The character of Sherlock Holmes is to date the character most often portrayed on screen. According to Guinness, per 1988, he had appeared in 193 films (today its well over 200), and of all actors ever to portrait Sherlock Holmes, one stands above the rest: Basil Rathbone. Thus, while the Granada adaptations of Sherlock Holmes, starring Jeremy Brett, is considered near perfect adaptations of both the novels and the character, Rathbone remains the iconographic Sherlock Holmes, not only because he resembles the original Sidney Paget illustrations, but also because Rathbone brought passion, intelligence and idiosyncrasies to the character, thereby creating a visual icon of the worlds greatest detective, which actors only dare dream of.

The great detective was the creation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and first appeared in the story “A Study in Scarlett” in 1881, and over the next decade appeared in numerous stories, until Doyle grew tired of him and killed both him and his archenemy, Professor Moriaty, off, by having them both fall to their deaths at the Reichenbach Falls. Thus, when Holmes appeared in “The Hound of the Baskerville” in 1901, Doyle wrote the story to take place before the death of Holmes.

As a character, the Sherlock Holmes of Doyle suffered from bipolar disorder, had serious mood swings, was addicted to cocaine, and would break the law if he saw fit. The latter is largely explained by the Victorian notion of “right”, as a gentleman could do so, if the purpose was noble. Contra to this, the classic Sherlock Holmes of the films was far more distinctive, and one might say, that the Sherlock Holmes of the films was distilled to a few simple trademark: The deerstalker, the calabash pipe, and above all his arrogant, often erratic, behavior and deductive intelligence. Yet it wasn’t until Rathbone portrayed Holmes these elements found a human face.

Rathbone became Sherlock Holmes almost by chance. During a Hollywood party, the talk fell upon making a Sherlock Holmes film, and when the question, who should play him, was asked, Rathbone said, “Me, of course”. Rathbone admired the character to such a degree, that he in his memoirs wrote, “I rather play Sherlock Holmes once, than ten Hamlets.”

The first Rathbone Sherlock Holmes film became “The Hound of the Baskerville”, filmed for 20th Century Fox in 1939. Opposite to Holmes, Nigel Bruce was cast as Dr. Watson. Bruce had made a career out of playing a buffoon and gave Watson a naïve yet faithful quality, which created a unique dynamic between the two characters. A grand and authentic production, “The Hound of the Baskerville” became such a success, that Fox the same year made “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”, this time with top billing for Rathbone and Bruce. But instead of continuing the success, Fox dropped the series, as the studio felt that the adventures of a Victorian detective was too anachronistic in a world about to go to war.

However where Fox left off, radio picked up. Over the next three years, Rathbone and Bruce made 43 half-hour radio episodes, based upon the novels by Doyle, and if it hadn’t been for those, Universal might have looked for a new couple to portrait Holmes and Watson. But Rathbone and Bruce had become such icons, spellbinding radio listeners for now three years, that it would have been foolish not to take advantage of their already established fans.

In 1942, having signed a seven year contract with the Doyle estate, Universal began production of their Sherlock Holmes series, now contemporizing Holmes from Victorian setting to wartime London, and gave both Rathbone and Bruce above the title credits. Over the next four years, Universal would make a total of 12 films, each of them classics today. It was not so much for the reasons Fox gave up the series, but more because it was an unwritten rule when adapting Holmes, that Universal had the films take place in the same year as they were produced. And a contemporized setting had many advantages: the audience could easier identify themselves with period, productions were cheaper and finally freedom in adaptation of the stories.

With the exception of the very first film, “The Voice of Terror” from 1942, which was directed by John Rawlins, Roy William Neill was the director and the creative genius of the series. And with the exception of the three first films, “The Voice of Terror”, “Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon” and “Sherlock Holmes goes to Washington”, and the somewhat confused “Pursuit to Algiers”, who dealt with the war and espionage, the remaining eight films were standard detective films, involving murder and grand theft. Once the films dropped the war related stories, everything fell into place and turned of the best Sherlock Holmes films, like “The Scarlet Claw” from 1944. The series was a huge success and Sherlock Holmes became a household name, a hero, even with his own trading card series.

But as Doyle before him, Rathbone had begun to feel, that Holmes kept him from doing other, greater things. Before Holmes, he was respected character actor, but having portrayed Holmes in, at that point, thirteen films and well over 200 radio episodes, Rathbone decided that “Dressed to Kill” would be his last film as the great detective. And as Doyle, he didn’t realise that Holmes was his legacy, the character he was meant to play. Rathbone never managed to re-establish himself as a character actor and ended his career playing parts he loathed. The very last homage to the character and the great actor came in form of a posthumous appearances as the voice of Sherlock Holmes in Disney’s “The Great Mouse Detective” from 1986, where Disney used recordings from the radio episodes to simulate Rathbone.

Bruce continued to portrait Watson for another three years in 39 more radio episodes, this time with Tom Conway as Holmes, as Universal had signed a seven year contract with the Doyle estate, but after the contract ran out, Bruce also left the part of his life behind. On a sadder note, 1946 also became the year where the creative mind behind the films, director Roy William Neill, died.

Today, the Rathbone / Bruce Sherlock Holmes films are considered classics, minor masterpieces, who despite their limited budgets and series nature, are surprisingly inventive. However, what really make them stand out is with what intelligence and passion both Rathbone and Bruce portrayed their characters. These films are treasures of cinema.

Henrik Sylow