Rathbone's version is the best. His Sherlock is the only one to don a disguise and it's a great one, too.
He is always great with disguises in his Sherlock movies; I think only Clayton Moore's old prospector disguise in The Lone Ranger rivals it. It's just fun to watch. And not once but twice, someone else claims to be Sherlock which is also just great humor (the book only has it once). Oddly, the part where Holmes & Watson following the carriage in London includes a murder attempt with a pistol (not in the book) but it does add some excitement, at least. This movie also has the best hound, a real large dog that looks truly menacing when Stapleton releases him from his confinement.iThere is no phosphour for the hound but I imagine it would be hard to do in Black & White. And Sir Henry really has to battle this hound, well done! The only poor part of this movie is the added seance scene (which is not in the book) and is boring. Oh yeah, and Watson has totally the wrong kind of pistol.

Brett's version is also really well done. It's the only one to include the part in the beginning with Watson saying Holmes must have eyes in the back of his head. It's a fairly faithful adaptation of the book though it leaves out the amusing bit of someone claiming to be Sherlock. I don't think this was Brett's best Sherlock, he looked a little overweight actually. The way they did the hound was frustrating. It had the green phosphour effect which was okay but not great. But it looked ridiculous attacking Sir Henry, clearly a fake dog head. Worse, the hound's growl was obviously a person doing a poor growling raspberry! We howled with laughter at this! Embarrassing. At least Watson's revolver was the right type here. They added a character and also lobotomized the convict Selden for some reason which seemed unnecessary. And while the locations in this adaptation can be brilliant, this is the only of the four that does not include a flashback to Sir Hugo and the origins of the curse. I know it was just read aloud in the book but I think it's much better to see it when it's a movie.

O'Toole's version is also a very close adaptation to the book. The animation is typical Seventies Saturday morning animation, a little better than Superfriends/Scooby Doo but not as good as Jonny Quest. Visually, this is the best hound, glowing outlines and very menacing for that style of animation. The hounds sound is odd, though, a mix of a large wild cat and dog; it would sound good if it wasn't supposed to be a hound. I really liked how when they are firing at it, Holmes says if they can wound it they can kill it. That is right from the book and the only adaptation to include it. They also included the book version of someone pretending to be Sherlock. I would also say this adaptation is the only one to lay enough clues similar to the book for the viewer to deduce all of the plot elements correctly. And this is the only version to include Inspector Lestrade like in the book.

Cushing's version is troubling in many ways. Look, I like Peter Cushing. Maybe I am falling for the type-casting thing but he just seems wrong for Holmes. For one thing, he just seems too small compared to everyone else. I kept think that Christopher Lee (who plays Sir Henry) would have made a better Sherlock. Then there is the weird take on the already strange Stapletons -- rather than a married couple pretending to be siblings, here they are evil father and eviler daughter. Plus, their hound is not covered in phosphorous, instead it's wearing some kind of weird headpiece. Again, they use a fake dog head for Sir Henry to battle and it looks silly. This is the only adaptation I would say to skip, there is nothing really interesting in this one.

The one part that none of them got right was the initial reaction of Sherlock Holmes to the hound. I still have a clear memory of reading the story as a kid. This was the first story I had read where Holmes was shocked and surprised, if even for a moment. It's my all-time favorite passage from Sherlock Holmes. O'Toole's version is perhaps the closest to getting this part right but not really. Still, the first three on my list are definitely worth checking out!