Rating: 
Summary: Coming on DVD!
Review: This classic, and its followup, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, will be released in April 2004 on DVD. Somehow, amazon has truncated the title; search for "Hound of the Bask" and it will come up. The same folks who restored the 12 Universal Holmes films are behind this release, so it should be worth the wait.
Rating: 
Summary: A fabulous little film that's still fun for the whole family
Review: This film isn't perfect: the production values are a bit low and the supporting cast weak; it looks and feels like an early talkie. But that said, The Hound of the Baskervilles is great fun for the whole family. If you have kids in the 7-15 year old range, watching old movies like this is a great alternative to most of the garbage put out today. Basil Rathborne is wonderful in the lead role, and this is one of the finer screen adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous literary character. I would definitely recommend adding this to your DVD collection.
Rating:
Summary: See where Scooby and Shaggy got their Inspiration!
Review: This film isn't perfect: the production values are a bit low and the supporting cast weak; it looks and feels like an early talkie. But that said, The Hound of the Baskervilles is great fun for the whole family. If you have kids in the 7-15 year old range, watching old movies like this is a great alternative to most of the garbage put out today. Basil Rathborne is wonderful in the lead role, and this is one of the finer screen adaptations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous literary character. I would definitely recommend adding this to your DVD collection.
Rating:
Summary: a brooding and effective telling of a classic tale
Review: This is probably the definitive Sherlock Holmes film with the ultimate Holmes and Watson in Rathbone and Bruce. For the first in this memorable series of 14 films, it is astonishing how Basil Rathbone portrays his role with such distinction in his Holmes debut, while Nigel Bruce is equally appealing. The film is very well directed for its time, and the brooding atmosphere of the novel, particularly the moorland scenes, is splendidly captured. It is fairly true to Conan Doyle's story, and maintains a cracking pace that can be enjoyed by more than just Holmes fans. There are a few minor irritations: the irrelevant and annoying seance scene, (the only real deviation from the book); the curious name-change of Barrymore to Barryman (a script-writer's oversight?. In addition, the hapless acting of the villain, Selden, makes him one of the least convincing bad guys on film but what the heck, this all adds to the fun! Terrific.
Rating:
Summary: This movie drips with atmosphere!....
Review: This is such a great movie,with Holmes and Watson in costume and at the turn of the century...Add interesting sets,camera movements and historical flashbacks and its hard to believe this movie is only 80 minutes long!...it moves along with hardly a pause,Supported by wonderful performances all around.Another tribute to that magical 1939 year....This latest entry from MPI home video has the following: 1.A commentary by David Stuart Davies.2 Selected theatrical trailers(be glad for the restorations....)3.Production notes by Richard Valley. 4. A photo gallery.Aside from a few stained scenes and a small bit of shimmering, the moor has never looked better..., notice when Richard Green and Wendy Barrie take a ride on their horses and dismount, you can see so much detail in the rocky craigs in back of them,something not captured on my old VHS tape.Also check out all the shades of lighting in this film...wonderful....On a note of curiousity, I didnt see "preserved by the UCLA film archives" at the begining of the disc., or on the DVD case itself, as on the previous Vol. 1 thru 3. collections.Perhaps there is something different between the 20th century fox final two films and the twelve from Universal?....certainly viewing this movie though,I would find it hard to believe that this was not restored because it offers such a clean picture and great transfer...well,I need only "The adventures of Sherlock Holmes" to complete my collection, and what a treasure these are!...Thank you MPI video and the UCLA film Archives!
Rating:
Summary: Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles
Review: This is the excellent beginning to the legendary film series (14 in all) starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as the original dynamic duo of sleuths.
Based upon the classic story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (and well adapted to the silver screen), Rathbone's commanding presence as Holmes is even more impressive by the fact that he only appears occasionally throughout the film. Instead, Nigel Bruce as Watson does most of the detective legwork on screen covering for Holmes' absence from Baskerville Hall until the great sleuth is finally able to join him to hunt down the dreaded monster dog (and its sinister master) awaiting in the moors for its next victim.
