I remember when the Jeremy Brett series was coming out, my wife watched them religiously and loved them. But I refused to watch them because they were too modern. Now I look back on them nostalgically and watch them -- and they are quite good.
I agree! Jeremy Brett IS Sherlock Holmes, his voice, his mannerisms, everything, he was simply perfect for the part, as if Arthur Conan Doyle had Brett in mind, when he wrote S.H. But Peter Cushing is an awesome actor and played S.H. almost as perfect as Brett. Its sad, that Cushing is rarely ever mentioned, when it comes to S.H. actors.
Peter Cushing is Sherlock! As a matter of fact-Peter Cushing is everyone he plays. No matter who plays the role, or what version..I liked Watson actor too.
How nice to see Ballard Berkeley of Fawlty Towers fame play a sensible character with gravitas. He played the balmy Major so well, you would almost think he wasn't acting.
I agree he's good, and I am only discovering him now. Not quite sure yet how I am going to rank him against Jeremy Brett (whom I hitherto considered _the_ Holmes), but Cushing does have an elegance and sharpness that lends itself very well to the character. All in all not a bad production at all.
I think my favorite has to be when the moose head is on the check in counter top and Manuel is hidden "tidying up", then carries out a moose to befuddled man conversation with the Major. I think it was The Germans episode.
These were made before I knew anything of literature and British, spectacular, television. Wonderful indeed. I love Doyle and Sherlock Holmes. I was 9, then.
Brett and Hardwicke are for most of us, I think, the most convincing Holmes and Watson to date but Cushing is always compelling and does an excellent Holmes here aided by Stock as his faithful sidekick.
@@KG-ro8ft The Rathbone/Bruce adaptations were too American for my taste. I'm afraid even tough both actors were 'british' ( neither were actually born in the UK ) they were spoilt by being made in Hollywood. I'm afraid Americans can't do British. Bruce's portrayal of Watson also made the character come across as a dithering/ bumbling fool. The Brett/ Hardwicke portrayals are by far the best, but I'd agree that Cushing/Stock make a very good combination.
David Burke and Edward Hardwick both made great Watsons, but Jeremy Brett portrayed Holmes like a theatre actor from the 19th Century. Interesting, but far to theatrical for my taste.
Those who have played Sherlock Holmes since 1893: Charles Brookfield - 1893 William Gillette - 1899-1929 - 1300 Performances over 30 yrs. Sherlock Holmes movie Baffled - 1900 Silent/Short - Max Goldberg John F. Preston - 1900 Charles Rice - 1904 Karoly Baumann - 1905 Maurice Costello - 1905 Viggo Larsen - 1908 Alwin NeuB - 1908, 1911, 1914 Otto Lagoni - 1910 Holger Rasmussen - 1911 Mack Sennett - 1911-1912 James Bragington - 1914 Hugo Flink - 1917 Sam Robinson - 1918 Eille Norwood - 1921 Silent short movie - The Dying Detective Burt Lytell - 1921 George Treville - 1912 Harry Benham - 1913 Francis Ford - 1914 H.A. Saintbury - 1916 Dennis Neillson-Terry - 1921 John Barrymore - 1922 Hamilton Deane - 1923-1932 Tod Slaughter - 1928, 1930 Richard Gordon - 1930 Clive Brook - 1929/1930/1932 Arthur Wontner - 1931- 1937 - Movie Series Raymond Massey - 1931 Robert Rendel - 1931/1932 Reginald Owen - 1933 Felix Alymer - 1933 Louis Hector - 1934-1935, 1937 Bruno Guttner - 