Basil Rathbone
Date of Birth: Jun 13, 1892
Country: South Africa
Biography: Basil Rathbone was born in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 1892, but three years later his family was forced to flee the country because his father was accused by the Boers of being a British spy at a time when Dutch-British conflicts were leading to the Boer War. The Rathbones escaped to England, where Basil and his two younger siblings, Beatrice and John, were raised by their mother Anna Barbara, a violinist, and their father Edgar Philip, a mining engineer. From 1906 to 1910 Rathbone attended
Total Credits at Criticker: 77 (Actor)
Biography submitted by Dunstan-xxx
Find more information about Basil Rathbone at The Internet Movie Database
Titles you haven't rated - Actor (77)
Basil, the rodent Sherlock Holmes, investigates the kidnapping of a toy-maker and uncovers its link to his archenemy, Professor Ratigan. (imdb)
Satan, A lovelorn ghost, A mad scientist, A blond female robot and a nuclear holocaust!
Country singers on their way to Nashville have car trouble, forcing them to stop at an old haunted mansion. Soon they realize that the house is not only haunted, but is also the headquarters of a ring of international spies after a top secret formula for rocket fuel. (imdb)
The year is 1990. An alien species makes contact with Earth through radio transmission, notifying of an imminent visit. Alien ship crash lands on Mars, and a rescue team is sent out from Earth. (The plot thickens! :) Eventually a surviving female is located and brought on to the human ship. The female is light green with an amazing hair-do. After some unsuccessful attempts by the human crew to feed her, she is more or less left to herself... (imdb)
A corpse has 24 hours to mastermind a good deed without leaving his crypt, to go "up there" and have his youth restored. (imdb)
In the year 2020, cosmonaut Marcia (Faith Domergue) orbits the planet Venus while two astronauts and a robot journey on the surface... (imdb)
An undertaker who hasn't had any 'customers' in a long time is forced the pay one year's back-rent. To get money he starts to kill people in order to get new clients. (imdb)
Three stories adapted from the work of Edgar Allen Poe. A man and his daughter are reunited, but the blame for the death of his wife hangs over them, unresolved. A derelict challenges the local wine-tasting champion to a competition, but finds the man's attention to his wife worthy of more dramatic action. A man dying and in great pain agrees to be hypnotised at the moment of death, with unexpected consequences. (imdb)
Lodac, an evil wizard, has kidnapped the Princess Helene and intends to feed her to his dragon in seven days. One of the king's knights, Sir Branton vows to rescue her, despite being warned of Lodac's seven curses, which have to be encountered before they can reach his castle... (imdb)
This Italian drama tells the story of Christ's crucifixion from the viewpoint of the Roman emperor's procurator in Israel who must try to quell a Jewish revolt. In a bizarre twist, John Drew Barrymore plays both Jesus and Judas in the film. (allmovie.com)
Victoria Regina (1961) - TV Movie
Julie Harris portrays the famed Queen Victoria over a 60 year span, from the age of 18 through her romance with Prince Albert through her diamond jubilee in 1897.
An aging politician (Spencer Tracy) tries to get re-elected one last time in the changing world of the 1950s when TV started to play a bigger part in politics. Based loosely on the career of multi-term Boston Mayor James Michael Curley, this film examines the good and evil inherent in politics and all the things that go into an election. Tracy's uphill battle to stay in office is set against the political machinery that preyed on ethnic hatred and old-time money. (imdb)
England, 1872. The night before he is to be hanged for a murder he did not commit, young Dr. Gordon Ramsey is visited in his cell by his old mentor, eminent surgeon Sir Joel Cadmund. Cadmund offers to see that Ramsey gets a proper burial and gives him a sleeping powder to get him through the night, which Ramsey takes, unaware it is really an East Indian drug, "nind andhera" ("the black sleep"), which induces a deathlike state of anesthesia... (imdb)
The throne of rightful king of England, the small babe with the purple pimpernel birthmark, has been usurped by the evil King Roderick... (imdb)
Three convicts escape from Devil's Island and arrive at a nearby French colonial town. Initially they... (imdb)
A meek tailor thinks his wooing will be helped if he assumes the identity of the famous Casanova... who's deeply in debt. (imdb)
A Christmas Carol (1954) - TV Movie
Adaptation of Dickens’ classic Christmas tale.
