The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection

For many, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce are the quintessential big-screen Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, the famed sleuthing duo created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Marking the Blu-ray debut of all 14 of their collaborations, The Complete Sherlock Holmes Collection opens with director Sidney Lanfield's The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939), the most famous of the author's mysteries, and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), directed by Alfred L. Werker—both period pieces set in Victorian England, like the original stories. The subsequent 12 productions (mastered from prints preserved and restored by the UCLA Film and Television Archive) moved the series up to WWII–era London, where Holmes battles Nazis and delivers patriotic paeans, while Watson becomes ever more befuddled, although the playful relationship between the devoted colleagues is a winning dynamic that continues to sustain the later films. Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) is helmed by John Rawlins, while the remaining titles are all produced and directed by Roy William Neill: Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1943), Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943), Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943), The Pearl of Death (1944), The Scarlet Claw (1944), The Spider Woman (1944), The House of Fear (1945), The Woman in Green (1945), Pursuit to Algiers (1945), Terror by Night (1946), and the particularly memorable Dressed to Kill (1946). Extras include audio commentary on six of the films, an interview with UCLA Preservation Officer Robert Gitt, archival footage of Doyle, and photo galleries. Recommended. (S. Axmaker)