The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

Director: Sidney Lanfield

Cast: Basil Rathbone, Nigel Bruce, Richard Greene, Wendy Barrie

Have I Seen It Before: Sure.

Did I Like It: I keep thinking that certain types of stories, certain types of characters, are better suited to certain formats, with a few outlying exceptions. Batman works best in a comic book. Star Trek works best in hour-long television. Star Wars works best in rare, event movies.

Is it possible that Sherlock Holmes just works best in novels and short fiction?

Maybe.

Things are a little light here, and that’s to be expected from the studio system trying to jam a entire book into 80 minutes. Even a bad movie from 1939 has the charm of flickering in black and white and generally seeming as if it sprung whole-cloth from an untroubled* era.

Rathbone and Bruce seem tentative in their roles, but I wonder if I simply never thought much of the pair as Holmes and Watson, even if so many performers who followed are simply doing impressions of them.

The problem might be that one of the things filtered out of these Doyle adaptations is Holmes’ eccentricities. Subsequent pastiches and re-workings make Holmes to be brilliant, but erratic. Here, Holmes is merely a Smart Guy, and Watson—the only one with any actual training—is a bumbling fool.

Maybe they get better in the roles, but considering they had to grind out two Holmes pictures a year for the next seven years, I can’t imagine the assembly line mentality recommends the subsequent films any more than this first effort. The truth might be that those among you who might want to indulge in a does of classic Holmes should eschew Turner Classic Movies** in favor of the Doyle canon.

Or opt for some of the Nicholas Meyer books. There, now I’m back to my good old self.

*But, ultimately, entirely troubled.

**Gods of Cinema, what am I saying?!

The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938)

Director: Michael Curtiz, William Keighley

Cast: Errol Flynn, Olivia de Haviland, Basil Rathbone, Claude Rains

Have I Seen it Before: I’m horrified beyond my normal capacity for horror that I haven’t.

Did I Like It: There’s a bit of a problem with Robin of Locksley (Flynn) as we venture further into the deeply cynical waters of the twenty-first century. We’re obsessed, pretty much from the first script meeting for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991), with making Robin Hood some semi-real figure in British history*, and making that history reflect our own. Kevin Costner needed to be the spoiled rich kid who’s childishness is obliterated by the insanity of Vietnam**… er, the Crusades, while Russell Crowe was a world-weary soldier that…

When did Robin Hood become a monolithic commentary on the the horrors of the world after the Kennedy assassination? Even Cary Elwes is content to sit and be content to comment on the unravelling of the English myth. Why can’t a Robin Hood film just be about a guy in a cap and with green tights*** who laughs in the face of danger and is prepared with equal parts of archery and swordsmanship to entertain us for at least 90 minutes?

Perhaps it can no longer be such because Errol Flynn mastered that image of England’s greatest archer so thoroughly, that we don’t even need to debate if there’s any point in doing a traditional interpretation of the hero anymore. Anything that follows this perfectly crafter adventure film would have to be content with dwelling in the arena of post-modern droning bores or parody.

*Accent optional.

**I might even be one of the few people who kind of like Prince of Thieves, and even my appreciation for that humdrum actioner is diminished when I realize for all of its straining attempts to bring Robin and his Merry Men into something relevant for a modern movie audience, it is stealing large chunks out of the plot this film created out of the legend.

***All right, Mel Brooks may have managed to cut through the sudden self-seriousness of the character, but the point still remains.

The Court Jester (1955)

Director: Norman Panama, Melvin Frank

Cast: Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, Basil Rathbone, Angela Lansbury

Have I Seen It Before: Never. After years now of helping to host the White Christmas (1954) sing-a-longs at Circle Cinema, the warm embrace of Danny Kaye* has always been off there in the distance. This year, as I ease myself back into the occasionally bewildering world of the Columbia Inn, I’m using this film to ease myself back into the swing of things.

Did I Like It: Last year, I picked Holiday Inn (1942) to ease me back into things. It seemed like the logical choice, as White Christmas is ultimately a loose remake of that earlier film, but it also turned out to be a horrifying relic of its time.

Seriously, do not watch Holiday Inn, if you know what’s good for you. I did, so you don’t have to.

The Court Jester fares quite a bit better. It’s a light sword and castle fantasy, it doesn’t ask too much of us as an audience. The cast is pretty great, with Basil Rathbone plays the role in his repertoire other than Sherlock Holmes with aplomb, and it’s hard not to be delighted by the presence of either Glynis Johns (you’re thinking of her as the slightly dotty grandmother in While You Were Sleeping (1995), while I’m thinking of her more as Shelley Long’s mother on Cheers) or Angela Lansbury. What’s more, the amount of funny mugging versus sweeping musical numbers favors the prior. Big musical fans might be disappointed, but without Gene Kelly involved (see the previous footnote) that’s probably the ratio I prefer.

I was so delighted by The Court Jester that I think I might be ready to make a bold proclamation.

Do you promise to not blow up my spot if I say this?

Okay.

Bing holds Danny back.

All right. Now I’m ready for Christmas again.

*I always wished the second banana had been played by Donald O’Connor, but that may owe itself largely to how much I prefer Singin’ in the Rain (1952). Shh. Don’t tell anyone. I’ve got a reputation to keep up.

The Mark of Zorro (1940)

Director: Rouben Mamoulian

Cast: Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, Basil Rathbone, Robert Lowery

Have I Seen it Before: Never. I feel really bad about this. In my defense, I eschewed

Did I Like It: It’s impossible to dislike a movie that is universally accepted as the direct, non-gun related inciting incident to Bruce Wayne becoming Batman. Especially after the semi-recent Antonio Banderas films (or, at least, one of them), it would be entire understandable if a modern audience were not able to get on board with the film. The performances are highly mannered, the film is shot with the resources of a B-picture of the time, and I don’t think I’d be out of line to say that Johnston McCulley The Curse of Capistrano has the disadvantage of being weighed down both by the restrictions of the pulp process and the fact that the full idea of the character hadn’t yet come together.

So, here’s where I ask: So what?

Is there a bit too much time spent on Don Diego’s (Power) trying to negotiate finding a wife among the Spanish Californian nobility? Sure. Do neither Basil Rathbone nor Power not quite convincingly shed their respective Basil Rathbone-ness and Tyrone Power-ness to play a members of that Spanish noble class? Also, yes, but if you’re going to get bent out of shape at every actor—especially the British—miscast as some other nationality, you’re going to have a real bad time when Anthony Hopkins comes on the scene, and you’re going to have an absolute hell of a time any time Sean Connery shows up in a movie*. All of that may be true, but if you can’t have a good time here, it’s entirely possible movies may not be for you, even if the original 1920 version, and the subsequent Banderas film (again, not both of them) might do the Fox more justice than is seen here.

* Thought I remembered this, and sure enough, after looking it up, Connery was on the short list for Don Diego in The Mask of Zorro. Could have called that one…