Oh, Watson, the needle!

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." – Sherlock Holmes

Movie: "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1939)

Date: Aug. 5, 2010

Host: Colleen

Meal: Pork chops and green beans, with Tippin's French Silk pie for dessert

This is somewhat embarrassing of me to admit, but here it is: I've never read any Sherlock Holmes story. Two degrees in English under my belt, a lifelong addiction to books and two parents who chew through mysteries like a bag of microwave popcorn - but I've never gotten into the stories. (Pause for righteous indignation and blasphemy.)

So when the group decided on "The Hound of the Baskervilles" tonight out of the collection of movies I have on the DVR (surprising me, actually. I was sure the guys would lobby for one of the westerns), I honestly didn't know how the story would end. Luckily, I didn't have to work that hard to pick up clues or red herrings or anything. "Say, his shoe is mysteriously missing from his room! Twice!" "Say, the butler is creepy; let's pan the camera down to see that he's currently barefoot!" Subtle, this was not. But, still, this was an early enough mystery that the whole "the butler did it" thing wasn't a total cliche yet, so I sort of fell for the red herring and thought that the butler might have un-ironically done it.

Some of our fearless group members have read some Holmes, and nearly everyone was aware of the basics about the character, particularly Holmes' serious drug habit. (We debated over our memory - was it heroin? morphine? opium? We just knew he was decidedly on the sauce.) We even commented on it during the movie - how this huge element of the character seemed to be missing. Then there's that last, odd line: "Oh, Watson, the needle!" It's the only acknowledgment that Holmes was a cocaine addict (not one of the drugs we were guessing), and apparently (according to the guy on Turner Classic Movies), that one line caused a stink with the censors.

This movie was released in that insanely incredible year of 1939. Although it went on to start a 14-film series of Sherlock Holmes films, it didn't place in the top 10 at all. But seriously, look what did:

The top 10 money earners for 1939:

1. Gone with the Wind
2. Babes in Arms (Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland)
3. Drums Along the Mohawk (Henry Fonda, Claudette Colbert)
4. The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Charles Laughton)
5. Jesse James (Tyrone Power)
6. Mr. Smith Goes to Washington - check!
7. Stagecoach - check!
8. The Old Maid (Bette Davis, who scares Steve)
9. The Rains Came
10. The Wizard of Oz - seriously, who hasn't seen this movie yet?

And, just for fun, here are the other movies we had to choose from tonight:

• The Magnificent Seven
• The Bad and the Beautiful
• Bad Day at Black Rock
• Bye, Bye Birdie
• Executive Suite
• Becket
• The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex (with Bette Davis, who scares Steve)

Basil Rathbone

This is one of those iconic roles that we, as a movie group, need to dip into so we can touch all the important bases in film. For instance, we've done a Marx brothers flick, one of the Hepburn-Tracy, a Road picture, etc. Basil Rathbone created the first hugely popular Sherlock Holmes for the movies (which, of course, went on to haunt his career in the form of vicious typecasting). He did 14 Holmes film from 1939 to 1946 - do some math there. Sometimes he did three of them a year.

• Real name: Philip St. John Basil Rathbone (note: I love knowing movie stars' real names)
• Where we've seen him before: Nowhere yet, but I hope to add Errol Flynn's "Captain Blood" to our list (caught it on TCM last week - awesome with a dash of overacting and just the right amount of Olivia de Havilland) as well as "The Court Jester" with Danny Kaye (because we are criminally lacking in Danny Kaye)

Hop in the Wayback Machine (i.e. Google)

Invariably while watching these old movies, we question the most mundane of things. Should he be using a pistol? A flashlight, really? They have flashlights but no electricity? So here's what I consulted the Wayback Machine for this time:

• Pistols: Well, this one made me feel ridiculous. "The Hound of the Baskervilles" was written in 1901, and I assume the story is set contemporary to its writing, so the question becomes, were pistols in use before 1901. Good golly Molly yes they were. Invented in the 1500s, children. 
• Flashlight: This one was a pretty new innovation for a 1901 story - it was invented in 1898. Its history is intertwined with that of the battery, naturally, which had been around in some form or other since the late 1700s, but it wasn't until 1881 that the first commercially successful dry cell battery was invented.
• Electricity: The Baskerville manor way out in the moors of England relied on candlelight, which we found odd considering Holmes was out there with his flashlight already. The electric light bulb was invented in 1879, which brought electricity into the home. But it took a lot longer to get those country manors retrofitted for the new technology.

The meal: Pork chops (no applesauce, sadly)

So, I don't usually do a lot of cooking for movie night - I'm much more a Minsky's kind of girl. But this time, I had a recipe I really needed to share with everyone. My friend Mayela had made these incredible barbecue pork chops with the best green beans I'd ever tasted, and it sounded simple enough for me to pull it off. I had to check with everyone that pork was kosher (so to speak).You never know about pork.

I couldn't have done this recipe while I was working a 9-to-5 job, though. It cooks for four hours at 225 degrees, and when it's done, the meat is so tender that the act of picking it up with tongs will cause it to fall apart and debone itself. Seriously, go get the recipe, peeps.

Chanda wanted to make some homemade applesauce (because of the Brady Bunch non-sequitur that everyone knows), but that didn't work out.

An unusual occurrence for movie group: Zero leftovers. Not of the appetizers, not of the dessert, not of the mountain of pork. Which means we either planned perfectly and brought the right amount for seven people (plus Lucy, natch), or we were starrrrrrrving.