Sherlock Holmes (Basil Rathbone) Update: First "Two" films Releases (1 Viewer)

[Paul Drake]

Update:

According to Richard Valley (the gentleman who wrote the liner notes for these sets):

Trailers (possibly all, possibly not) will be included on the final releases of the Holmes films. Trailers have always been considered in the public domain, but recently the legality of that view has come into question in some instances . . .

When he says "final releases" he is referring to the two Fox films "The Hound of the Baskervilles" and "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" which will be arriving sometime in March. MPI's website doesn't provide any details of these sets other than that they are coming.

Both films will have commentary. David Davies is doing the one for "Hound" and Valley is doing "Adventures".

Mr. Valley also indicated that MPI is extremely happy with the sales numbers of these sets, although he understandably didn't provide exact figures as to number of units sold.

 

[Bob Muir]

Thanks for posting the individual covers David, now I'm jealous. :-/

 

[David Von Pein]

Thanks for posting the individual covers David, now I'm jealous.

Well, if you're willing to pay approx. $7 more (per 4 movies; per DDD's current pricing), you can get the individual releases. Depends upon whether you feel having them in individual cases (with *excellent* cover art ) outweighs the less-expensive 4-movie boxed sets (the covers of which boast the outrageously-false claim of "Loaded With DVD Extras" ).

I felt it was worth going the "separate" route.

"Watson! ... The needle!"

 

[Paul Drake]

Update....

"Hound of the Baskervilles" and "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" will be released April 27th (one month later than previously expected).

Cover art for these two releases can be seen here and here.

Both cover shots courtesy of Richard Valley's Scarlet Street website.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Lasersedge has the dvd specifications of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and "The Hound of the Baskervilles" listed for preorder.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
The Hound of the Baskervilles






Crawdaddy

 

[Paul Drake]

Volume 3 of this excellent series was recently released and I have watched all 4 films of this series.

It's hard to find enough superlatives to describe the restoration work on these films after being treated to the first eight films in volumes 1 and 2.

Once again the A/V quality is excellent. The title shot in "Dressed to Kill" is obviously imported from an inferior source but that was mentioned in the Volume 2 documentary on the restoration. There's also a few brief occurances of vertical lines in "Pursuit to Algiers", but nothing to get upset about. In general, the films shine. The liner notes are a fun read also.

MPI should be very proud of their efforts with this series. I read where they've sold over a couple hundred thousand units of Rathbone Holmes product (and that didn't include the sales of Volume 3 or the yet to be released Fox films). I'm glad so many have embraced these releases. It's unfortunate that certain other series mysteries won't be given proper release on DVD.

Once I get all 14 of these films I may look into buying slimline cases and creating custom cover art based on the theatrical one sheets to create my own box set.

 

[Bob Muir]

If you do, please post them! I hate these huge cases.

 

[John KB]

The is a review for Hound of the Baskervilles over at The Cinema Laser.

http://www.thecinemalaser.com/dvd_20...b-1939-dvd.htm

 

[Steve...O]

Thanks John!

Dang, this thing is still over two months away from it's official release date. I've got it on pre-order though.

I believe it was reported that at the time Volume 3 came out, MPI had sold over 200,000 units of their Holmes films. Those are outstanding numbers and MPI was justifiably very happy over this.

I'm glad to hear that "Hound" looks wonderful. I'm sure "Adventures" will also.

Steve

 

[John KB]

I can't wait to have the entire collection. I just finished watching Vol. 2 and will start on Vol. 3 this weekend.

 

[Steve...O]

I can't wait to have the entire collection. I just finished watching Vol. 2 and will start on Vol. 3 this weekend.

You're in for a real treat. All the films in Volume 3 look excellent. There are a few brief moments of vertical lines in "Pursuit to Algiers" (the original elements for this film no longer exist), but those are the only noticable flaws I found.

"Terror by Night" is my favorite Holmes film and I think "Algiers is quite underrated.

Enjoy!

Steve

 

[Larry Sutliff]

Thanks for the link to the Cinema Laser review of HOUND, John. HOUND is my favorite of the Rathbone Holmes films, and the screenshots look gorgeous.

 

[David Von Pein]

These Basil/Nigel films look GREAT on the MPI DVDs! Very nice additions to the ol' library.

Note re. "Scarlet Claw" ..... Any S.H. fans out there ever notice the rather obvious "stand-in" blunder at the end of "Claw"? -- For some odd reason, they felt the need to use a stand-in for Gerald Hamer (the villain in the film) at the point where he starts running away from Holmes. Mr. Hamer (evidently) was so feeble he couldn't even run a few feet into the (supposed) marshes. His "double" doesn't look a thing like Hamer, and is very nearly completely bald, whereas Hamer had ample hair (as we can see just seconds earlier in the scene).

I've always thought his sudden, instantaneous loss of hair was rather hysterical here.

 

[David Von Pein]

Digital Bits reported that the Trailers for the 12 Universal SH films are included in the boxed sets. This is an error, correct? The trailers are not included. ......

From Digital Bits: >> "The 12 titles are available either individually or in three box sets of four titles each. Purchasing them in the latter format means that, for each box, you get some nice supplements including an audio commentary on one of the four films, thorough liner notes, photo galleries and trailers."

 

[GlennH]

And now the review is up for "Adventures" over at The Cinema Laser.

http://www.thecinemalaser.com/dvd_2004/aosh-dvd.htm

 

[Steve...O]

David VP - trailers will be included on the final two releases (Hound and Adventures). These two films are standalone only (no 2 disc box) and MPI put extras on these.

From what I understand, there were some legal issues regarding the trailers which may have held them up.

What I don't know is how many trailers made it onto these two releases. Supposedly all the trailers for the Universals survive, but I don't know what kind of shape they're in.

(Thanks for the Adventures link Glenn!)

Steve

 

[David Von Pein]

David VP - trailers will be included on the final two releases (Hound and Adventures).

Yes, I know.
But the blurb from "Bits" I showed above claims there are Trailers on all of the 3 boxed sets, which is incorrect.

 

[John KB]

Can't wait! Why didn't Fox release these two titles? Did they actually sell or lose the rights?

 

[Steve...O]

Can't wait! Why didn't Fox release these two titles? Did they actually sell or lose the rights?

Interesting question. I know that Universal lost the rights to their Holmes films. I don't know about Fox. It seems odd they would have sold the rights to two very popular films.

Steve

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Can't wait! Why didn't Fox release these two titles? Did they actually sell or lose the rights?

Perhaps they licensed them out - figuring that MPI would be able to focus more attention on their release than they would, since Fox already has a pretty full schedule of both vintage and new releases. Didn't Peter Staddon mention something like that in the last chat - that Fox prefers to release vintage titles when there's something current to tie the release into, because they put out so much stuff something just dropped into the market could get buried. Under those circumstances, he said that Fox isn't against licensing out the material to a smaller company that can put more attention into the release. In the chat, I think he was specifically referring to Criterion, but all of that seems to apply just as well here.