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THE NEW ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
Starring
Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce
by Cameron Estep
Sherlock Holmes, the
quintessential super sleuth of all fictional
detectives has been featured not only in the
famous adventures written by Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle but also in films from the silent era to
today, in television programs, and of course in
old-time radio from the 1930's to the late
1940's. While there have been several actors who
portrayed the famous detective on the air the
one that has become not only famous but
synonymous with the character was of course
Basil Rathbone.
He was born Philip St. John Basil Rathbone on
June 13, 1892 in the city of Johannesburg, South
Africa to British parents. His distinctive
voice, his English bearing, and his ability to
swordfight catapulted him into fame often
playing swashbuckling scoundrels opposite some
exciting leading male stars. For example,
Rathbone played Sir Guy of Gisbourne in The
Adventures of Robin Hood (with Errol Flynn),
Captain Esteban Pasquale in The Mark of Zorro
(with Tyrone Power), Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet
(with Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer). He also
portrayed some other remarkable
characterizations such as the abusive Mr.
Murdstone in David Copperfield (with Freddie
Bartholomew), the hunchbacked and vicious
Richard, the Duke of Gloucester in Tower of
London (with Boris Karloff and Vincent Price),
the Baron Wolf von Frankenstein in Son of
Frankenstein, the polished bon vivant sleuth
Philo Vance in The Bishop Murder Case, and the
RAF commanding officer Major Brand in The Dawn
Patrol (with Errol Flynn).
What about Nigel Bruce? Bruce was born in
Ensenada, Mexico to British parents on February
4, 1895. Bruce was seen in a number of classic
films from the 1930's and the 1940's and usually
as a bumbling and (most of the time)
warm-hearted gentleman. For instance he played
the blustery Squire Trelawney in Treasure Island
(with Jackie Cooper and Wallace Beery), the
grumbling and irritable Lord Albert Esketh in
The Rains Came (with Tyrone Power and Myrna
Loy), the Scottish Duke of Rudling in Lassie
Come Home (with Roddy McDowall and Elizabeth
Taylor), and he did two Alfred Hitchcock films
as Major Giles Lacy in Rebecca (with Laurence
Olivier and Joan Fontaine) and as Beaky Thwaite
in Suspicion (with Cary Grant and Joan
Fontaine).
Then in 1939, two things happened: the first-Rathbone
and Bruce appeared on radio together for the
first time as Holmes and Watson on NBC and the
second they did their first of fourteen Sherlock
Holmes films beginning with Sir Arthur Conan
Doyle's Hound of the Baskervilles for 20th
Century Fox.
Soon Rathbone and Bruce's performances as the
Great Detective and his loyal companion would
become very popular not only with the
movie-going audience but with the radio
listeners who heard their baffling and exciting
adventures for eight years featuring these two
superb actors. When Holmes was becoming a
popular radio there were two different sponsors
the first was Bromo Quinine Cold Tablets and
later the Petri Wine Company.
Glenhall Taylor was the producer of the radio
series because he was the representative for the
advertising agency of Young and Rubicon for
Petri Wines. Edna Best (whose husband is the
famous British character actor Herbert Marshall)
was brought on as the director. At first the
radio writers for the series was an Englishman
named Denis Green and a man named Leslie
Charteris (who wrote for famous Saint
magazines). Green was also an actor as well as a
playwright and because of his familiarity with
England and its surroundings he would write the
dialogue for the radio scripts. Denis' wife,
Mary Green was not only active in theatre and
dance but she would also help her husband with
the writing for the scripts. Soon Charteris
would no longer co-write the plays and soon a
American named Anthony Boucher who was looking
for something new would become involved.
Boucher (who was also known as A.P. White) when
he went to school at the University of Berkeley
in California and was also the mystery reviewer
for the San Francisco Chronicle met Green at a
cocktail party which was in honor of Basil
Rathbone and Nigel Bruce who came to California
to do a war bond promotion. Boucher and his wife
Phyllis White became friends with the Greens and
when Denis needed another co-writer he thought
of Boucher at once and he was brought on for the
series. Because of his knowledge and respect for
the Sherlock Holmes canon he did the plotting
and story structure.
 Once
the original Holmes stories have been used at
least more than once on the radio Green and
Boucher had to come with "new adventures" for
the Great Detective.
