The Pipes of Basil Rathbone's Sherlock HolmesThe House of Fear (1944) was the fourth installment of the year in Universals Sherlock Holmes series, taking its lead (but not much else) from Doyles story The Five Orange Pips. While its not dramatically among the first-tier films, its definitely at the top of the list, required viewing in fact, for pipe-smokers. Pipes, pipe-smoke, pipe-talk and pipe shops all wreath their smoky way through the entire picture, with a tobacconists murder at the center of the plot (see Figure 38) and an empty tobacco jar serving fittingly as the final clue to the solution of the case. The pipe action begins with what may be a Custom-Bilt pot, which is smoked throughout the picture by the character of Captain Simpson (see Figure 37). Youll have to watch the film and decide for yourself whether its a Custom-Bilt, but its a pleasant thought. 34. Watson, MacGregor, Holmes and Peterson 4ABOf course Holmes is smoking his Peterson 4AB. Watsons pipes are usually cradled inside his fist for this picture, so its hard to know exactly what hes smoking. Various members of the Murder Club smoke pipes as well, but its the dogs head sterling (pewter?) tobacco jar that got me salivating like Pavlovs Dog. Why doesnt anyone make cool tobacco jars like this anymore? It puts my little mason jars to shame, however hermetic they may be. Theres so much pipe-smoking going on in this film that if youre in a pipe club, Id recommend screen it at your next meeting. 35. Captain Simpson's Tobacco Jar36. Watson, Tobacco Jar and Holmes with 4AB37. Capt. Simpson's Possible Custombilt38. Murder Club Convicted for Death of TobacconistThe Pipes of Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes: A Visual Essay Case N 140224THE PIPES OF BASIL RATHBONE'S SHERLOCK HOLMES:A VISUAL ESSAYPART II. "ENGLAND'S SECRET WEAPON" Note: To maximize your experience of this essay, please download the screen-capture illustrations in the .pdf packet by clicking HERE. This will allow you to toggle between the essay and full-screen photographs. Ch. 3: Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) 10. Opening Shot for the Universal Films Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942) was the first of the twelve Universal Studios pictures, and its an auspicious launch. As Beethovens Fifth rings out some eleven minutes into Voice of Terror with its V for Victory da-da-da-dum, Englands Secret Weapon is unleashed as Holmes and Watson find themselves pitted against The Big Problem of the daythe Nazisand its a real corker, thanks to a creepy plot and the excellent performances of heavies Henry Daniell and Thomas Gomez. It begins with the famous fog-covered two-shot of Rathbone and Bruce which will be used throughout the Universal series, Rathbone smoking a pipe that appears magnum-sized, but so dense is the fog that apart from the top of the bowl, nothing else is distinguishable aside from the fact that its a briar. After the loss of the beautiful Kitty and vanquishing of the Nazis in a suitably gothic locale, the film ends with one of my favorite quotes from the canon, one of the few elements actually used from His Last Bow (which the story is supposed to have been adapted from): Theres an East wind, Watson . . . . Such a wind as never blew in England yet. It will be cold and bitter . . . and a good many of us may wither before its blast. But its God own wind, nonetheless. And a greener, better, stronger land will be in the sunshine when the storm has cleared. For their first Universal film, the duo use the same pipes featured in their previous Twentieth Century Fox films, Watson his cherrywood and Holmes what Im going to call until I learn better his Dunhill/Parker 120/LC, or Dunhill for short. Holmess pipe is again very clean, and when he packs it, he seems careful to only fill it halfway. There is also great shot of the famous Persian Slipper tobacco pouch in this film (which I think appeared in Adventure), a capacious affair that could easily hold a pound of Holmes favorite shagI wish someone would make a reproduction of this! Anybody? Anybody? 