Director:
Douglas Hickox
Year: 1983
Rating: 6.5
Year: 1983
Rating: 6.5
The question has to be asked. How many versions
of the Hound of the Baskervilles are really needed? And how many should I
watch in my quest to see as many Sherlock Holmes films as I can. There are
a lot of them out there going back to silent films and I have seen at least
half a dozen. And The Hound is far from my favorite Holmes story because
he disappears for half of it and we are stuck with Watson. Doyle of course
did that with all his novels to some degree - spending pages on back stories
that could have been told in two paragraphs but he takes chapters. That is
why his short stories are so much better. But the moors, the fog and a giant
hound have captured the imagination of audiences for years. The two best
in my opinion are the Peter Cushing 1959 version and the 1929 German version
Der Hund von Baskerville which is silent and at times brilliant.
This was made for TV but it is quite solid, has a very good cast and plays with it a bit. Ian Richardson is a terrific Sherlock Holmes and was to make two TV films of Holmes - this one and Sign of the Four which is also quite good. Richardson gives Holmes a sense of humor and actually breaks out laughing a few times. He enjoys teasing Watson and is a definite show-off with his powers of observation. If I had been Watson, I would have told him to shut up and stop making me look like an idiot. But he has the look of Holmes and the thoughtful gaze. I like Richardson in pretty much everything I see him in. One of the great British actors of his generation.
This follows the basic story that I am sure everyone is familiar with but it gives some scenes nice touches - such as the story of the original Baskerville who tries to rape the girl on the moors and meets his death. The Cushing version does that brilliantly but this is almost as good and adds a horse sinking to its death in the moors and shrieking in terror - if horses shriek. In some of the versions the wife of the villain is his sister - not just pretend sister but the real thing and in some she ends up with Baskerville and sometimes she doesn't. It has always struck me as odd that he would take on the wife of the man who tried to kill him knowing that she was partly complicit. But that happens here. It is lonely on the moors. There is also a small shootout at the end which was different. Watson is played by Donald Churchill somewhere between Nigel Bruce and André Morell (the Cushing version) in intelligence. Dr. Mortimer who is the man who first comes to Holmes is played by Denholm Elliot who is always good. Connie Booth who I love from Faulty Tower (the maid) plays a mysterious woman, Brian Blessed plays her husband, Nicholas Clay (Lancelot in Excalibur) is the villain and Martin Shaw (Inspector George Gently) is Sir Henry Baskerville.
This was made for TV but it is quite solid, has a very good cast and plays with it a bit. Ian Richardson is a terrific Sherlock Holmes and was to make two TV films of Holmes - this one and Sign of the Four which is also quite good. Richardson gives Holmes a sense of humor and actually breaks out laughing a few times. He enjoys teasing Watson and is a definite show-off with his powers of observation. If I had been Watson, I would have told him to shut up and stop making me look like an idiot. But he has the look of Holmes and the thoughtful gaze. I like Richardson in pretty much everything I see him in. One of the great British actors of his generation.
This follows the basic story that I am sure everyone is familiar with but it gives some scenes nice touches - such as the story of the original Baskerville who tries to rape the girl on the moors and meets his death. The Cushing version does that brilliantly but this is almost as good and adds a horse sinking to its death in the moors and shrieking in terror - if horses shriek. In some of the versions the wife of the villain is his sister - not just pretend sister but the real thing and in some she ends up with Baskerville and sometimes she doesn't. It has always struck me as odd that he would take on the wife of the man who tried to kill him knowing that she was partly complicit. But that happens here. It is lonely on the moors. There is also a small shootout at the end which was different. Watson is played by Donald Churchill somewhere between Nigel Bruce and André Morell (the Cushing version) in intelligence. Dr. Mortimer who is the man who first comes to Holmes is played by Denholm Elliot who is always good. Connie Booth who I love from Faulty Tower (the maid) plays a mysterious woman, Brian Blessed plays her husband, Nicholas Clay (Lancelot in Excalibur) is the villain and Martin Shaw (Inspector George Gently) is Sir Henry Baskerville.