When the show was under the sponsorship of Petri
Wines the announcer was a young American named
Harry Bartell (who not only appeared in other
classic radio shows like Escape and Suspense but
he also played some minor roles in the Holmes
radio plays. Other members of the radio cast who
appeared in the series were a mixture of classic
radio players but also some who had appeared in
the Sherlock Holmes movies with Rathbone and
Bruce such as Frederic Worlock, Carl Harbord,
Mary Gordon, Rex Evans, Joseph Kearns, Norma
Varden, Eric Snowden, Raymond Laurence, Theodore
von Eltz, Paula Winslowe, Ramsey Hill, Lou
Merrill, Herbert Rawlinson, and even Denis
Green.
While these new adventures were not exactly
based from the original canon these are still
great to listen to because they are
"non-canonical". Green and Boucher would place
Holmes and Watson in some locales outside
England but would have been popular and
well-known in the Victorian Era such as India,
Scotland, France, Rome, Vienna, Ireland, and
others. They would also have them solve
mysteries on holidays from Christmas, St.
Patrick's Day, Guy Fawkes Day, and others. They
managed to come up with some of the most
exciting and intriguing radio mysteries for the
"only unofficial consulting detective" and his
faithful comrade to solve. For instance, they
would determine if a stage actor who played
Sweeney Todd is in reality a killer or a victim
of a fiendish plot, figure out who killed a
French professor without ever meeting any of the
suspects, how a man is stabbed in his study with
the only entrance guarded and the windows locked
from the inside, and catch a Jack the
Ripper-like madman who murdered ten young women
in Hampstead Heath. On some occasions Moriarty
would be featured once again attempting to elude
Holmes. One episode told by Dr. Watson deals
with what happened to Holmes during the three
years he was to believed to be dead at the Reichenbach Falls.
As the series went on and the last Holmes film
was done in 1946 Rathbone feared he was being
typecast and decided to leave the series for
good even though he was offered a seven-year
radio contact to continue as Sherlock Holmes.
While many of the episodes from 1939 to mid 1945
are lost many surviving episodes from 1945-1946
are available and are some of the best of
dramatic American radio in the history of radio
detective dramas. At least thanks to the
discovery of these long-lost radio shows we can
once again listen to Basil Rathbone and Nigel
Bruce at the top of their acting ability
portraying the world's most famous detective and
his loyal companion.
Copyright 2013 World Memories, LLC - All Rights
Reserved. Reproduction is prohibited.
HISTORY OF THE OLD TIME RADIO
Before Television, Radio was the dominant
home entertainment medium.
 Old Time Radio (OTR) and the Golden Age of Radio
refer to a period of radio
programming in the
United States lasting from the proliferation of
radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until
television's replacement of radio as the
dominant home entertainment medium in the late
1950s. During this period, when radio was
dominant and the airwaves were filled with a
variety of radio formats and genres, people
regularly tuned in to their favorite radio
programs. In fact, according to a 1947 C. E.
Hooper survey, 82 out of 100 Americans were
found to be radio listeners.
Origins
Radio content in the Golden Age of Radio had its
origins in the theatrophone. Broadcasting began
in the 1880s and 1890s with audio recordings of
musical acts and other vaudeville. These were
sent to people by means of telephone and, later,
through phonograph cylinders and discs. Visual
elements, such as effects and sight gags, were
adapted to have sound equivalents. In addition,
visual objects and scenery were converted to
have audio descriptions.
On
Christmas Eve 1906, Reginald Fessenden is said
to have broadcast the first radio program,
consisting of some violin playing and passages
from the Bible. While Fessenden's role as an
inventor and early radio experimenter is not in
dispute, several contemporary radio researchers
have questioned whether the Christmas Eve
broadcast took place, or whether the date was in
fact several weeks earlier. The first apparent
published reference to event was made in 1928 by
H.P. Davis, Vice President of Westinghouse, in a
lecture given at Harvard University. In 1932
Fessenden cited the Chistmas Eve 1906 broadcast
event in a letter he wrote to Vice President S.M.
Kinter of Westinghouse. Fessenden's wife Helen
recounts the broadcast in her book Fessenden:
Builder of Tomorrows published in 1940, eight
years after Fessenden's death. The issue of
whether the 1906 Fessenden broadcast actually
happened is discussed in Halper and Sterling's
article "Seeking the Truth About Fessenden"[1]
and also in James O'Neal's essays.[2] [3] An
annotated argument supporting Fessenden as the
world's first radio broadcaster was offered in
2006 by Cambridge University educated Dr. John
S. Belrose, Radioscientist Emeritus at the
Communications Research Centre Canada, in his
essay entitled "Fessenden's 1906 Christmas Eve
broadcast."
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