1937, 1939, 1942-1943 Orson Welles - 1938 Basil Rathbone - 1939-1946 Cedric Hardwick - 1945 Tom Conway - 1947 Howard Marion-Crawford - 1948 John Stanley - 1948-1949 Alan Napier - 1949 John Longden - 1951 Carleton Hobbs - 1952-1969 Ronald Howard - 1954 (39 episodes) Sir John Gielgud - 1954-1955 Christopher Lee - 1962, 1970, 1992 Douglas Wilmer - 1964 Peter Cushing - 1959, 1968, 1984 John Neville - 1965, 1970, 1992 Robert Stephens - 1970 Stewart Granger - 1972 John Neville - 1973 John Cleese - 1973 Larry Hagman - 1974 Robert Powell - 1974 Leonard Nimoy - 1976 Kevin McCarthy - 1977 Roger Moore - 1976 Nicol Williamson - 1976 Christopher Plummer - 1977 Peter Cook - 1977 Paxton Whitehead - 1978 Geoffrey Whitehead - 1979-1980 Keith Mitchell - 1979 Charlton Heston - 1980 Frank Langella - 1980 Vasily Livanov - Russian TV - 1979-1981, 1983 & 1986 John Moffatt - 1981 Guy Henry - 1982 Tom Baker - 1982 Peter O’Toole - 1983 Ian Richardson - 1983 Jeremy Brett - 1984-1994 Nicholas Rowe - 1984 Tim Pigott-Smith - 1987 Dinsdale Landen - 1987 Anthony Higgins - 1987 Robert Rees - 1988 Ron Moody - 1988-1989 Clive Merrison - 1989-1998, 2002, 2004, 2008-2010 Edward Woodward - 1990 Richard E. Grant 1992 Robert Powell - 1993 1998-2019: John Gilbert - Episodes 1-18 Lawrence Albert - Episode 20 John Patrick Lowrie - Episodes 21-65 & 67-current Dennis Bateman - Episode 66 Jason Gray-Stanford - 1999-2001 - Animation for Kids Matt Frewer - 2000-2001 Joaquim de Almeida - 2001 Richard Roxburgh - 2002 James D’Arcy - 2002 Andrew Sachs - 2004 Rupert Everett - 2004 Jonathan Pryce - 2007 Javier Marzan - 2007 Roger Llewellyn - 2009 Ben Syder - 2010 Nicholas Briggs - 2010-2018 Johnny Lee Miller - 2012-2019 Benjamin Lawlor - 2013 Igor Petrenko - Russian TV Series - 2013 Robert Downey Jr. 2009 & 2011 Benedict Cumberbatch - 2010-2016 Nicholas Briggs - 2010-2018 Christian Rode - 2010, 2014 Seamus Dever - 2014 Ian McKellen - 2015 Euan Morton - 2015 Gregory Wooddell - 2015 Paul Andrew Goldsmith - 2015-2016 Ewen Bremner - 2016 Jay Taylor - 2017-2018 Yuko Takeuchi - 2018 (HBO Asia - female ‘Holmes’) Orlando Wells - 2018 Samuel Tady - 2011, 2014, 2017-2018 (Tady Bros. Productions/on YTube) Johnny Depp - 2018 (animation) Will Ferrell - 2018 Nicholas Boulton - 2020 Henry Cavill - 2020 Ethan Bell - 2020 (Fan Film on RU-vid) Ethan Thomas Jung - 2020 Fan Adv. (Vagabond Repertory Theater Company-RU-vid) This list is not exhaustive. however, these are some of the many actors who have played Sherlock Holmes on stage, screen, radio and TV adaptations.
Any chance you could update this telling us which medium each performed in? I’ve never seen/heard some of these and I’d be interested in tracking them down.
Last scene sequence is really superb acting and direction. Mr Stock was fabulous in it. Just make you feel that you are watching a horror story. Perfect I must say.
Absolutely beautiful production, they did wonderful with what must have been a limited budget. It doesn't look cheap. And it's so good to see accurate casting, not like today where they have to shoehorn in anomalous characters (for diversity that never existed) that take me right out of the fantasy of the production.
Peter Cushing is Awesome thanks for sharing this, what was the hound doing at baskerville hall at the end of part Bless Dr Watson that scared him I thought Stapleton has It kept in the disused mine? why didn't it attack Barry more?
