The Movie
Arguably the most beloved embodiment of the timeless character (ITV's Jeremy Brett would also score high), Basil Rathbone brought fiction's greatest detective to life in a total of 14 feature films released between 1939 and 1946. Some were based--if loosely at times--upon the classic tales penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, expanded and reinterpreted with an old-Hollywood flair, others were written directly for the screen. All have captivated generations of fans, first on the big screen and later across countless TV airings, and all are now being presented together in HD as part of Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Collection.
In order, we have The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939), The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942), Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1943), Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943), Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943), The Spider Woman (1944), The Scarlet Claw (1944), The Pearl of Death (1944), The House of Fear (1945), The Woman in Green (1945), Pursuit to Algiers (1945), Terror by Night (1945) and Dressed to Kill (1946). Yes, they cranked out as many as four films per year, although most aren't much longer than a single hour, and the penultimate film, Terror by Night, actually falls a few seconds short of the sixty-minute mark.
Rathbone created an engaging combination of the private detective's most fascinating traits: a genius of elementary deduction and observation with a quirky persona and a hunger for justice. Starting with the third film in the series, the first at Universal Studios after the series left Fox, fairly drastic changes were afoot, as the stories became contemporary, with Holmes helping the World War II effort in England by battling Nazis, and so on. A curious choice, but clearly one that struck a chord with audiences.
The Picture
Several years ago, the UCLA Film & Television Archive set about restoring the twelve Universal entries in the series, a decade-long process. Great pains were taken to recreate how the movies originally played in theaters, including the proper opening/closing credits where available, long a casualty of TV truncations and other misfortunes of the ages. These restorations were released on DVD in 2007 and have now been encoded from the HD masters as a high-bitrate AVC for their Blu-ray debut.
The Sound
Despite the variety of sometimes-heavy British accents, dialogue is almost always plainly legible within the Linear PCM 2.0 soundtrack, which offers a fuller two-channel rendition of the original mono audio. (Even the audio commentaries in this set are delivered in similarly high-quality Linear PCM.) As we would expect, there are no great highs or lows here, but neither do the fine strings of the musical score sound strained. Owing to the challenges of the film restoration with its missing bits, there can be some audibly choppy transitions between scenes, but nothing painful.
The Extras
An assortment of experts and a surviving star provide audio commentary for a total of six of the titles. Participants include authors/editors David Stuart Davies and Richard Valley, scholar David Gregory and actress Patricia Morrison. See below for specifcs but be warned, the commentaries can spill big secrets early on!
The set is introduced by UCLA Preservation Officer Robert Gitt, who offers some insight on the restoration (four-and-a-half minutes), and the final disc includes five galleries of stills and poster art, in chronological order, set to music, each about two-and-a-half minutes. There are also seven minutes of trailers and about a minute of rare film footage of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself. All of these video extras are in standard definition.
Final Thoughts
Sherlock Holmes cinema buffs would be hard pressed to find a more enjoyable set than The Complete Collection, with all films looking better than ever, and expert voices chiming in to help unravel The Mystery of Film Preservation.
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