The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939 film)

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The Hound of the Baskervilles

DVD cover
Directed by Sidney Lanfield
Produced by Gene Markey
Written by A. Conan Doyle (novel)
Ernest Pascal
Starring Richard Greene
Basil Rathbone
Nigel Bruce
Music by David Buttolph
Charles Maxwell
Cyril J. Mockridge
David Raksin
Cinematography Peverell Marley
Editing by Robert Simpson
Distributed by Twentieth Century Fox
Release date(s) March 24, 1939
Running time 80 min.
Country U.S.A.
Language English
IMDb profile

The Hound of the Baskervilles is a 1939 mystery film based on the novel of the same name by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and is directed by Sidney Lanfield and produced by 20th Century Fox. It is the most well known cinematic adaptation of the book, and is often regarded as the best as well.

The film stars Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes, Nigel Bruce as Watson and Richard Greene as Henry Baskerville. Because the studio apparently had no idea that the film would be such a hit, and that Rathbone and Bruce would make many more Sherlock Holmes films and be forever linked with Holmes and Watson, top billing went to Richard Greene, who was the film's romantic lead. Rathbone was billed second. Wendy Barrie, who played Beryl Stapleton, the woman with whom Greene falls in love, received third billing, and Nigel Bruce, the film's Dr. Watson, was billed fourth. In all other Holmes films, Rathbone and Bruce would receive first and second billing.

The Hound of the Baskervilles also marks the first of the fourteen Sherlock Holmes movies starring Rathbone and Bruce as the detective duo.

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

On his uncle's death Sir Henry Baskerville returns from abroad and opens up the ancestral hall on the desolate moors of Devonshire. Holmes uncovers a plot to have Sir Henry murdered by a terrible trained hound.

[edit] Quotes

  • "Let me hear you reconstruct him — by our usual methods of deduction." (Sherlock Holmes)
  • "They were the footprints of a gigantic hound!" (Dr. Mortimer)
  • "Oh, Watson, the needle!" (Sherlock Holmes)
  • "Murder, my dear Watson — refined, cold-blooded murder." (Sherlock Holmes)

[edit] External links