DER HUND VON BASKERVILLE (1929)
This was AMAZING. Right from the start, I fell in love with the mostly-piano music score. The opening scene in the story, unlike the novel, shows Sir Charles discussing the legend of the hound with his friends, the night he wound up dying under mysterious circumstances. This was exactly like the 1968 BBC TV version with Peter Cushing.
The bulk of the movie, surprisingly, follows the novel pretty closely, although it does simplify things quite a bit. For example, despite Jack's obvious intense jealousy, Beryl is never revealed to be his wife, but merely his ward. (In the 1939 Fox version with Basil Rathbone, she was Jack's sister.) Also, while Charles was lured out to the moors by Laura Lyons, the actual reasons for it never come up, and we never find out that she was in fact Frankland's daughter. On the other hand, we see Jack MURDER Laura to keep her from talking, which inspired a similar turn of events in the 1983 Ian Richardson version.
The last act of the film does manage to deviate in a fun way from the original story, in that Holmes discovers a secret underground tunnel that connects Baskerville Hall with Stapleton'e house, which is how Jack was able to sneak in and steal Sir Henry's boot, it's where Jack kept the dog, it's where Jack made Beryl a prisoner near the end, and it's where Holmes nearly gets killed when Jack floods it with water. (Shades of Chaney's "PHANTOM OF THE OPERA"!)
The directing, the lighting and the camera-work are all superb. Something I only found out days before seeing it, director Richard Oswald was the father of Gerd Oswald, who in the 1960s directed 2 episodes of STAR TREK and 14 episodes of THE OUTER LIMITS. Wow! I think that explains why "OL" looked the way it did so often-- it was the influence of German expressionism.
The restoration was done from 2 different prints-- one with Czech titles and a "home movie" version (NO KIDDING!) with French titles. The differences are glaring-- mostly-clear and very poor quality-- but without the lesser sections, even more of the film would be missing than still is. Chunks of the 2nd & 3rd reels are filled in with STILL PHOTOS, in the manner I've seen previously with "METROPOLIS" and "LOST HORIZON", so some key points in the story are there, but go by very quickly. This includes Henry's arrival at the Hall, his first meetings with Barrymore, Jack & Beryl. Fortunately, the bulk of the film-- and arguably all the best parts-- are still intact.
I immediately took an extreme liking to Carlyle Blackwell as Holmes. George Seroff as Watson is a lot more light-hearted, but from what I've read, this was one of the very first Holmes films to ever make the Holmes-Watson relationship a big focus of the story. There's a real joy in Watson when he finds Holmes hiding out on the moors, in a scene very similar to-- but in my view-- DONE BETTER than it was in the 1988 Jeremy Brett version! "Your cigarette brand betrays you."
Betty Bird as Beryl is very pretty, while Franz Rasp as Jack is a DEMENTED lunatic on the level with "The Joker". Holmes must have had a lot of trouble holding back telling Watson right away who the murderer was. It was so obvious!
One of the extras is a documentary about the history of Doyle writing Holmes, very reluctantly at first. It was only when "Hound" happened that he really decided to go full-throttle with the character, writing most of the 62 stories afterwards.
This was AMAZING. Right from the start, I fell in love with the mostly-piano music score. The opening scene in the story, unlike the novel, shows Sir Charles discussing the legend of the hound with his friends, the night he wound up dying under mysterious circumstances. This was exactly like the 1968 BBC TV version with Peter Cushing.
The bulk of the movie, surprisingly, follows the novel pretty closely, although it does simplify things quite a bit. For example, despite Jack's obvious intense jealousy, Beryl is never revealed to be his wife, but merely his ward. (In the 1939 Fox version with Basil Rathbone, she was Jack's sister.) Also, while Charles was lured out to the moors by Laura Lyons, the actual reasons for it never come up, and we never find out that she was in fact Frankland's daughter. On the other hand, we see Jack MURDER Laura to keep her from talking, which inspired a similar turn of events in the 1983 Ian Richardson version.
The last act of the film does manage to deviate in a fun way from the original story, in that Holmes discovers a secret underground tunnel that connects Baskerville Hall with Stapleton'e house, which is how Jack was able to sneak in and steal Sir Henry's boot, it's where Jack kept the dog, it's where Jack made Beryl a prisoner near the end, and it's where Holmes nearly gets killed when Jack floods it with water. (Shades of Chaney's "PHANTOM OF THE OPERA"!)
The directing, the lighting and the camera-work are all superb. Something I only found out days before seeing it, director Richard Oswald was the father of Gerd Oswald, who in the 1960s directed 2 episodes of STAR TREK and 14 episodes of THE OUTER LIMITS. Wow! I think that explains why "OL" looked the way it did so often-- it was the influence of German expressionism.
The restoration was done from 2 different prints-- one with Czech titles and a "home movie" version (NO KIDDING!) with French titles. The differences are glaring-- mostly-clear and very poor quality-- but without the lesser sections, even more of the film would be missing than still is. Chunks of the 2nd & 3rd reels are filled in with STILL PHOTOS, in the manner I've seen previously with "METROPOLIS" and "LOST HORIZON", so some key points in the story are there, but go by very quickly. This includes Henry's arrival at the Hall, his first meetings with Barrymore, Jack & Beryl. Fortunately, the bulk of the film-- and arguably all the best parts-- are still intact.
I immediately took an extreme liking to Carlyle Blackwell as Holmes. George Seroff as Watson is a lot more light-hearted, but from what I've read, this was one of the very first Holmes films to ever make the Holmes-Watson relationship a big focus of the story. There's a real joy in Watson when he finds Holmes hiding out on the moors, in a scene very similar to-- but in my view-- DONE BETTER than it was in the 1988 Jeremy Brett version! "Your cigarette brand betrays you."
Betty Bird as Beryl is very pretty, while Franz Rasp as Jack is a DEMENTED lunatic on the level with "The Joker". Holmes must have had a lot of trouble holding back telling Watson right away who the murderer was. It was so obvious!
One of the extras is a documentary about the history of Doyle writing Holmes, very reluctantly at first. It was only when "Hound" happened that he really decided to go full-throttle with the character, writing most of the 62 stories afterwards.