Entirely an action film hero. That’s interesting in its own genre, but wilfully misunderstands the canon’s nature of suspense. Ironically, one might say film Bond has evolved in a similar direction after the first few films. While spectacle is usually present in the books they are seldom just that, mere action drama on the page.
Apart from that, I think Jude Law should have been Holmes.
Since we have now have a Holmes thread, I hope no one will mind me posting an essay composed a few years back…
What is the best screen adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles?" I have watched seven candidates vying for that honor and took a few notes to determine the most worthy candidate. Let’s proceed in chronological order, starting with…
This early version of the Hound might be the best-directed one (but to be honest, no great director has tackled the story). Der Hund also has the honor of being the last silent Sherlock Holmes film. The format didn’t really suit the Holmes stories and their reliance on dialogue and exposition. To avoid excessive intertitles, silent adaptations had to simplify the material and stress action over cerebration (the walking stick deduction scene is naturally absent in this version). Der Hund stands out among Holmes films in going whole hog for a German gothic/expressionist style. Baskerville Hall in this film an old dark house like those in The Bat (1926) or The Cat and the Canary (1927), with shadows galore, eyes peeping out of statues, trap doors, and hidden rooms sealed at the push of the button. These were also holdovers from earlier German Holmes films, many of which had little to with Doyle. Since Der Hund is a late silent, its treats us to voluptuous camera movement and creative camera angles.
American Carlyle Blackwell was imported to play Sherlock Holmes, introduced as “the genial detective” (!). Fortunately Blackwell’s confident performance is not entirely genial, though he does play up the smugly amused side of Holmes.George Seroff, a Russian actor, plays a puppyish, plump, cleanshaven Watson. The character was often a non-entity in silent Holmes films, but here he has a major role, albeit a comical one (his gullibility prompts a light smack upside the head from Holmes). Stapleton is played by Fritz Rasp, the great gonzo gargoyle of German silent cinema, slithering across the screen.
This once-lost film is still missing expository scenes in reels two and three, which cover Watson’s investigations at Baskerville Hall. These are replaced by illustrated titles, but their absence leaves the mystery shortened and the story lopsided. The film is a mostly faithful adaptation, though when it deviates from the book it does so in the same way as later versions. Like the 1968 BBC production, it starts with the suspects gathered at Baskerville Hall. As in the Hammer version, Holmes gets trapped in an underground passage. And Laura Lyons has the same fate as she did the 1982 TV film starring Ian Richardson.
Low budgets are the bane of many screen Hounds, but not this one. Baskerville Hall is opulently furnished and the moor, though created in a disused airline hangar, is a convincing wasteland of scraggly scrub. The other settings are modern—a motorcar pulls up to Baker Street, and Holmes wears a leather trench coat with his deerstalker. The hound is played by a mottled Great Dane, usually shown in extreme close-up, perhaps to make it look more imposing, though it’s never as horrific as Doyle’s.
This classic has two essential requirements for any successful adaptation of the tale: genuine atmosphere and a charismatic actor as the lead. Basil Rathbone’s masterful Holmes is superficially avuncular and delightfully cold-blooded—as Doyle wrote, “I could imagine his giving a friend a little pinch of the latest vegetable alkaloid, not out of malevolence, you understand, but simply out of a spirit of inquiry in order to have an accurate idea of the effects.” Rathbone’s Holmes seems to keep Nigel Bruce’s dimbulb Watson around because he enjoys lording it over lesser beings—he gives ordinary people the sort of amused condescension most of us reserve for housepets. Bruce is more competent and less dense here than in later entries, though he’s still too slow-witted to be Doyle’s Watson, who was a skilled Everyman. Because so much of the Hound takes place with Holmes absent, you need a strong and charismatic Watson to hold up the middle, and Bruce, despite his denseness, fits the bill.
Ernest Pascal’s screenplay does an efficient job of compressing the book into 80 minutes (though 20 to 30 might have made this film the definitive version). The story is taken at marching speed (Watson and Sir Henry are on the moors 20 minutes after the credits), and the new scenes, like the coroner’s inquiry and the séance, add mood and bring the suspects together, though both draw on post-Holmes classic mystery tropes. Sidney Lanfield’s direction is anonymous; the film’s strengths are in production design and cinematography.
