The best-loved of the motion-picture adaptations of The Hound of the Baskervilles is that of 1939, starring Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. John Watson. Darryl F. Zanuck, then head of Twentieth Century-Fox, is often credited with recognizing Rathbone's resemblance to the Strand magazine illustrations of Holmes and with suggesting to Rathbone that he play Holmes in a motion picture. Directed by Sidney Lanfield and shot in black and white, the film includes Richard Greene as Sir Henry Baskerville. Rathbone plays Holmes as an impatient and stylish character, whereas Bruce plays Watson as a silly but courageous companion. Shot in period costume, the picture was the first to place a Holmes story in the period in which its events were supposed to take place, in this case 1889. Earlier efforts modernized Holmes.

Many readers have been disappointed by the film's dropping many of the novel's most...