Lovingly restored by UCLA, this is an impressive film, to say the least! Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: The Only One
Review: This was the only true Conan Doyle mystery that Basil got to do, in this set of 14 world reknown films.....I am very happy to add these last two films, (along with "Adventures...") to the DVD library....let's hope they get the transfer treatment they deserve.
Rating:
Summary: My first Holmes and still the best
Review: When I was about 10 or 11 years old I used to love to come home from school and tune into BBC2 to catch a new Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movie. The time was the first couple of years of the 1980s and the British network was screening the movies just in time for kids like myself to see them for the first time.
The first movie was "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and I was hooked from the moment I saw the death of the elder Baskerville and heard the maids scream.
Here we are over 20 years later and this classic (still my favorite Holmes movie) has finally arrived on DVD. What a triumph! The movie has been lovingly restored and has probably never looked better.
In addition we have an audio commentary track that is insightful and entertaining. Covered is not only background to the production but also biographoical information and discussion of other adaptations of the story for the screen. For its entire 80 minute length I was riveted by the comments of someone who has obviously researched the 1939 movie extensively.
Accompanying his commentary is a glossy booklet by Holmes fan Richard Valley (who does the audio commentary for the second Rathbone Holmes movie "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes"). He covers some of the same information as is detailed by his colleague on the commentary but overall the handsome booklet is another nice look at the story and this version.
Also listed as special features on the disc is a photo gallery and poster gallery. It is a shame however that one cannot manually scroll through them, instead we have various stills and posters panned over by the camera to the strains of music.
A real find on the DVD is vintage trailers for some of the Rathbone Holmes advantures, curiously though they are from the later Universal movies and missing is "The Hound of the Baskervilles" trailer.
Overall though this is a very well put together DVD and I am elated to finally have my favorite Sherlock Holmes movie on DVD!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic Restoration of a True Classic
Review: With the release of this feature and "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," all 14 classic films by Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce will have finally been released in a quality DVD format. The UCLA Theatre Archives has done an outstanding job in restoring and thus preserving these great films from 35mm master copies into the digital format, sometimes literally being forced to piece together the celluloid remnants they found. It took the archivists years to complete the entire project, but is well worth the wait. The result is that the black and white images seem as fresh today as when the films were released to theatres more than 40 years ago. The archivists deserve a hearty thanks from all movie fans concerned with preserving America's classic cinema heritage for future generations to enjoy. Atmospherically, "The Hound of the Baskervilles" is arguably the best of the 14 Holmes films, and the only one based specifically on a Conan Doyle story. It, and "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," are the only two "period" films in the series and run longer, the remainder taking place in then modern-day England and America of the late 30s and early 40s and run about 90 minutes each. In both "Hound" and "Adventures," Holmes dons his deerstalker cap, popularized by original Strand Magazine illustrator Sidney Paget who made the image synonymous with the great detective. It is interesting to note that in the first of the non-period films in the series, Holmes reaches for his handy deerstalker, but is stopped by Watson. "Holmes," Watson said, "you promised." Leaving the deerstalker on the peg, Holmes grabs a "modern" hat instead. Rathbone is especially sharp in "Hound of the Baskervilles," and is partnered by Bruce, who plays a bumbling Watson throughout the 14 films that was not Conan Doyle's vision of the great
sleuth's biographical "Boswell." Nonetheless, the pairing is hugely entertaining and satisfying. The creation of the moor, the sinister grimpen mire and truly terrifying hound remains fantastic and does much to engender this story as one of Conan Doyle's most popular with modern-day
readers and viewers alike. The final scene represents the only reference any of the 14 films made to Holmes' "seven-percent" cocaine habit as Rathbone asks Bruce to retrieve "the needle." The scene, criticized as too risque by 1939 audiences, caused the film's producers to make a conscious decision to omit any additional mention of Holmes' recreational drug use in future outings. I only wish that Rathbone and Bruce had lived to see their great work released to new audiences in this pristine DVD condition.