Though artificial, the Devonshire moors almost look better than the real thing and have plenty of menace. Created on a soundstage large enough (200 by 300 feet) for the cast members to get lost in it, this moor is a triumph of set design, a wasteland of tors and cairns that exhales primordial fog. Without this eerie, menacing setting, the story would lose its bite. As for the titular hound, it’s not spectral or satanic-looking, but looks and acts like an intimidating, vicious beast; it’s threatening enough. The ending isn’t as strong as it should be: an Agatha Christie gather-the-suspects scene has been added, and the production code seems to have prevented the onscreen depiction of Stapleton’s death. But Holmes’s final line is still a jaw-dropper.
Peter Cushing debuts as one of the greatest screen Sherlocks. I have fond childhood memories of this Hammer film, but as an adult I find it disappointing. It has an excellent Holmes and revolutionary Watson but lacks a truly appropriate mood for the story, despite its horror-mongering. The garish technicolor (with mysterious patches of green lighting in the ruined abbey) doesn’t fit the tale. Nor does the moor get its due—some location shots of Dartmoor are thrown in, but the major outdoor scenes are filmed on cramped sets less atmospheric than those from 1939 production. The climax is staged in a ruin, rather than on the moor itself, and the very unimpressive hound is almost an afterthought.
The screenplay is also flawed. Holmes is allowed fewer deductions, which weakens the science-versus-superstition theme. Worse are the tacky attempts to sensationalize the story by adding tarantulas, busty femme fatales, human sacrifices, cave-ins, and decadent aristocrats. Turning even the modern Baskervilles into villains works against the story—why should Holmes stick his neck out for a pack of creepy aristocrats? The story is also rushed: Holmes’ absence at Baskerville Hall is barely felt, so his re-appearance has little impact. Terence Fisher’s direction is at its most vivid in the opening flashback, and you get the feeling he’d much rather have continued directing a gory bodice-ripper instead of a detective story. Christopher Lee is wasted as Sir Henry and he’s a coldfish in the romantic scenes.
Nevertheless, the film remains enjoyable and worth treasuring for the very Doylean performances of its two stars. Andre Morrell’s casual, amused, very military Watson marks the first time the character was played straight and given multiple dimensions. His Watson is eminently sensible, a grounding, calming friend to Holmes, and more than capable of carrying the Holmes-less middle of the story (it’s even more of a pity when the film curtails that section). As for gaunt, beaky Peter Cushing, he looks more than anyone else like Doyle’s Holmes, and has a flittery, birdlike energy. His eyes shine as his mind ticks over in problem-solving mode. He’s more professorial than Rathbone, more wrapped up in his own ratiocination. He also has a distinction unique among screen Sherlocks, that of starring in two versions of this story…
Sherlock Holmes was revived as a BBC series in 1965, starring Douglas Wilmer, perhaps the most underrated great Sherlock. The show was the first onscreen attempt since the days of Eille Norwood (whose 1921 Hound remains unavailable for viewing) to consistently and faithfully adapt Doyle’s stories, but was shot so quickly and cheaply that Wilmer jumped ship after the first season. Succeeding him was our old friend Peter Cushing. He’s mellower in this Hound but still a joy to watch. His Watson is Nigel Stock, a likable actor whose Watson falls somewhere between Nigel Bruce’s and Morell’s: he’s a duffer who’s smarter than he looks or sounds. The fine supporting cast includes Ballard Berkley (the Major from Fawlty Towers) as Charles Baskerville.
Alas, the budgetary limitations of this TV prove crippling. Since this was a '60s BBC production, outdoors scenes were shot on 16mm and interiors on video (some scenes were moved indoors to save money). Every indoors scene has cheap sets and the sort of unimaginative blocking, with lots of over-tight close-ups, that was a holdover from the earlier days of TV. The interiors are too artificial to mesh with the outdoors footage, and this hampers the mood, which is vital to any adaptation of the Hound. Several scenes were filmed on the genuine moor, but not the most important scenes, and the climax was shot on a tiny set flooded with fog to disguise its smallness. The hound, onscreen for no more than a few seconds, looks like a chunky Rottweiler.
The script is faithful to Doyle but talky—not good when there’s a lack of strong visuals. The ending is super-abrupt, as if the show had exceeded its time slot and everything after the villain’s demise had to get cut. I still enjoyed this production, thanks to Cushing and Stock, but the limitations of '60s British TV prohibit this Hound from being a prize animal.
It’s strange to hear Holmes and Watson speaking Russian, and though the filmmakers went to great trouble to get the period look right, the buildings, furnishings, locations, and clothing still look very eastern European.