A retelling of two classic tales: The Wind in the Willows & The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
The Wind in the Willows (1949) - Short Film
Disney "Mini-Classic" version of the tale. First released as a double-feature: The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad. (imdb)
Holmes is hired by Roland Carstairs to prevent the theft of the Star of Rhodesia, an enormous diamond owned by Carstairs' mother... (imdb)
A set of cheap musicboxes that people are willing to kill for puts Sherlock Holmes on the case. (imdb)
A young female escapee from a reform school joins a pickpocket academy in Paris. She is caught red-handed on her first attempt at stealing by an upper class man. He recruits her to do him a favor at a society party where she meets and falls in love with a young, handsome, rich diplomat. Whether or not she can land him is another story. (imdb)
Holmes and Watson investigate a series of bizarre and apparently unconnected murders, and the death of a possible suspect... (imdb)
Sherlock Holmes investigates a series of deaths at a castle with each foretold by the delivery of orange pips to the victims. (imdb)
Holmes and Watson on a transatlantic ocean liner escorting Nikolas, heir to a foreign throne. Also on board are a number of assassins, plotting against their sovereign. (imdb)
When a valuable pearl with a sinister reputation is stolen, Sherlock Holmes must investigate its link to a series of brutal murders. (imdb)
Holmes and Watson investigate mysterious deaths in the Canadian village of La Mort Rouge, in a tribute to Canada in wartime. (imdb)
An English lady falls madly in love with a French Pirate. (imdb)
Songwriter Steve Elliott is about to marry Caroline Brooks. A strange woman who's been paid by Steve's agent to say she's his wife interrupts the ceremony. An angry Caroline gets her old job back teaching at a girl's college. Determined to win her back, Steve enrolls in the school to become its only male student. (imdb)
Starting in Switzerland, Sherlock Holmes rescues the inventor of a bomb-sight which the allies want to keep from the Nazis... (imdb)
Sherlock Holmes has to solve a mystery about a series of suicides of known gamblers. (imdb)
In World War II, a British secret agent carrying a vitally important document is kidnapped en route to Washington. The British government calls on Sherlock Holmes to recover it. (imdb)
During WWII several murders occur at a convalescent home where Dr. Watson has volunteered his services. He summons Holmes for help and the master detective proceeds to solve the crime from a long list of suspects including the owners of the home, the staff and the patients recovering there. (imdb)
Oxford Professor Richard Myles and new bride Frances are off on a European honeymoon. It isn't your typical honeymoon though, for they are on a spying mission for British intelligence on the eve of World War 2. (imdb)
England, at the start of World War Two. Mysterious wireless broadcasts, apparently from Nazi Germany are heard over the BBC... (imdb)
Diplomat is blackmailed for crimes committed while he had amnesia. (imdb)
The City of Chicago is gripped by an Axe Murderer. The streets are empty at night as there has been six murders and six people have been caught. (imdb)
Elderly Henrietta Winslow lives in an isolated mansion with her housekeeper and beloved cats. As her health fails, her greedy relatives gather in anticipation of her death. (imdb)
London, at the beginning of the Second World War. Following a chance meeting two special agents, Tim Hanley, an American, and Reggie Oliver, an Englishman, join efforts to trap Carla Nilsson, a gorgeous blond night club singer, suspected of belonging to a gang of airplane saboteurs. After some bickering, the two men decide to follow her to the USA. (imdb)
A crazed physician marries a wealthy women and, with the help of his demented assistant, murders them for their money. (imdb)
Marianne Jannetier, a well-to-do Parisian, engaged to Andre Benoit, a high-ranking government official, flees the city when the goose-stepping Nazi storm-troopers arrive. When her mother dies on the road to Bordeaux as a result of Nazi bombing, she returns to Paris and joins the underground movement. Nicholas Jordan, an American member of the RAF, stranded in Paris after the evacuation is also working with the Paris underground. (imdb)
