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
Dr. Watson Here he is direct about a method of preserving discretion and confidentiality that other scholars have inferred from the stories, with pseudonyms replacing the "real" names of clients, witnesses, and culprits alike, and altered place-names replacing the real locations. Bruce McRae created the character of Dr Watson in the 1899 Broadway production of "Sherlock Holmes", a play by William Gillette and Arthur Conan Doyle. Edward Fielding played Watson in the 1916 film "Sherlock Holmes" Roland Young played Watson in the 1922 film "Sherlock Holmes" Ian Fleming played Watson in the 1931" Sherlock Holmes" film series except for "The Sign of