a restored edition of William Gillette’s 1916 filmed version of his long running stage play. The same skill and care lavished on that release can be found in this one. The restoration of the 1929 version was a collaborative effort between FINA (Polish Film Archives) and the San Francisco Silent Film Festival. It utilizes a 35 mm print from the Czech Republic and a 9.5 mm print from France. The results are remarkable to behold. The German version is more about atmosphere than Sherlock Holmes and the sets, lighting and camera work are extremely effective. The director Richard Oswald had written his own stage version some years before which was made into a 1914 film which he did not direct but was credited as author. The 1914 version was restored in 2005.
Of the two I prefer the 1914 version over the 1929 one. The latter is certainly more polished and has a great villain in Fritz Rasp but the former is so far removed from Doyle that it’s practically its own story. Here the German love of British mystery writer Edgar Wallace is quite apparent and this is 50 years before the 1960s series of German films based on his works. The music accompaniment for both movies is effective and, is always the case with Flicker Alley, the extras headed up by the complete 1914 version (on the Blu-Ray only) are truly an added bonus that amounts to something. So fans of Sherlock on film be advised, no SH collection would be complete without this release. The decision to purchase this set should be a foregone conclusion. In fact you could say that it’s “elementary”.
The Capsule Critic 