The Russians have a reputation for reverent, lavish adaptations of classic literature, and this seems to be the longest (at two and a half hours) and most faithful adaptation of the Hound. It also has the biggest budget, to the shame of all the Britishers and Americans who’ve cranked out cheap versions of the tale. I don’t know what godforsaken part of Russia stood in for the moor, but it was just as desolate and eerie as Doyle’s. And what a pleasure to see an adaptation with extensive outdoors photography, even in night scenes! That is supremely important in building the mood. The hound emerges from genuine darkness and with startling results—the paint on its face makes it resemble a floating skull.
Vasily Livanov’s Sherlock Holmes looks more like an accountant than a detective and has a croaky voice, but he captures Holmes’s slow-burning stillness and projects great intelligence, with a hint of jovial cynicism. Vitaly Solomin’s Watson is one the very best portrayals of the good doctor, perhaps because Solomin, who has an occasional sly glint in his charismatic eye, could just as easily have played a master detective. His Watson has authority and charisma. The other roles are similarly well cast. Henry Baskerville (Nikita Mikhalkov) is played as a boisterous cowboy with the emotional volubility of a Cossack; odd as this is, it saves the role from its usual blandness.
Though this one of the very best adaptations of Doyle’s novel, this production doesn’t have the vitality of the 1939 film, or its pacing. Director Igor Maslennikov wrings evocative images from the material (such as the man on the Tor, and perhaps the spookiest hound to appear onscreen) but he’s not a dynamic director. Nevertheless, this handsome, heavy film was a gauntlet thrown down to the west—could it do better?
The great Ian Richardson was seemingly perfect for Holmes. Anyone who’s watched the original House of Cards has been enthralled by his silvery coolness. As the spidery Francis Urquhart he was capable of pissing ice water, just as Holmes occasionally could. What a disappointment that when Richardson finally played Sherlock he did so in an excessively avuncular and smiley-faced manner, as if afraid of the character’s darker side. Still, there are some rare and precious moments when Richardson’s happy-face gives way and you glimpse what a masterful Holmes he could have been with more sensitive direction.
Donald Churchill’s Watson is unforgivable: a harrumphing throwback to Nigel Bruce but without Bruce’s amiability. This Watson is a pissy buffoon, impossible to imagine as a real friend of Holmes—Richardson and Churchill lack the slightest camaraderie. The supporting cast sounds mouth-watering (Nicholas Clay, Brian Blessed, Eleanor Bron, Connie Booth, Denholm Elliott) but they flat.
Douglas Hickox’s initially flashy direction and Ronnie Taylor’s cinematography make this version more cinematic than most other Hounds. Much of the production was filmed in Devonshire and the footage of the moor is stunning. But like most versions of the story the climactic scenes (with the hound) are filmed on a sound-stage with the fog machine working overtime. But the set is good, second only to the 1939 version. The hound is a large, imposing, and jet-black; toward the end it appears with an unsettling white glow in its eyes, and this works better than the film’s earlier attempt to make its body glow, as in the book.
The script was by someone who didn’t trust Doyle. A new (and very obvious) red herring was introduced, several scenes were reshuffled, and the script strains to keep the murderer’s identity a secret for too long. Watson’s time as the sole investigator is again curtailed (here for the best, since he’s so awful) and Holmes’s reappearance again lacks impact. Some scripting decisions make no sense—Lestrade is introduced early on (and Watson is uncharacteristically rude to him) yet doesn’t appear in the finale, his only scene in the book.
This production has a large enough budget to sustain lavish period settings, but they have the gaudy look Americans tend to give Victorian England. As an adaptation the film is caught midway between the Rathbone film (it even repeats Holmes’s disguise) and the Hammer. So we get an old-fashioned Holmes and Watson but much nastier sex and violence (Sir Hugo takes forever to rape and kill his victim). The basic ingredients to this Hound are promising but the result is crass and derivative.
Granada’s Sherlock Holmes starred perhaps the greatest screen Holmes and Watson of all time, so its version of the Hound should have been definitive. Instead it was a surprising disappointment. The Return of Sherlock Holmes series had overspent on earlier episodes and to save money decided to shoot a two-hour film instead of two more episodes. The tightened budget meant no 17th century flashback to Sir Hugo, no London street chase, no filming in Dartmouth, and no outdoors filming at night. The adaptation was doomed from the start.