Around 1820 the son of a California nobleman comes home from Spain to find his native land under a villainous dictatorship. On the one hand he plays the useless fop, while on the other he is the masked avenger Zorro. (imdb)
Popular songwriter Oliver Courtney has been getting by for years using one ghost writer for his music and another for his lyrics. When both writers meet at an inn, they fall in love and then try to sell their songs under their own name. The problem is every song publisher thinks they're copying Courtney's style. (imdb)
The master sleuth hunts his archenemy, Professor Moriarty, who is planning the crime of the century. (imdb)
Sherlock Holmes ,aided by Dr Watson, investigates mysterious deaths apparently caused by a family curse. (imdb)
Wolf Frankenstein, son of Henry Frankenstein, returns with his wife, to his fathers estate to claim his inheritance. When he arrives with his family he recieves a hostile reception from locals. While exploring his fathers laboratory he comes across crooked blacksmith - Ygor, who asks him to revive his father's creation - the MONSTER who is lying in a coma... (imdb)
In the 15th century Richard Duke of Gloucester, aided by his club-footed executioner Mord, eliminates those ahead of him in succession to the throne, then occupied by his brother King Edward IV of England. As each murder is accomplished he takes particular delight in removing small figurines, each resembling one of the successors, from a throne-room dollhouse, until he alone remains. After the death of Edward he becomes Richard III, King of England... (imdb)
A crazed man escapes from prison to kill his wife's lover. (imdb)
When Clive Randolph finally returns "home" from Gold Coast colony, younger brother John balks at following the family Colonial Service tradition. But back in Gold Coast, one Zurof, nominally studying ants, pursues a hidden political agenda that causes worldwide unrest; the Colonial Office persuades both brothers to go back and deal with it. Young John makes a mess of things, then must save the day on his own. (imdb)
When Prince John and the Norman Lords begin oppressing the Saxon masses in King Richard's absence, a Saxon lord fights back as the outlaw leader of a rebel guerrilla army. (imdb)
In 1915 France, Major Brand commands the 39th Squadron of the Royal Flying Corps. The young airmen go up in bullet-riddled "crates" and the casualty rate is appalling, but Brand can't make the "brass hats" at headquarters see reason. Insubordinate air ace Captain Courtney is another thorn in Brand's side...but finds the smile wiped from his face when he rises to command the squadron himself. Everyone keeps a stiff upper lip. (imdb)
Marco Polo travels from Venice to Peking, where he quickly discovers spaghetti and gunpowder and falls in love with the Emperor's daughter. The Emperor Kublai Khan is a kindly fellow, but his evil aide Ahmed wants to get rid of Kublai Khan so he can be emperor, and to get rid of Marco Polo so he can marry the princess. Ahmed sends Marco Polo to the West to fight barbarians, but he returns just in time to save the day. (imdb)
Vagabond poet Francois Villon wins the chance to improve life in Medieval France, if he will give up his lower-class friends. (imdb)
Extremely stylish, well-acted soap opera in the "Madame X" vein, with singer Francis recounting events leading up to her murder of oily Rathbone. Visually arresting, this looks more like a 1920s German film than a late 1930s Hollywood product; in fact director May was a German émigré. Based very closely on the 1935 German film "Mazurka." (Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide)
Ousted from their homeland by the Bolshevik revolution, a royal Russian couple find themselves impoverished and living in Paris. They take positions as butler and housemaid in a wealthy household and, owing to their impeccable breeding and manners, excel in their new jobs. But once they are recognized for the royal couple they are, they must face new -- and formidable -- responsibilities. (imdb)
A lottery winner breaks up with her fiancé and marries a fortune hunter who proves to be dangerous. (imdb)
While at summer camp in the Maine woods, little Bobby Breen befriends composer Basil Rathbone, who left the city to try and break his creative block, and is soon playing matchmaker for his widowed singer mother and Rathbone. (imdb)