11. The Persian Slipper Tobacco Pouch 12. Listening to Beethoven with the Dunhill in Voice of Terror Ch. 4: Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942) Secret Weapon continues the brilliance of the initial entries in the Fox series, this time taking snippets of The Dancing Men from Doyles story and concocting one of those great WWII Secret Weapon scientist yarns, in this case a bomb sight. Lionel Atwill makes an excellent Moriarty and Dennis Hoey makes his first welcome appearance as the bumbling but likable Inspector Lestrade. The best partand this isnt a spoiler but a teaseris the imaginative way Moriarty uses in his attempt to kill Holmes. A true Universal studios touch, worthy of a James Whale. Rathbone spends his on-screen time smoking cigarettes this time around, but in compensation Watson takes up two new pipes: a full-bent smooth billiard not unlike Holmes own blast version from the two previous films, and a smooth straight billiard. Whether by accident or design, Bruce portrays his Watson as a pipeman with more interest in his pipes than Holmes, smoking a number of different pipes throughout the series. It would be nice to know if these were Bruces own, which he just had in his pocket on the day of shootingand that would be my surmise. 13. Watson's Own Dunhill/parker LC/120 in Secret Weapon 14. Watson and His Straight Billiard in Secret Weapon I confess Im a background and set freak, and enjoy freezing frames in a favorite movie just to linger over the composition and set designs. Notice in Figure 14 (besides Holmes in one of his disguises) a marvelous flatback sculpture directly behind Watsons headit would appear to be a seaman in his Norwester cap with a full-bent billiard sticking clinched between his teeth. Talk about great man-cave decor! Pride of place, however, goes not to Watson but Lionel Atwills Moriarty, who sports a very-plainly seen Dunhill (white spot!), an 01 apple, which he inadvertently to knock over a glass of water onto some the Dancing Men codes strewed about his desk. 15A. & 15B. Two Shots of Moriarty's Dunhill in Secret Weapon Ch. 5: Sherlock Holmes in Washinghton (1943) Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943) pits Holmes in a chase to track down some vital microfilm before it falls into Nazi hands right in the nations capitol, and it works fairly well as an espionage thriller, although its a bit of a Secret Weapon reboot. The Great Detective goes through the Washington case without pipe in hand or lip, although there is a beautiful gourd calabash on the table at 221B Baker Streetpresumably his. 1943 mustve been a bad year for pipesand in fact, now that I think of it, Ive heard several guys say that the shortage of briar was really making itself felt by this point in the war. The spherical object behind the magnifying glass in Figure 16, by the way, is a tobacco jar, and will be carried about the flat by Holmes in 1944s Pearl of Death. 16. Homage to William Gillette: Calabash on the Wireless17. Stanley's Dunhill Apple Watson smokes two pipes this time out, a square-shanked apple and a round-shanked billiard. But the Pride of Pipes award again goes to the villainthis time the evil Heinrich Hinckel aka Richard Stanley, who smokes a honey-colored Dunhill apple (shape 01, right?) and at least two other pipes in the course of events, as well as sporting a robust humidor/pipe rack combination on his desk with at least a dozen pipes. Apparently crime pays. Hinckel seems to have a great deal of trouble keeping his pipes lit, however, due probably to his unfortunate habit of trying to light them with paper matchesand if you havent seen this film, keep an eye on those matches. They say people can burned playing with them. 18. Stanley's Humidor/Pipe Rack in Washington Ch. 6: Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943) Sherlock Holmes Meets Death (1943) is a step up to more familiar territory, with a screenplay that sticks in the main to Doyles story The Musgrave Ritual. The element of suspense was no big deal at Universal, so we have clocks that strike thirteen, howling winds, old dark houses, and of course secret passages to help things along. Now into his fourth picture for Universal, Rathbone finally picks up a new pipe, thus restoring one of the fundamental personality traits of the Holmes persona. And here, for the first time, Basil Rathbone sports a pipe I can positively identify: a Peterson 4AB. Its evident from the Blu-ray transfer that the pipe had already been smoked a great deal, with carbon darkening across the rim. In the film, however, Holmes uses it mostly as a prop, rarely lighting it. Watson, for once, is sans pipe, although among the cast several of men sport straight pipes. 