The Baskerville Dog (1929)

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Movie
Original title The Baskerville Dog
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1929
length 115 minutes
Rod
Director Richard Oswald
script Herbert Juttke
Georg C. Klaren
production FW Kraemer
for Erda-Film, Berlin
music Hans-Werner Boelcke
camera Frederik Fuglsang
occupation

The Dog of Baskerville is a German silent detective film from 1929 by Richard Oswald based on the novel of the same name by Arthur Conan Doyle . For the main role of Sherlock Holmes , the US actor Carlyle Blackwell , who lives in Great Britain, was hired .

action

England at the end of the 19th century. For generations, the noble family of the Baskerville has been cursed in which, according to legend, a mighty and bloodthirsty dog ​​plays a central role. Since then there has been reports of a mysterious, eerily howling dog with strong and brightly shining eyes, which is supposed to be up to mischief in the moor at night.

When old Charles Baskerville is found dead, his immediate relative Henry Baskerville, who has just arrived from Canada, also fears for his life. In order to get to the bottom of the incidents, Dr. Mortimer, family doctor and executor, asked the famous detective Sherlock Holmes for help. Because at the place where Charles Baskerville died, Mortimer discovered the footprints of a dog of enormous proportions. Henry Baskerville, however, is warned in an anonymous letter not to get too close to the eerie moor near the castle.

Holmes' faithful companion, Dr. Watson, finds out a strange naturalist named Stapleton is roaming the moor. An escaped convict named Selden is said to be hanging around in this area. Holmes and Watson do not yet suspect that this is the brother-in-law of the Baskerville house servant Barrymore. Selden's sister and Barrymore provide him with essentials, but he too is ripped off by the mysterious Baskerville dog. Holmes soon believes he recognizes the mastermind behind the murders in the eerie Stapleton, because he, too, is actually a Baskerville and is the only one who benefits from the deaths of Charles and Henry Baskerville. Stapleton's lover, Laura Lyons, had helped him kill Charles.

Holmes traps Stapleton in order to convict him. Henry Baskerville is supposed to help him with this. On the way through the moor, it is attacked by a huge dog with brightly shining eyes. Holmes and his friend Watson intervene at the last moment and shoot the animal. They also get to the bottom of the phenomenon of glowing eyes: With the help of a phosphorus preparation, Stapleton had made his eyes glow and thus achieved the creepy effect. But Stapleton is not yet captured. In search of him, the detectives find the shackled Beryl Stapleton, who is married to the murderer and wanted to get out. Stapleton is now being hunted and flees from his pursuers into the moor. There he disappears, never to be seen again.

Production notes

The Hound of the Baskervilles , one since the beginning of the 20th century very often filmed Conan Doyle - material , is considered the last Sherlock Holmes filming of the silent era. Fifteen years earlier, director Oswald had written the script for the first German film adaptation of Baskerville (directed by Rudolf Meinerts ) from 1914. During the First World War , Oswald directed other Holmes crime novels.

The Baskerville Dog was shot in May and June 1929 in the film studios of Berlin-Staaken . The first performance took place on August 28, 1929 in the Berlin Capitol .

Not only Blackwell was imported from England, who had already played the leading role in a German-British co-production, the Edgar Wallace crime thriller Der Würger , immediately before this film , but also the former child star Alma Taylor , who played the supporting role of the wife of Castle servant received. After another German film following Der Hund von Baskerville , Taylor returned home to London in the summer of 1929 and from then on appeared very rarely and irregularly in front of film cameras during the sound film era.

For the role of the eponymous dog, Oswald placed a newspaper advertisement in which he was looking for the “largest dog in Germany”. Ultimately, it was decided to go with a Newfoundland dog .

Gustav A. Knauer designed the film structures, Willy Schiller assisted him. Fred Lyssa took over the production line, which as a director for some time unemployed veteran film Siegfried Dessauer had to on this film with the subordinate role of a recording head content.

Reviews

The contemporary reviews were mostly mixed, especially the direction Richard Oswalds and the acting performance of the Holmes actor Blackwell got off. Only Fritz Rasp's portrayal of villains was praised .

