Oscar Profile #68: Basil Rathbone

Born June 13, 1892 in Johannesburg, South Africa to a mining engineer and his wife, young Basil Rathbone, along with his parents and two younger siblings were forced to flee the country at the end of the decade when his father was accused by the Boers of being a spy for the British. Young Rathbone himself later became an actual spy for the British during World War I. Awarded the Military Cross in 1918, his brother John was killed in action during the war.

On the British stage from 1911, he alternated between Great Britain and the U.S. in the 1920s and the early 1930s. He was Romeo to Katharine Cornell’s Juliet in the acclaimed 1934 Broadway production of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. On screen from 1921, his film career took off with major supporting roles in four 1935 classics, David Copperfield; Anna Karenina; Captain Blood and A Tale of Two Cities as well as leads in A Feather in Her Hat and Kind Lady.

Rathbone’s portrayal of Tybalt in George Cukor’s 1936 screen version of Romeo and Juliet in support of Norman Shearer and Leslie Howard earned him his first Oscar nomination. The swordfight in which he kills John Barrymore ws the only one he ever won on screen in his long career

Two years later he was again among the Oscar nominees for his portrayal of Louis XI in If I Were King, though his most memorable role from that year was as Sir Guy of Gisbourne opposite Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood in which he once again exhibited the expert swordsmanship he previously displayed in Captain Blood and Romeo and Juliet and would again in 1940’s The Mark of Zorro. He was also splendid that year in the remake of the Word War I classic, The Dawn Patrol with Flynn and David Niven.

In 1939 he played his most famous screen role, that of Sherlock Holmes, for the first time in two splendid films for Fox, The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. He and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson proved such a popular team that they repeated their roles in twelve more films and numerous radio plays over the next six years.

Anxious to do something else, Rathbone returned to the Broadway stage in as the tyrannical father in the acclaimed 1948 production of The Heiress for which he won a Tony as Best Actor. Although he voiced the part of Mr. Toad in Disney’s 1949 hit, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad he did not appear on screen again until 1954’s Casanova’s Big Night in which he first spoofed his villainous roles of the 1930s complete with his still strong fencing skills. Much on TV in the 1950s, he played Marley’s Ghost in a 1954 version of A Christmas Carol with Fredric March and later played Scrooge twice to great acclaim.

In mostly paycheck horror films and comedies for the remainder of his life, his last good role was probably as Spencer Tracy’s nemesis in John Ford’s 1958 classic, The Last Hurrah. Busy until the end, his last film, released posthumously, was the Mexican film, Autopsy of a Ghost in which he had the starring role.

Basil Rathbone died July 21, 1967 in New York at the age of 75.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

ANNA KARENINA (1935), directed by Clarence Brown

One of four major films released in 1935 in which Rathbone excelled as a hard-nosed urbane villain, he made life miserable for Greta Garbo and Freddie Bartholomew as their young son. He also made young Bartholomew’s life hell David Copperfield; was the epitome of the haughty French aristocrat whose sense of privilege led to the revolution in A Tale of Two Cities and Errol Flynn’s nemesis in Captain Blood. Any one of these splendid films would be testament to Rathbone’s thrilling presence in 1935, but his heartless Karenin in Anna Karenina is my slight favorite.

THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD (1938), directed by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley

This gorgeous looking Warner Bros. film from the early days of Technicolor was so perfectly cast that it should be required viewing for any casting director working on a period film. From Errol Flynn’s dashing hero to Olivia de Havilland’s lovely Maid Marian to Alan Hales’s Little John to Patric Knowles’ Will Scarlet to Eugene Pallette’s Friar Tuck and on and on, these are actors who were born to play their parts. No less so, were the film’s principal villains, Claude Rains as the Prince John and especially Rathbone as the loathsome Sir Guy Gisbourne.

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1939), directed by Sidney Lanfield

Rathbone’s well known penchant for disguises got him through World War I. It’s no wonder then that this deliciously atmospheric film in which Rathbone as Holmes is seen in unrecognizable disguise for a good chunk of the film is what attracted him to the project. He and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson were so marvelous that they reprised their roles in thirteen more films and numerous radio plays. Only this and the second one, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes were done as period films. The remaining films in the series were updated to contemporary times without raising an eyebrow.

THE COURT JESTER (1956), directed by Norman Panama and Melvin Frank

This was the more popular of the two comedies Rathbone made in his return to films spoofing his earlier villains with a sword. The first was 1954’s Casanova’s Big Night with Bob Hope who was no one’s idea of a middle aged ne’er-do-well who could be mistaken for the world’s greatest lover. Danny Kaye, Glynis Johns, Angela Lansbury, Mildred Natwick and Rathbone, however, made this one click from beginning to end.

THE LAST HURRAH (1958), directed by John Ford

Playing a Boston Brahmin villain opposite Spencer Tracy, Pat O’Brien, James Gleason, Donald Crisp, et. al. as folksy Irishmen in Ford’s memorable film of Edwin O’Connor’s novel, Rathbone made his few scenes count. Seething with fury as Tracy plays a nasty trick on him, Rathbone is at his villainous best, as is John Carradine, a longtime friend and frequent co-star, who plays his fellow Brahmin. After this it was mostly inferior films in which he at least received star billing thanks in large part to the constant showing of his old films on TV.