19. First Appearance of the Peterson 4AB in SH Faces Death The Peterson 4AB, one of Kapp & Petersons original shapes (found in both their 1896 and 1905 catalogs) was in production in 1943 and can be found on p. 21 of the 1937 Black & Silver Peterson catalog. We know its a 4AB, the top-of-the-line System with sterling mount, because the 309/359 (2nd and 3rd grades) of this shape were at that time only produced with the A or Army stem (p. 18 of the 1937 catalog). Whats interesting to me as a Peterson collector is that Ive never, ever heard anyone talk seriously about Rathbone and Petersonapart from a few anecdotes emanating from Peterson to endorse their Sherlock Holmes series, to which I never paid much mind. Until now. 20. Kapp & Peterson 4AB, 1937 Black & Silver Catalogue IllustrationThe Pipes of Basil Rathbone's Sherlock Holmes: A Visual Essay Case N 140217THE PIPES OF BASIL RATHBONE'S SHERLOCK HOLMES:A VISUAL ESSAYPART I. "THE GAME'S AFOOT" Note: To maximize your experience of this essay, please download the screen-capture illustrations in the .pdf packet by clicking HERE. This will allow you to toggle between the essay and full-screen photographs. When Im watching films, if somebodys smokin a pipe,thats what I zoom in on. And if its got a domed mount I ask myself, Is that a Peterson? Paddy Larrigan, Artisan-Carver of PetersonsOriginal Sherlock Holmes Series1 01. Basil Rathbone, Universal Studios Publicity Photograph Sherlock Holmes is again at the forefront of the popular imagination, thanks to the brilliant writing of Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss and the intense performances of Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman in the BBCs third season of Sherlock. I admit that at the outset, the whole nicotine patch thing was a major irritation, but Ive forgiven them for not being brave enough to stand up against the Nanny State and do something really high level sociopathic like have their Holmes smoke a pipebecause after all, that just leaves those of us who do smoke that little edge of moral superiority (or perversity!), doesnt it? And anyway, I stand amazed at just how good these retellings are. These guys are real fanboys, and I think their reinterpretations are nothing short of brilliant. For the real deal of meticulous recreations of the original stories, however, you have to go back a generation to Jeremy Bretts Granada Television portrayals of the 1980s, the high point of the postmodern sensibilitys fascination with period authenticity. Brett himself was a nicotine-fiend, as those who love that series know, and would use any excuse to light a cigarette on the set. But he also gave us several glimpses of the detective in rapt contemplation with his pipe.2 02. Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes Before Brett, of course, stand the fourteen adaptations of the canon by icons Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, whose films of the 1930s and 40s cast an indelible stamp on all subsequent performances. Im a huge fan of the Golden Age of Hollywood (1929-1948) but avoided Rathbones interpretations for years, in part because I knew that, like the new Cumberbatch series, most of them werent authentic Doyle, and in part because I knew they were, well, B, movies, those budget-films known as programmers that were shown as the second feature.3 My conversations with artist Larry Gosser changed all that. Gosser, as you know if youve read my earlier article, is a freelance artist and caricaturist, and two of his many passions include the Rathbone canon and Petersons Sherlock Holmes pipe series. So imagine my surprise when I saw Gossers rendition of a scene from Rathbones Dressed to Kill (1946) which included a large ceramic tobacco shop jar labeled Petersons Tobaccos. It seemed too good to be true, but when I wrote him he said yes, absolutely, his illustration was faithful to the movie! 