By this point Jeremy Brett had redefined the screen image of Holmes. His performance, down to its gestures and most casual line readings, showed an intense, sensitive study of Doyle. He had played Holmes with an intensity that merged his own humanity to that the character. But at the time of filming the Hound he was afflicted by ill health (water retention caused by medication for bipolar disorder) and low on energy. His opening scenes are crisply performed but from there his electricity diminishes. Edward Hardwicke’s humane, gentle Watson is superlative; one of the few who actually seems to have an inner life. Kristoffer Tabori is an appealing Sir Henry Baskerville (he resembles a young Robbie Robertson) but doesn’t fit the character’s strapping westerner image.
Like all the entries in Granada’s Holmes series, this Hound has convincing period detail (more convincing than in any other version), despite its budget limitations. Location shooting occurred in Yorkshire instead of Dartmoor, and what’s onscreen is a reasonable substitute for the book’s setting, but once again the climactic scenes on the moor were filmed indoors, on a set smaller and crummier than anything from the other versions (aside from the '68 Hound), barely any nighttime feel. The direction, staging, and editing in the climactic scenes is clumsy and almost incoherent. Unforgivably, the hound is fully and repeatedly shown before the climax, and revealed as nothing more Great Dane (we also see a fake head in a close-up of Sir Henry being attacked) with dodgy glow-in-the-dark effects.
Even away from the fake moor the editing and direction are plodding. It takes forever for characters to enter and exit trains or carriages, or even walk through Baskerville Hall. The lethargic pacing and unimaginative direction flatten the story’s great dramatic moments—the death of Sir Charles, the man on the tor, Holmes’s reappearance, the unveiling of the hound. The script, by T.R. Bowen, efficiently compresses and retains much of the original, and shows that Doyle’s structure works on film—or would in a film with greater atmosphere and mood. Granada’s Hound is not terrible—it’s just depressingly mediocre compared to what the series had accomplished earlier. Toward the end of his life Jeremy Brett said the Hound was the one entry he wanted to do over.
Thus ends my journey though seven versions of The Hound of the Baskervilles. The Eille Norwood is being restored by the BFI and I look forward to seeing it. It praised by none other than Conan Doyle (“On seeing him in The Hound of the Baskervilles I thought I had never seen anything more masterly”), but it’s undergoing restoration at the BFI. From what I understand it takes several liberties with the story. I’ve seen a few of Norwood’s other appearances as Holmes and he is indeed superb.
I’ve obviously skipped over several other versions of the Hound—the Tom Baker one, the oft-reviled Stewart Granger production (William Shatner as Stapleton!), the parody film with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore as Holmes and Watson (as a Peter Cook fan I doubted it could be as bad as everyone said it was—it was worse!), the unavailable British film version from 1932 (the first in sound), or the 2002 TV film starring Richard Roxburgh as Holmes and Ian Hart as Watson. Feel free to comment on how those versions stack up to the others!
As for the seven versions under review, you can guess the verdict: the 1939 film is the best, while the award for second place and for the most faithful adaptation goes to the Russian version. Both are very fine, but the definitive film of the book has yet to be made. It will require five elements:
Not just a charismatic Holmes, but a charismatic Watson. Since Holmes is absent during much of the story, a strong Watson is needed, someone the audience enjoys watching.
A screenplay that sticks relatively close to Doyle’ s plot, because his dramatic structure is still effective and his tone still strikes a perfect balance between horror, detection, and drama. If you remove or reshuffle too many scenes, the story becomes lopsided and weaker.
A good budget. The story does not work when done cheaply and deprived of convincing mood or period feel and settings.
Night scenes shot on location or on a sound-stage large enough to give the feel of a convincing wilderness. The minute you place the characters in a blatantly fake setting, the hound flops. The horror of the beast is that of an unreal creature erupting into reality.
A hound that without makeup would still look imposing and with it downright demonic. The hound has to be scary; you can’t just plop a Great Dane in front of the camera and expect that to work. But if you find a intimidating enough dog, some ingenuity and paint can go a long way, as in the Russian version. CGI could make the hound glow or accentuate its eyes, but an all-CGI beast would be too slick, and be obvious on a subliminal level .
And there you have it, prospective filmmakers. The next time you film the Hound pay attention to my rules and you will have a winner. Should you feel like showing gratitude, I’d appreciate a small percentage of the gross.