It's sad to read that Cushing didn't like the series and the way it turned out. These episodes are actually quite faithful to the books (bar some edits to the stories like when and how they met, and in the Study in Scarlet the explanation of why Jefferson Hope killed his two victims)
That any doctor living in London of that day should not immediately associate the initials "C.C.H." with Charing Cross Hospital beggars belief. Still a great novel and adaptation.
I really don't understand why Dr Watson is portrayed as elderly and / or foolish in most Sherlock Holmes adaptions. The novels and short stories suggest that he is a good-natured, caring man who very clearly loves women and manages to find himself a young wife in one of the early episodes. His softness and sensitivity certainly blind him to people's criminal energies, and he is often distracted by outer appearances, that doesn't make him stupid. One thing the latest BBC adaptions with Benedict Cumberbatch got right was that they made Dr Watson fairly attractive. It's annoying that many other films have shown Watson as Holmes's inferior on so many levels... including manners and looks.
I think Nigel Bruce started that tradition, but no Watson since has been as bad as his portrayal. Typical of Hollywood of the time, to completely misrepresent a famous British fictional character. Just as they did with a real character, Lt Bligh until Sir Anthony Hopkins redressed the story somewhat.
Typical Hollywood convention of the comic sidekick. As has been pointed out, Nigel Bruce bumbled, but bumbled charmingly and retaining Bruce's Watson for Rathbone's Holmes returned him to his proper status as partner after the trend of filming Holmes stories with Watson removed.
David Farley Oh I like some of Bruce's earliest portrayals of Watson, especially in the Twentieth Century Fox film 'The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' (1939) some of them could be kind of charming I'll admit, Just for me however when Universal took over the Rathbone / Bruce Holmes films and put Holmes in the WW2 era Bruce's bumbling Watson really grew forced and rather grating in his pure idiocy IMHO and for me could never rank of there with Edward Hardwick among other Watsons as far as being faithful to the Canon goes.
Peter Cook and dudley moore 1978 version takes the prize Of being a not too serious one! And without a clue comes a close second In real life many murders aren't solved!
Gary Raymond as the younger Baskerville. Raymond better known for his role in the TV series, The Rat Patrol. The role of Sir Charles Baskerville is played by Ballard Berkeley, who is possibly better known today for his role as The Major in the TV series, Fawlty Towers
I think the scene of Doctor Watson's group arriving at the country train station was filmed on the south Devon railway. the country train station looks familar
Many have done......The one that spring's to mind is T.E Laurence.(of Arabia) His memoir the 7 pillars of wisdom was compussive reading for all u.s. officers going to do the tour in the middle east.
Cushing is always so faultless. This was obviously a low budget production so it's unfair to compare really, I prefer the Basil Rathbone version. A timeless classic
A bizarre production with some odd directing choices but it has a few good moments of note. The tale comes alive in the outdoor locations. Why the BBC couldn't make the interiors more than just a stage play is baffling; budgetary constraints I imagine
Personally I think Peter Cushing played Holmes far more akin to the stories than any other actor. I love Baz/Nige and Brett/Burke/Hardwicke but Cushing really got into the skin of the character, especially in the Hammer version of this, despite it being nothing like the novel. Who’s the actress playing Beryl here? She’s dreadful.
I totally agree with you ie yu are totally correct i believe cushing is a fantastic Holmes ie brett was excellent but I think sometimes he over cooked it with over dramatic antics
“Do you have your service revolver Watson?”... because even Holmes knew how important the right to protect ones life is, even outside the home. One would think Chicago is the safest place on earth with their strict gun laws...
Couldn't disagree more! If you read the books, Holmes is always thinking while speaking. The pauses are his thinking ahead and he doesn't reveal all of his thoughts during a conversation. Cushing did it perfectly!! ;-)
when a friend asked me if i had ever read this story !i replied wearily that i thought it was called the cat of the baskervilles,he said that i probably wasnt"feline!"very well and maybe"barking !!!"up the wrong tree!!!!!!!!!!!!!!i like dogging!!!!!!!