Rating:
Summary: Not Perfect, But Excellent DVD
Review: You will read dozens of reviews of the movie, I'm sure, so I'll leave my review of the movie to two words: "LOVED IT." DVD quality is really quite good; of course, leaps and bounds beyond ANYTHING available to the home market EVER before. Nice, clean packaging with a thin-looking but richly written booklet included inside. The disc has the photo from the front imprinted, with almost a purple tint... for nighttime I suppose. As I understand, this restoration was done a number of years ago, and was not digital... I believe it, although I will say I believe the restorers squeezed every square inch of detail out of their source material possible in the analog domain. First, the flaws: there are still occasional nicks and scratches, although not many more than I see in my DVD of "It's A Wonderful Life." The sound has some low-level hiss, and there is occasional pop and crackle, only occasionally (once? Twice?) of any significant volume. About 18 minutes in there appears to be some minor damage, possibly the degrading of the nitrate print they were working from? Additionally, there are about three places in the film where a single frame appears to be warped, creating a "blip" in the flow of the motion on the screen. Also odd was my first playing: when it came to the end of the 9th chapter, instead of going on to the 10th it jumped back to the beginning of the 9th! This might have been my player, as I was unable to reproduce this either by scanning back or by playing through the movie from the beginning. One other oddity is that in multiple places the background seems to "pulse," usually getting slightly darker, and it appears to be two "pulses" per second. Perhaps the processor was averaging contrasts, or perhaps it was the DVD compression, slowly filling in the right computations... I am not sure, I have never seen it before, and it seemed to not at ALL affect the main action / elements on the screen. I also was not aware of it when the camera was in motion, only when we were stationary observing somebody or something. A minor annoyance was the darkness of the train before we go "inside" to see Holmes & Watson... I'm guessing this was stock footage, a condition of the original print and not something from a historical standpoint that you would WANT to correct.. But the train looks like it's going at night yet the window in Holmes & Watson's car shows a midday countryside passing by. Just odd. Now, the plusses: this print is beautiful! The detail makes it look like a high-quality print from the 50s or 60s, from Holmes' clothes to the lace on the headrest of the train seats. This is not an easy film to reproduce, with filming having started at the end of '38. The blackest blacks to the whitest whites are there, almost always perfectly balanced. Some shots with the right combination of light and shadow truly are breathtaking. So much fog, combined with pipe smoke and low lighting... an ultimate stress test for DVD compression to reproduce, yet it looks very good here. I cannot imagine you have EVER seen this film look this good, seriously. The soundtrack, despite its minor low-level noise, is amazing for the time, with the noise present being so low, apparently without any artificial-sounding noise gates or expanders. Crank up the volume in quiet scenes and you will hear the papers being rustled, or the crickets in the distance, of the rustling of clothes. 30s soundtracks often sound HORRIBLE on music, and while the opening 20th Century Fox fanfare sounds like a copy of a copy, the music in the body of the movie itself appears to be clean and undistorted. I noticed it most on the closing credits, which genuinely surprised me with its lack of harshness or square waves. The ending music is downright enjoyable to listen to! The dialog is both crisp, clear, and with respectable lower tones. You are not going to get earth shattering bass here, but if you are expecting typical thin 30s audio, you are in for a pleasant surprise. Every word is perfectly audible and in balance... I did not feel like I had to turn the volume up and down, nor did it sound "squashed." No "pull-up" of the noise floor, either, indicating no automatic gain controls! VERY nice. For you audio nuts, I didn't put a spectrum analyzer on it, but to my ears, I was hearing undistorted highs over 5KHz, likely over 6K, maybe over 7, and it MIGHT be making it to 8K. I think it's gone by 10K, but STILL... I was amazed to hear the high frequency harmonics on paper rustling, metallic objects rattling together... and crisp "ch"s and "Th"s and the like! One more comment, on the audio commentary: outstanding. Really, really good and absolutely worth the time to listen to and watch. A good balance of history, biography, and literary info. Hats off to Mr. Davies! You did a great job. IN CLOSING: if you have ever wanted to own this movie, even if you already own another copy of it, BUY THIS ONE (from MPI Home Video). I cannot imagine you being disappointed. For me, this is my first purchase... if the first movie from 1939 looks and sounds this good without the advantages of digital restoration... what do the others look like! Wow, I can't wait to order them!!! :)
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