''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' (german: Der Hund von Baskerville) is a 1929 German silent

mystery film A mystery film is a genre of film that revolves around the solution of a problem or a crime. It focuses on the efforts of the detective, private investigator or amateur sleuth to solve the mysterious circumstances of an issue by means of clues, i ...

directed by Richard Oswald and starring

Carlyle Blackwell Carlyle Blackwell (January 20, 1884 – June 17, 1955) was an American silent film actor, director and producer. Early years Blackwell was born in Troy, Pennsylvania. He studied at Cornell University before J. Stewart Blackton discovered him an ...

Alexander Murski Alexander Alexandrovich Murski ( Russian: Александр Александрович Мурский) (1 November 1869 – April 1943) was a Saint Petersburg, Russian-born German actor. Murski died in 1943 in Toulouse, Midi-Pyrénées, Fra ...

Livio Pavanelli Livio Cesare Pavanelli (7 September 1881 – 29 April 1958) was an Italian film actor. Pavanelli was born in Copparo, Ferrara, Emilia-Romagna, Italy and died in Rome in 1958 at age 76. Selected filmography * '' Mariute'' (1918) *'' Fabiola'' ( ...

. The film is an adaptation of the 1902 Sherlock Holmes novel ''

The Hound of the Baskervilles ''The Hound of the Baskervilles'' is the third of the four crime novels by British writer Arthur Conan Doyle featuring the detective Sherlock Holmes. Originally serialised in ''The Strand Magazine'' from August 1901 to April 1902, it is se ...

'' by Arthur Conan Doyle. It was the last Sherlock Holmes adaptation in the silent film era. The film boasted an unusually international cast, including American actor Carlyle Blackwell, German actor Fritz Rasp, British actress Alma Taylor, Russian actor Alexander Murski and Italian actor Livio Pavanelli. In 2009, a tape with this film (and other lost films of the silent cinema era) was discovered in the basement of the local church in Sosnowiec,

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

. In 2019,

Flicker Alley Cecil Court is a pedestrian street with Victorian shop-frontages in Westminster, England, linking Charing Cross Road and St Martin's Lane. Since the 1930s, it has been known as the new Booksellers' Row. Early background One of the older thoroug ...

released the film, digitally restored on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

and

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

, along with the 1914 version.

Plot summary

Cast

Production

Richard Oswald had penned an earlier adaptation of Conan Doyle's tale for the 1914 serial ''

Der Hund von Baskerville ''Der Hund von Baskerville'' is a 1914 German silent film adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's 1902 novel '' The Hound of the Baskervilles'', the first film adaptation of the work. According to the website silentera.com, the film was considered ...

''. This version was not a remake of that serial but was a straight adaptation of the source material. The British-based American actor Carlyle Blackwell was hired to play Holmes, as he was "suitably Britannic". The film's sets were designed by the art director

Willy Schiller Willy Schiller (11 August 1899 – 17 July 1973) was a German art director.Allan & Sandford p.3 In the later part of his career he worked for DEFA, the East German state-controlled film studio. Selected filmography * '' Radio Magic'' (1927) * ' ...

. It was shot at the Staaken Studios in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and List of cities in Germany by population, largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's List of cities in the European Union by population within ci ...

. Critic Troy Howarth said "The film was a commercial disaster, ending the German cinema's fascination with (Sherlock) Holmes until 1936—with yet another version of ''The Hound of the Baskervilles''".

References

External links

* * Films based on The Hound of the Baskervilles 1929 films Films of the Weimar Republic German mystery films German silent feature films 1929 mystery films Films directed by Richard Oswald Films set in London Films set in England Films shot at Staaken Studios Sherlock Holmes films German black-and-white films Silent mystery films Silent thriller films 1920s German films {{mystery-film-stub