Sherlock Holmes celebrated his birthday this past Wednesday. Based on elementary evidence provided by Dr. John Watson, the world’s most famous detective would be 156 if he was still alive. If he was ever alive.

One of many astonishing things about Sherlock Holmes — who, of course, is a fictitious invention by Scottish author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — is that so many have believed him to be an historical figure.

Even people who knew he came “alive” in print (four novels, 56 short stories), on stage (including a Broadway production in 1899), in film (starting in 1908) and on television (most famously at the BBC), still thought he was real.

In a remarkable filmed interview, Conan Doyle remarked on correspondence he received from Holmes’ admirers long after he stopped writing new stories. Many women volunteered to assume housekeeping chores at the Baker Street lodgings, which also did not exist.

This week’s birthday is marked because the latest incarnation, Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes, is marching into movie history as a bona fide hit. The production is so acclaimed that it could generate Oscar nominations, perhaps even for the redoubtable Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes.

As a result, we should look back for interesting precedents. Dozens of actors with gaunt features have played the character, but two former Sherlocks — Basil Rathbone and Peter Cushing — are represented in recent DVD releases.

Rathbone, arguably the best Sherlock in the 102 years he has been played in movies, is back with two excellent DVDs. Both are single-disc Double Feature releases.

The films have been restored and look first-rate in their original black-and-white and proper screen ratio (1.33:1). One pairs The House of Fear with The Pearl of Death. The other pairs The Spider Woman with Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror. All are among the 12 Rathbone did for Universal Pictures in the 1940s, with Nigel Bruce as his Dr. Watson. Unlike the two Victorian-era pictures Rathbone and Bruce did for 20th Century Fox in 1939, the Universal movies were set in the contemporary ’40s because the studio needed to save money on sets and costumes.

This does not diminish their appeal, primarily because Rathbone’s performance is sterling and his rapport with Bruce, as a bumbling Watson, has charm without malice. Rathbone, as he had in his first “authentic” Holmes picture, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939), uncannily captured Holmes’ steely reserve and admirable intellect, as well as his melancholic mood swings and slight arrogance. All in the service of the perfect deduction. There are no DVD extras, but the restorations of original film elements make up for this oversight.

As for Peter Cushing, he played Sherlock Holmes for the low-budget, yet keenly observed BBC series of 1965-1968, with Nigel Stock as his Watson.

Unfortunately, also because of budgetary pressures, the series was not entirely preserved. Only five episodes — or six if you count the two-part re-make of Hound of the Baskervilles as separate episodes — still survive. All are in the three-disc DVD set, The Sherlock Holmes Collection.

This series reverted back to the Victorian era, making it more faithful to the books. Cushing is also an excellent Holmes, although slightly colder than Rathbone. Stock provides more help and less comic relief. The production values of this show, one of the BBC’s earliest adventures in colour, are low. But the performances and intrigue of the stories more than compensate.

This collection includes a folksy bonus, the 1996 doc called Sherlock Holmes: The Great Detective. With yet another Watson (David Burke) serving as our narrator, we hear the entire saga. And you see excerpts of that vintage interview with Sir Arthur.

It begs a birthday toast!