Murder at the Baskervilles (1937)
"Silver Blaze" (original title)

Sherlock Holmes takes a vacation and visits his old friend Sir Henry Baskerville. His vacation ends when he suddenly finds himself in the middle of a double-murder mystery. Now he's got to ... See full summary »

Director:

Thomas Bentley

Writer:

Arthur Conan Doyle (story)

Stars:

Arthur Wontner, Ian Fleming, Lyn Harding

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Arthur Wontner	...	Sherlock Holmes
Ian Fleming	...	Dr. Watson
Lyn Harding	...	Professor Moriarty
John Turnbull	...	Inspector Lestrade
Robert Horton	...	Col. Ross
Lawrence Grossmith	...	Sir Henry Baskerville
Judy Gunn	...	Diana Baskerville
Arthur Macrae	...	Jack Trevor
Arthur Goullet	...	Col. Sebastian Moran
Martin Walker	...	James Straker
Eve Gray	...	Mrs. Mary Straker
Gilbert Davis	...	Miles Stanford
Minnie Rayner	...	Mrs. Hudson
D.J. Williams	...	Silas Brown
Ralph Truman	...	Bert Prince

Storyline

Sherlock Holmes takes a vacation and visits his old friend Sir Henry Baskerville. His vacation ends when he suddenly finds himself in the middle of a double-murder mystery. Now he's got to find Professor Moriarty and the horse Silver Blaze before the great cup final horse race.

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Plot Keywords:

horse | sherlock holmes | horse race | animal trainer | race fixing | 

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Genres:

Crime | Mystery

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Certificate:

Approved

Details

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Release Date:

15 January 1941 (USA)

Also Known As:

Murder at the Baskervilles

Filming Locations:

Twickenham Film Studios, St Margarets, Twickenham, Middlesex, England, UK

Company Credits

Production Co:

Julius Hagen Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

71 min 65 min (TCM print)

Sound Mix:

Mono (Visatone Sound System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Final screen appearance by Arthur Wontner as Sherlock Holmes.

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Quotes

Sherlock Holmes: [to Inspector Lestrade] We're old friends. I should hate to see you make such an ass of yourself as wrongfully to arrest the future son-in-law of Sir Henry Baskerville.

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Connections

Version of The Return of Sherlock Holmes: Silver Blaze (1988)

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Soundtracks

"Fear No.8"
(uncredited)
Music by Adolph Hallis
De Wolfe Music Ltd

User Reviews

Wontner a fine Holmes in cheap films

Dedicated Sherlockians on both sides of the Atlantic used to regard Arthur Wontner as the definitive Holmes. Partly this was reaction against the Basil Rathbone films, with their serial-style WWII plots and the portrait of Watson as a lovably bumbling idiot; Rathbone was admired but the films were blasphemy. By comparison, Wontner's Holmes was visually the absolute picture of the Sidney Paget illustrations that accompanied the original stories in The Strand, and at least some of the six films (not all of which survive) were faithful adaptations of notable Holmes stories not otherwise filmed.

Then... along came Jeremy Brett (also the picture of the Paget illustrations), and it had to be admitted that the Wontner films were so cheaply made that they really had nothing going for them besides Wontner, and lacked the polish and entertainment value of even the Universal Bs in the Rathbone series. Next to Brett, also, Wontner's Holmes is if anything too genial; he lacks the suffer-no-fools snappishness that is an essential part of Holmes' character. (That's especially odd considering that that's exactly the sort of character Wontner plays in his best-known role outside this series, as an acerbic ambassador in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.) Silver Blaze (a short story padded out much like the Brett series episodes would be) is probably the best of the bunch, and remains watchable but, now, a minor chapter in the saga of Holmes on film next to better movies starring Holmeses such as Basil Rathbone, Robert Stephens, Christopher Plummer, Ian Richardson and, best of all, Jeremy Brett.