The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939 film) "Sherlock Holmes" films together, top billing went to Richard Greene, who was the film's romantic lead. Rathbone was billed second. Wendy Barrie, who played Beryl Stapleton, the woman with whom Greene falls in love, received third billing, and Nigel Bruce, the film's Dr. Watson, was billed fourth. In all their other Holmes films, Rathbone and Bruce would receive first and second billing respectively. "The Hound of the Baskervilles" marks the first of the fourteen "Sherlock Holmes" films starring Rathbone and Bruce as Holmes and Watson, respectively. It is also notable as the earliest known "Sherlock Holmes" film to be set
Sherlock Holmes novel "Psmith, Journalist" (neither spoken by Holmes). The exact phrase "Elementary, my dear Watson" is used by protagonist Tom Beresford in Agatha Christie's 1922 novel "The Secret Adversary". It also appears at the end of the 1929 film "The Return of Sherlock Holmes", the first Holmes sound film. The phrase became familiar with the American public in part due to its use in The Rathbone-Bruce series of films from 1939 to 1946. Conan Doyle's 56 short stories and four novels are known as the "canon" by Holmes aficionados. Early canonical scholars included Ronald Knox in Britain and Christopher Morley in