03. Larry Gosser, Sherlock Holmes in Pipe Heaven (2013) So my wife and I watched a very poor-quality public domain print of the movie and were immediately hookedRathbones charm and what I thought might be a Peterson pipe clinched between his teeth gave me all the impetus I needed to watch the entire series, which has been restored by the UCLA Film & Television Archive over the past several years and was released as set on Blu-ray in 2011. If you enjoy the old black & white Hollywood classics, many (if not most) of these films will give you a good evenings viewing pleasure. But aside from enjoying them on their own terms, I confess my true motive was to investigate the pipes of the seriesthose Rathbone smoked primarily, but those of Watson, Moriarty and others as well, and pipes-a-plenty the series affords, again offering proof that more pipes were smoked per capita in the late 1930s and 1940s than at any other time since. What follows is mostly inadequate, at least as regards the true identities of all the vintage pipes of all makers saving my beloved Kapp & Peterson, but Im posting it here at Neatpipes in the hopes that experts of other marques will be able to spot pipes they know and fill in the blanks. If youre one of those experts and can document your expertise, or have any historical information about the pipes Rathbone, Bruce and their stock company used throughout the series, please let me know and Ill update this essay to include your findings. In the meantime, I can offer you screen-captures of most of the pipes in the series and a few words about their role in each of the films. The first two Rathbone films were A features, released in 1939 through Twentieth-Century Fox. Both were set in the Victorian era, both semi-faithful to their originals (Doyles novel for the first and William Gillettes stage play for the second), and both were successful financially. Hound has never been one of my favorite Rathbones, but Adventures picks things up considerably. After that, Fox lost interest. In 1942, Universal bought the rights to 22 of the Doyle stories. For betteror worsethe supervisor of the project, Howard S. Benedict. felt that there just wasnt enough there to serve as an entire feature in any of them! That didnt stop him and the studio from releasing a dozen programmers, or B films, between 1942 and 1946, thereby unleashing what film critic Amanda J. Field calls Englands Secret Weapon during those dark wartime years.4 Ch. 1: The Hound of the Baskerville (1939) Ernest Pascal wrote the screenplay, a fairly faithful adaptation of Doyles longer story, the novel Hound of the Baskervilles, sticking to it fairly well, with only a few high-jinks along the way. Its de rigueur viewing of course, and the gimpen mire and gigantic hound are awesome, but the presence of John Carradine (whose performance is spot-on) reminds one that Universal Studios, and not Fox, was the place for making truly uncanny horror films. 04. Rathbone's First Holmes Pipe Rathbones first pipe, seen in the screen-captures at Figure 04 and 05, is the one most people seem to associate with him and with the series as a whole. Its a bent, sandblasted billiard and makes its appearance at about 4:16 into the film. If you advance the film frame by frame from 7:15 where Holmes is in conversation with Dr. Mortimer, there would appear to be a little white blip on the pipes stem. But if its a Dunhill, why doesnt that white spot appear at 11:37 (Fig. 05)? And is it an LC or merely a billiard 02? Ive heard some say that Parker was Rathbones go-to pipe, and that Rathbone smoked a Parker throughout the series. Any documentary evidence? Anybody? In any case, Rathbone is a regular steam engine, puffing through most every scene with it, so that its much more than a prop, becoming an extension of his personality. 05A. Dunhill or Parker? Watsons first pipe of the series is a classic cherrywood poker of the kind made famous by Ropp. The beautiful screen capture at 22:24 in Fig. 06 shows Henry Baskerville, Watson and Mortimer. The bark on Watsons cherrywood poker is clearly intact. Baskervilles pipe also looks like a cherrywood, but its impossible to say. 05B. Dunhill LC Examples 05C. Contemporary Dunhill 3102 06. Baskerville & Watson with their Cherrywoods and Dr. Mortimer Ch. 2: Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) is theoretically based not on Doyles book of that name, but as I said earlier, William Gillettes Doyle-endorsed play. It is a great deal more fun than Hound with the addition of George Zucco as Moriarty and the blossoming of Bruces comedic interpretation of Watson. The film features the duos same pipes as in the previous film, both quite prominently. Holmes appears smoking the same sandblast, swan-necked billiard as he did in Hound of the Baskervilles. The pipe is very clean, with no visible rim carbon, but again, I didnt see white spot in the Blu-ray print, so I wonder whether it could be a Dunhill (see Fig. 08) There are a number of serious Dunhill scholars in the hobby, but I dont happen to know any of them. All Ive had to go on is the late John Lorings marvelous scholarship in The Atypical LC, which you can read athttp://loringpage.com/PipeArticles/The%20Atypical%20LC.htm. When Watson is seen smoking, its the cherrywood poker/gavel from Hound not a briar, mind you, but a genuine bark-encrusted cherrywood, as seen by the prominent cherrywood dome and the highly-mounted, straight stem in Fig. 09. 