Walter Kaul found in the Berlin Börsen-Courier : “Richard Oswald has rehearsed the old“ Dog from Baskerville ”, he has not seen Conan Doyle's famous detective novel, he has not seen it with the most modern cinematic means, he has it only conventionally, but skillfully and routinely reproduced. The night scenes on the moor are impressive studio shots that are effectively underlined by the film orchestra. It's old, solid cinema, not unsympathetic and almost enjoyable in its honesty. The processes, two lines of action that intersect, confuse and unravel, are traced in a good and honest way. ”Then Rasp's performance was recognized (“ A diabolical smile is striking in effective close-ups ”), but Kaul judged sharply about the actors of Holmes and Watson : "C. Blackwell as Sherlock Holmes and Georges Seroff as Dr. Watson, on the other hand, fall into an involuntary joke-paper style. "

Georg Herzberg wrote in the Film-Kurier : “The phosphorescent dog has been a film object several times. Now that there is a renaissance of criminal material on the stage, in the novel and in the film, Richard Oswald, under the production management of FW Krämer, has once again brought the story of the mysterious murders in some lonely English moor to the screen. As the evening proved, with great success. (...) The authors Herbert Juttke and Georg C. Klaren create the right scary atmosphere. Stormy thunderstorm evening at Baskerville Castle. The ghost dog howls. A mysterious message calls out the Lord. The masked messenger disappears without a trace. A wall sculpture suddenly has human eyes. So it goes to the end. A subplot leads the viewer on the wrong track, the famous little Sherlock Holmes clues abound. Finally the victory of the just cause, happy ending and the brief, not entirely satisfactory explanation of the puzzling incidents. Oswald kneels down into the story. With visible joy he leads the studio haunt, supported by the dramatic dark photography of Frederick Fuglsang and the eerie moor buildings by Gustav Knauer. A balanced ensemble without conspicuous performances plays the events. Only Fritz Rasp's demonically grinning face is memorable. (...) Weak is the Sherlock Holmes by C. Blackwell, imported from England, amusing in his light parody of the Watson by George Seroff. "

The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung ruled: “Every viewer has his own Sherlock Holmes. If he is only half as clever as the master detective in this film, he already knows 400 meters before him who the criminal is. Since he also sees through the diversionary maneuvers to mislead your suspicions early on, he experiences a double triumph over the detective and over the film authors Herbert Juttke and GC Klaren. So a flattering film for the audience. (...) Richard Oswald, who incidentally directs artlessly and simply, was unable to overcome the resistance that such a novel opposes to filming. Nevertheless, you can be partially packed. This classic masterpiece of all detective novels contains too much substance to be devastated in any way. In addition, the actors are enthusiastic about it. Especially Fritz Rasp, the well-known specialist for eccentrics with criminal tendencies. "

Hans Kafka came to the following conclusion in the trade journal Tempo : “The audience's certain film boredom, the irritability that has often been venting quite a bit recently, is due to the eternal pseudo-experiments that companies, directors and Allow authors. (...) Richard Oswald, the director of the Hund von Baskerville , is the first to forsake a lot. A wrench by Conan Doyle, tried and tested a thousand times as a novel and play - a wrench as a script, not chaste and naive, but of that real beat, also beat-tempo, that real beautiful cinema tension that was so dear to us a decade ago . "

Hans Tasiemka was particularly hard on the film in Berlin that morning : “As is so often the case in German films, the decline in talent is noticeable here too. Oswald made the best colportage films 10 years ago. (...) The magnificent films that he later directed drove him off his real path. Now he can't find his way back. Oswald can no longer go. The Baskerville dog has to be shot at an unheard-of speed, otherwise it becomes boring, or you have to pull it up as a satire on the detective film (...) But Oswald lacks the humor for that. A conglomerate of outdated detective tricks and unskilled mood painting. The viewer should be horrified - he just laughs. Presentation penetrating bad. A notable exception: Fritz Rasp as a jellyfish villain. "

literature

  • Gero Gandert (ed.): The film of the Weimar Republic. 1929. A Handbook of Contemporary Criticism . Berlin / New York 1993. p. 294

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ cf. Alma Taylor's entry in Kay Weniger's Das Großes Personenlexikon des Films , Volume 8, Berlin 2001
  2. ↑ a b Berliner Börsen-Courier , No. 402, August 29, 1929
  3. ^ Film-Kurier , No. 205, August 29, 1929
  4. ↑ Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung , No. 402, August 31, 1929
  5. ↑ Tempo , No. 201, August 29, 1929
  6. ↑ Berlin am Morgen , No. 140, August 30, 1929