Someone told me that all 14 Sherlock holmes films starring Basil Rathbone and nigel Bruce were coming but I can't find any record of it on-line. anybody know anything about this?

i want those really bad. i sure hope they're comng

...I'm ready too...

MPI is releasing these fully restored films in three sets of 4 DVDs. The individual releases are $19.95 each and each box set of 4 is $70.

2 of the sets (8 films) are already up for pre-order at Deep Discount for 10/28 release.

Sherlock Collection V.1

1.) Sherlock Holmes And The Voice Of Terror
2.) Sherlock Holmes And The Secret Weapon
3.) Sherlock Holmes In Washington
4.) Sherlock Holmes Faces Death


Sherlock Collection V.2

1.) The Spider Woman
2.) The Scarlet Claw
3.) The Pearl Of Death
4.) The House Of Fear

Does anyone know if/(when) the two FOX Basil S.H. films will hit the streets?

WOW!!!!! They're restoring them?! Has anyone heard who is doing the restoring? (The previously available VHS tapes were of completely awful quality....)

I do hope that Hound of the Baskersville will be in the third set.

The Second set will be released on 11/25.

The Hound of the Baskervilles & The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes will be released by MPI, but at a later time (due to further restoration I think). The Third set will thus not include these 2 films.

A friend of mine wrote the liner notes for these discs. I haven't seen them myself, but according to him, these films haven't looked this good in decades. Maybe ever.

That is great news if the transfers are good. If you hear any more info, please post.

I was extremely disappointed in the FocusFilm set from a few years ago. Great packaging, but lousy public-domain quality transfers.

Although this off topic with Sherlock Holmes, There are 2 Basil Rathbone DVD that are releasing in 2003. Zorro-Tyrone Power, Linda Darnell, and Basil Rathbone #2 is The Adventures of Robin Hood December of 2003 with Errol Flynn, Basil Rathbone, Olivia DeHaviland, Alan Hale Sr. (Father of Alan Hale Jr. and skipper in Gilligans Isle TV series).


P.S. "Zorro" Industry Standard B & W, The "Adventures of Robin Hood" Color Industry Standard DVD.

I have to respectfully disagree with this statement.
For I have all 14 Basil S.H. Classics on VHS (via Key Video's 1980s releases), and they actually look pretty decent to me (for VHS anyhow). Anyone else concur?

Although, I'm sure the deep, dark blacks of these films (which take place in darkly-lit environs a lot of the time) will look much better when we visit the DVD versions. Hope so. Can't wait. These were great mystery movies...esp. "Hound", "Scarlet Claw", "House Of Fear", and "Faces Death".

Jedidiah: Were the lousy VHS copies you referred to in this packaging? Or were they other versions? ......

I also have these tapes and the quality on these films is actually pretty good. There was a 4 disc set released of these films that sold in Costco for about $20. The quality was for crap on those discs so, I'm really looking forward to these films on DVD.

Lookie there! According to the cover, these Holmes Classics are gonna
be .... "LOADED WITH DVD EXTRAS"!

I'm just wondering WHAT kind of "Extras" there will be here. Hopefully, they haven't gone retro on us, and MPI still is considering Scene Access, Interactive Menus, and a Chapter Stop Insert as "Special Features".

(Although, with the rapidly-decreasing number of paper inserts we're now experiencing with newer DVD releases, a Chapter enclosure just *might* be an "Extra" feature pretty soon. )

Anybody know what these "Loads" of extras might entail on these S.H. titles? Photo galleries and original trailers would be nice. Perhaps a "Virtual Tour Of Musgrave Manor"?

From Amazon, looks like only volume one has extras (MPI) Volume One Extras:

BONUS MATERIAL
Commentary from renowned British author David Stuart Davies
Photo Gallery
Original Movie Posters

I'm assuming the third set will include the last 4 of the so-called "Baker Street Dozen":
Pursuit to Algiers
The Woman in Green
Dressed to Kill
Terror By Night.

Although i love some of the films in the other two sets more, I must say I'm very excited about this one because Woman in Green, Dressed to Kill and Terror by Night are the most commonly found of Holmes movies on DVD and video and always in really ****** condition. It'll be nice to finally see them restored. Its good to know we'll finally have a release of Terror by Night that restores the missing scene from some previous DVD releases.
After that all that remains is the two Fox pictures.

I'm also hoping that MPI took a que from the previous ****** box set release that at least include several episodes of the radio show as part of the extras. Those are really the only reason to buy those editions in the first place. (the transfer on that edition of Dressed to Kill is unwatchable).

An "insider" from Scarlet Street has indicated elsewhere that "no radio shows" will be included in the upcoming 4th-quarter SH boxed sets.

For a plethora of Holmes radio shows, and every other OTR program you could think of (for a miniscule amount of greenbacks invested), try ...........

http://bobbysotr.com/index_mystery.html .... You can get 172 Holmes' programs for a mere 6 clams! (Most are of the Basil/Nigel variety as well).

For just slightly more, you can choose ........

http://otrcat.com/#showlist

The ones I saw were other versions...

For all of the "talk" that The Movie Studios do today, about "film preservation", they certainly have short term memory loss, when it comes to what the "Classics" REALLY ARE, like this franchise.

Instead of working on releasing these GENUINE motion pictures, they think people DON'T want these titles, and assign the priority to middling, direct-to-video newer titles.

Don't the "really" get it how to market to older DVD consumers ?

It's like watching a faucet drip, drip, drip...with these video releases to DVD.

It's about time....

I have the four films that Focus Films restored:

The Woman in Green
Terror by Night
The Secret Weapon
Dressed to Kill

All four are decent and they have nice little extras like some of the original radio shows.

But... I would love to see the entire series in a well done digitally restored transfer.

I can't agree with MikeNYC more than I do. There are so many absolutely amazing movies out there that are payed little to no attention.

I have the Focus set and the quality is terrible. One movie is missing an entire scene for no reason. Hopefully MPI will restore these properly.

OK, so the video in areas and the sound in areas are just plain bad. For what they had to work with and the time and money they put into restoring these films, I feel bad giving these dvd's such a low mark. I've spent time at UCLA's film library and I've seen what some of these restoration efforts have to start with. Granted, they didn't have the budget for a good effort but it was just nice to see these films finally on dvd. It was also nice of them to add some interesting extras which weren't necessary at all. I definitely look forward to seeing the quality of these special editions... I don't envy them as a "good" picture quality will certainly be an undertaking.

What evidence is there that these films were "restored" by Focus at all? I see no sign of any time or money spent doing anything to the films other than slapping some public domain prints onto a DVD along with public domain radio shows.

I thought the box was a terrible disappointment. (And the original MSRP on it was a joke.)