08. Detail of Holmes and the Dunhill LC 09A. Watson's Cherrywood in Adventures 09B. Ropp Cherrywood Poker/GavelThe Woman in Green (1945) marks a slump in the series, and after the enormous creativity involved in the years previous films, its really not surprising. The script takes its cue from some of Holmess great canonic adventures, the The Adventure of the Cardboard Box (1892)a story so weird and grotesque David Lynch couldve filmed itand Colonel Sebastian Morans sniping-at-the-bust-of-Holmes business from The Adventure of the Empty House (1903). But it loses them in the mix of a weak script, despite having arguably the best of the series incarnations of Moriarty in actor Henry Daniell. You wonder how a film can go wrong when a series of beautiful women are murdered and found with their right forefingers amputated, but so it goes. For pipe smokers, theres not much to talk about, either: Holmes smokes his now customary Peterson 4AB; Watson smokes two pipes, a straight apple with sterling band which might be a Peterson shape 86 (see Figure 39)and an unbanded straight billiard later on (34:00 or so). Two or three members of Scotland Yard are also seen chuffing at their pipes at the assembly of detectives which opens the film. But cigarettes, alas, rule the day here. 39.Watson's Silver Banded Straight Apple40. Watson and Holmes at Window of 221B Baker Street Ch. 12: Pursuit to Algiers (1945)The Pursuit to Algiers (1945) is best seen late at night, mildly intoxicated, or both. Others may disagree, but its my personal low of the series, as Holmes and Watson escort the heir to the throne of Ravenia from London to Algiers aboard a plunky Dutch-American liner, the S. S. Frieslandan in-joke reference to Doyles The Adventure of the Norwood Builder (1903). Perhaps it is so very bad that, in a way, its almost worth seeing. There is one redeeming quality in the film, a second delightful in-joke for Holmes fans, wherein were almost privy to Watsons retelling of the greatest of the untold adventuresIm referring of course to The Giant Rat of Sumatra, which Watson mentions in The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire (1924), to which Watson previously alluded in 1942s Secret Weapon film. There are only two pipe moments. The first is the reappearance of Rathbones trusty Peterson 4AB at about 1:30 into the film and thereafter throughout, but mostly as a prophe rarely lights it. The second is Nigel Bruces pipe, a gorgeous silver-banded diamond-shanked bulldog so popular in that era and never produced these days. 41. Holmes's Peterson 4AB in Pursuit 42. Watson's Silver Banded Diamond-Shanked BulldogCh. 13: Terror by Night (1946)Terror by Night (1946) is the train movie you remember from this series, and it represents a return to form, with nearly all its action-packed 60 minutes taking place on the train bound from London to Edinburgh. Holmes and Watson are on board to guard another priceless diamond, this time the Star of Rhodesia, which of course goes missing almost immediately. I dont know if its the first film to use the close environment of a moving train in this way, but certainly Hollywood has returned to this idea several times since. Its a return to form in many ways, with a much tauter script and the suspense of the enclosed setting of the train. 43. Holmes's Peterson 4AB in TerrorNot much in the way of pipes in this movie. We begin once again with Holmes and the Peterson 4AB on the platform at the train station, and Watson smokes an uncharacteristically small pipe, a Lovat, at a few points in the film. 44. Watson's LovatCh. 