Private Number is the old saw about the wealthy young man who marries his family's serving girl. This time Richard Winfield (Robert Taylor) is the handsome, aristocrat hero, while Ellen Neal (Loretta Young) is the gorgeous, low-born heroine. Though they oppose the match, Richard's parents cope with the situation as best they can, but arrogant family butler Wroxton (Basil Rathbone) works overtime to break up the happy couple... (All Movie)
Domini, an heiress who has led a cloistered life, visits the North African desert for spiritual renewal. There she meets Boris, recently escaped from a Trappist monastery. Their friendship ripens into love, but he conceals his past from her. Then in a remote oasis, they meet a man who knows his secret. (imdb)
Shakespeare's classic tale of young lovers from feuding families. (TCM.com)
This version of the Tolstoy classic lingers longer in Moscow during the weeks that follow the initial meeting of the starstruck lovers-to-be Vronsky and Anna Karenina (imdb)
An enslaved English doctor and his comrades in chains escape and become pirates of the Robin Hood variety. (imdb)
An elaborate adaptation of Dickens' classic tale of the French Revolution. Dissipated lawyer Sydney Carton defends emigre Charles Darnay from charges of spying against England. He becomes enamored of Darnay's fiancée, Lucie Manette, and agrees to help her save Darnay from the guillotine when he is captured by Revolutionaries in Paris. (imdb)
Peaceloving blacksmith Marcus refuses lucrative offers to fight in the arena...until his wife dies for lack of medical care. His life as a gladiator coarsens him, and shady enterprises make him the richest man in Pompeii, while his son Flavius (who met Jesus on a brief visit to Judaea) is as gentle as Marcus once was. The final disaster of Marcus and Flavius's cross purposes is interrupted by the eruption of Vesuvius. (imdb)
A female shopkeeper sacrifices everything to give her son a theatrical career. (tcm.com)
A con artist and his criminal colleagues move in on a trusting old lady. (tcm.com)
When David's father dies, his mother remarries. His new stepfather Murdstone has a mean and cruel view on how to raise a child... (imdb)
While a houseguest at an upper-class gathering, wealthy Jew Ferdinand de Levis is robbed of £1,000 with evidence pointing towards the guilt of another guest, Captain Dancy. (imdb)
Captain Alex Pastitsch falls into huge debts trying to ensure the expensive mistress. When the situation threatened his career, Colonel Stradimirovitsch has an idea how to fix it. (imdb)
A famous British actress gets involved with two members of a reserved British noble family, whose plan to get rid of her backfires. (imdb)
The murders start with the body of Robin. He is found with a arrow through the heart, but Vance deduces that the body was placed and not found where he was killed. The note found dealing with the murder was part of a nursery rhyme and signed by 'Bishop'. The only witness may have been Mrs. Drukker and Adolph, but they are not talking. As the murders progress, each one is accompanied by a nursery rhyme. It is up to Philo Vance to unravel the clues and unmask the identity of the murderer 'Bishop'. (imdb)
A scheming musician seduces a wealthy woman for love and money.
Dowdy Sylvia accepts her boss' marriage proposal, even though he only asked her to avoid marriage to another woman. As a wealthy wife, Sylvia changes from ugly duckling to uninhibited swan and even contemplates having an affair with a man she meets during a trip to Paris. (imdb)
A girl creates an imaginary lover to impress her father, but the lie gets in the way of true romance. (tcm.com)
A wealthy industrialist's wife gets into a big argument with him; to cool off, she goes on an ocean trip. He thinks she's left him for good, so he marries another woman. When his first wife returns, complications ensue. (imdb)
There is a big charity function at the house of Mrs. Cheyney and a lot of society is present. With her rich husband, deceased, rich old Lord Elton and playboy Lord Arthur Dilling are both very interested in the mysterious Fay. Invited to the house of Mrs. Webley, Fay is again the center of attention for Arthur and Elton with her leaning towards stuffy old Elton... (imdb)
An uncle poses as a usurer to learn which nephew deserves his fortune.