Sherlock Holmes (1939 film series) nitrate film. The UCLA Film and Television Archive restored the series, putting the films onto modern polyester film, in a process that was jointly paid for by UCLA, Warner Bros. and Hugh Hefner. In 1938 Basil Rathbone was cast as Sherlock Holmes for the 20th Century Fox adaptation of "The Hound of the Baskervilles"; Nigel Bruce was chosen to play Dr. John Watson. Darryl F. Zanuck, Gregory Ratoff and Gene Markey made the choice of Rathbone as Holmes during a conversation at a party in Hollywood. Filming began on 29 December 1938 under the direction of Sidney Lanfield and the
Basil Rathbone produced by Fox in 1939), were set in the late Victorian times of the original stories. The later installments, produced by Universal, beginning with "Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror" (1942), were set in contemporary times. The first three had World War II-related plots. Concurrent with the films, Rathbone and Bruce reprised their film roles in a radio series, "The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes", which began in October 1939. Rathbone appeared in the radio series as long as the film series was active, but after the films lapsed in 1946, Rathbone ceded his radio part to Tom Conway.