Le chien de Baskerville

Sherlock Holmes came into being at the same time as the cinema, and remains a frequently filmed and televised character. THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, Arthur Conan Doyle's best novel about Holmes, has been produced at least nineteen times for the big and little screens. This is the last silent version and has many bright points about it.

For the majority of its length, it is a Gothic story of terror, using many of the techniques of horror movies developed to a peak in Germany: the dark lighting, the Dutch angles, a moving, subjective camera that implies an unseen, malevolent, supernatural watcher. It is only when Carlyle Blackwell as Holmes, the modern, rational, intelligent man is on the scene, that the mysteries can be unraveled and sense be made of the murky doings on the moor.

It is, in many a fashion, a last hurrah as silent cinema gave up the ghost. Carlyle Blackwell had been a major star in the 1910s, and a lesser one through the silent 1920s. He would make one more movie, a talkie, and retire from the screen. Alma Taylor, who plays Mrs. Barrymore, had likewise been a big movie star in Britain, the favorite actress of Hepworth, whose studio had disintegrated. She would continue in the movies in minor and unbilled roles for another twenty years.

This movie itself was lost for many years, almost forgotten. It likely never played in the United States, where only MGM of all the majors was still producing silent pictures, and even the minors were rapidly wiring for sound to keep up with the theaters that were doing the same. The other actors would fade, The director, Richard Oswald would wind up in charge of B movies in the United States during the Second World War, even the skilled cinematographer of this movie would go into decline, and light his last set nine years later.

Only Sherlock Holmes would prosper. There would be a couple of years without him appearing on the screen, then three movies about him would be released in 1931, including the first sound version of THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES.

This is the best directed version of the Hound of the Baskervilles, but to be honest no great directors have tackled the story. "Der Hund von Baskerville" also has the honor of being the last silent Holmes film. The format didn't really suit the Holmes stories, which heavily rely on dialogue and exposition. To avoid excessive intertitles, the films had to simplify the material and stress action over cerebration.

In that respect, this "Hound" is no different (the walking stick deduction scene is naturally absent), but it uniquely goes whole hog for a German gothic/expressionist proto-noir style. Baskerville Hall becomes an old dark house like the ones in "The Bat" or "The Cat and the Canary," with shadows galore, eyes peeping out of statues, trap doors, and hidden rooms sealed off at the push of the button. And since this is a late silent, we're treated to voluptuous camera movement and eccentrically creative camera angles.

Carlyle Blackwell, an American matinee idol back in 1914, was imported to play Sherlock Holmes, introduced as "the genial detective." Fortunately Blackwell's confident performance is not entirely genial, though he does accentuate the smug, amused side of Holmes's character. Russian George Seroff plays a puppyish, plump, mustache-less Watson. The character was often a non-entity in silent Holmes films, but here he plays a major role, albeit an often comical ones (his gullibility prompts a light smack upside the head from Holmes). Stapleton is played by Fritz Rasp, that great gonzo gargoyle of German cinema.

For decades "Der Hund" was thought lost, until a print turned up Poland. Sadly the film is missing several expository scenes in reels two and three, which covered Watson's investigations of suspects at Baskerville Hall. These are compensated for by illustrated titles, but their absence leaves the whodunit mystery shortened and the overall story lopsided.

"Der Hund" is a mostly faithful adaptation of Doyle, and even shares strategies with later versions. Like the 1968 BBC production with Peter Cushing, it starts with the suspects gathered at Baskerville Hall. As in the Hammer version, Holmes gets trapped in an underground passage. And Laura Lyons has the same fate in the 1982 TV film starring Ian Richardson.

Low budgets are the bane of many "Hound" adaptations, but not this one. Baskerville Hall is opulently furnished and the outside moor, though created in a disused hangar, is a convincing wasteland of scraggly scrub. The hound is played by a mottled Great Dane, usually shown in extreme close-up, an unusual tactic to make it look more imposing. The other settings are modern-a motorcar pulls up to Baker Street and Holmes wears a leather trench coat alongside his deerstalker.

THE STORY & GENRE -- Sherlock Holmes. Spectral howling soon turns to sleuthing various characters. As with all Holmes tales, we ask, is it genre? Except for the Robert Downey Jr. "steampunk" (sci-fi) movies, and TERROR BY NIGHT (Jack the Ripper), this is as close as Holmes gets to actual genre, so it's all about atmosphere and story-telling.

THE VERDICT -- I'm not going to fuss over this silent film. It's got good set design and camerawork but it's not the Richard Oswald expressionist masterpiece you're hoping to see. It's also not the finest film version of the story. Call me lowbrow if you like, but the 1939 (Basil Rathbone), 1959 (Peter Cushing), and 1988 (Jeremy Brett) installments are better.

FREE ONLINE? As of this date, on YouTube with English subtitles.

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"...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

Unless you want to see a bunch of people flapping their gums soundlessly while someone tinkles on a piano, or you are a Holmes completist, you would probably be better off watching one of the many later versions of The Hound of the Baskervilles (I recommend the definitive 1939 talkie starring Basil Rathbone). That's not to say that this silent film is entirely worthless but so much of what makes Sherlock Holmes great is the famous detective's way with words, particularly his banter with best bud Watson. Without that repartee, the film is lacking.

Thought lost for many years, an incomplete tape of Richard Oswald's 1929 The Hound of the Baskervilles was eventually discovered in the basement of a church in Poland and digitally restored, with stills replacing the missing footage. It's a fairly faithful adaptation of Conan Doyle's novel, with decent production design, the Baskerville manor and the windswept moors being particularly impressive, and the ending delivers some excitement, as Holmes becomes trapped in a tunnel that is rapidly filling up with water, but the bulk of the film is unevenly paced (definitely not helped by the missing scenes). The film was a commercial failure on its original release, probably because it came out just as sound was coming in.