14: Dressed to Kill (1946)The final film in the series brings us back to many of the leitmotifs of the canon: a femme fatale, a difficult code unraveled, the strange breed known as collectors, and some great pipes and tobaccos sequences. Many critics see Dressed to Kill as a lemon, but I found it quite satisfactory both dramatically and from a pipe lovers point of view. The story is an original, but probably inspired by The Adventure of the Six Napoleons (1904) with brief references to A Scandal in Bohemia (1891), the first Holmes story Doyle published in The Strand. For pipe collectors, the film contains the famous quote by music-box collector Gilbert Emery that a collector buys but never sells (at about 20:02). Watson smokes no less than three pipes this time out: first, a great diamond-shanked bulldog that could be a Peterson XL155 (or any number of other marques, as this was a popular shape at the time); then a straight billiard; and finally, a straight pot. Holmess Peterson 4AB is looking like it needs some reconditioning by the local tobacconist by this point, with some quite discernible rim-tar, making it obvious that Rathbone had been smoking it consistently and not just using it as a prop. Were also treated to another reference to Holmes monograph on the types of cigar ash, as well as his trip to a tobacco shop to confirm the type of cigarette smoked by his protagonist, femme fatale Hilda Courtney (played with revolting sensuality by Patricia Morison). The tobacconist scene contains an extraordinary shot for pipe lovers, seen in Figure 45, which Larry Gosser captured in his illustration (see Figure 3): Holmes and the lady tobacconist flanking an enormous ceramic shop jar of Petersons Tobaccos. Its a lovely scene, and notice the giant hanging shop pipe, an enormous amber-stemmed meerschaum, at the upper left of the frame behind Rathbones head. This type of shop decor seems to have been fairly common at the time. But the Petersons jar, alas, is not an intentional product-endorsement of Kapp & Peterson, as Figure 46 showsits the name of the shop: Petersons Tobacconist. There was no Peterson shop in London in the 1940sthat wouldnt happen until the early 1970s when they opened a shop at 3 Burlington Gardens. All the same, its a fitting and perhaps a quiet homage to Rathbones choice of pipes for most of the series. 45. Peterson's Tobaccos46. Peterson's Tobacconist47. The Return of Watson's Silver-Banded Diamond-Shanked Bulldog Its fitting also that we end with a lovely portrait of Watson, pipe firmly clinched between teeth, looking over his latest published adventures in The Strand, followed by another portrait of Holmes, one of the great Thinking Men, with the Thinking Mans pipe, his much-used Pete 4AB. 48. Back at 221B with the 4AB49. The Thinking Man's Evening PipeCoda: The Peterson Sherlock Holmes Rathbone In the early 1990s Peterson released The Rathbone (shape XL20), the first issue in their Return of Sherlock Holmes series of seven pipes. Like Basil Rathbone, its a tall pipe, elegant and powerful at the same time. On its release I remember wondering where the design for the shape came from. Paddy Larrigan, as Pete Nuts know, only designed the first seven pipes for the Original Sherlock Holmes Collection. Looking at the pipe, its inspiration seems obvious and its designer (whoever he was) is to be applauded, because it effectively integrates the two pipes Rathbone smoked throughout the twelve films: the graceful Swan Neck stem of the Dunhill LC / Parker of the first two Fox-released films is mounted on what Peterson has always called a Dutch or straight-sided billiard of the 4AB for the remaining twelve Universal-released films. Its actually quite an ingenious design: 50. The Peterson Sherlock Holmes Rathbone (Natural) The late John C. Lorings excellent article The Atypical LC contains an intriguing photo of a straight-sided LC that never went into production that looks more than a little like the Rathbone. In closing, if you find yourself hankering after a 4AB, you can look a good long while on the various estate markets and probably never come up with one. If you want to take a shortcut, you have two options: you can procure a Premier 309 (a sterling-mounted 309 with nearly the same grade bowl as the old 4) and send it to Sallynoggin and request an AB stem. You can do the same, of course, with a 309 Standard System. Dont wait too longthe 309, after its 115+ year run in the Peterson catalog, ceased production in the summer of 2013. 51. A Contemporary 309 Retrofit AB Masquerading as the 4AB