So, the young one also has to fight with his bare hands… Wow, this guy Richie really nails it every time…
Im curious to see it but Richie’s take is certainly…different
I’ve just watched the first episode. It’s distinctly Ritchie’s typical brew - but in its own way quite fun. This isn’t really pastiche so much as Ritchie’s by now familiar reinterpretation of Holmes in a more action-oriented pseudo-Victorian setting. I’m not even sure the series is faithful to the ‘inspiration’ by Andrew Lane’s Young Sherlock Holmes.
Somewhat grating is the appearance of Moriarty and Lestrade, perhaps to reassure us this is supposed to be ‘the Holmes we know and love’ as the phrase goes. I actually think this is probably a lot closer to Holmes than the two RDJ big screen productions, at least in the first episode. This time it’s not entirely ludicrous to think of this young guy as of someone who just might develop into a cerebral ascetic loner with bouts of depression and episodic substance abuse.
It’s still not suggesting ‘Sherlock Holmes’ any more than it would ‘Sexton Blake’ or ‘Young Bulldog Drummond’. But as pastiche/continuation/prequel goes it’s not without merit. Some writers imagine Holmes in a Lovecraftian horror setting or, in the Warlock Holmes satire, turn the entire idea inside out and on its head, and one has to know and love the original canon to fully appreciate what these works set out to do. Ritchie’s version is taking similar freedoms, just in another direction, and is probably neither more nor less legitimate.
Nice touch for Holmes to come down with the Bloferhauser virus too… 
Actually - I cannot say how this will play out after one episode, evidently - but I think it’s rather in the spirit of Smallville: they meet as much younger versions and both haven’t decided which way to take, yet.
For me this approach never works.
I tune in for the hero. How he became what he is can be told in one or two scenes. But since we all know the story is about the particular hero, taking time to see him become what we actually want to see is just stalling.
TV shows, just stretching the episode number…
And yes, to watch Bond become Bond also did not work for me, but in CR he really was Bond from the beginning, so that was kind of a cheat anyway.
I’m surprised to learn the Young Sherlock Holmes books seem to have been a direct response to Charlie Higson’s Young Bond, with Lane apparently setting out to deliver an account of the formative years that would seamlessly dovetail into the first lines of A Study in Scarlett. All without outright contradicting the canon.
Higson managed that very well and the James of By Royal Command is believably the very character we meet in Casino Royale. Now I’m indeed intrigued to give Lane’s Holmes a try, just on that basis.
As Moriarty proves in this series, Ritchie isn’t concerned about contradictions; he’s in for the fun of it, spinning his trademark yarn. Lane’s Young Sherlock is cited as ‘inspiration’ but I don’t think there were any specific elements taken over from book to series. Ritchie could just as well have claimed the 1985 Levinson film.
I guess “inspired by” means that he heard about the books existence and sensed a good opportunity to make some cash.
I suspect he actually shelled out for the rights - so nobody else could adapt them while he’s doing his thing. Reading some of their summaries there’s nothing to suggest Ritchie actually read any of them. Lane’s Sherlock is 14 and teamed up with a tutor for several of the books. Ritchie’s is 20ish, a delinquent with a globetrotting father and a mentally deranged mother; plus it’s hinted the sister has disappeared and/or died. How all of this is supposed to tally with the Lane books is beyond me.
That sounds like they are cherry picking things from other adaptations original things.
Globetrotting father - Elementary
Mentally deranged mother - Sherlock Holmes chapter one
Sister who has disappeared and/or died - Sherlock
Yes, and this is just the first episode. Then there’s the Smallville similarity, some action around a Chinese princess, hoodlums on horseback staging a Western style holdup: it seems to be one huge stew of whatever struck Ritchie’s fancy (and his Sherlock looks conspicuously modern with a very sleek flatcap and Henley). It looks like taking place 40 - 50 years after the RDJ films…
I noticed it opens with a cover rocky road to Dublin then moves into lots of references to Guy Richie’s other Sherlock Holmes adaptation. Only seen the first 10 minutes mind, but that was the thing that stuck out.
Watching Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow. Havnt watched it in years but im being struck by how much is taken from Hound Of The Baskervilles - the deduction that someone is running based on the footprints for one…the killers motive being another.
Start of episode 2 - the child of Jeremy Irons asks Colin Firth to get the nephew of Ralph and Joseph Fiennes out of prison. There’s a metaphor about nepotism in here…
Just watched the end credits of episode four and there’s Andrew Lane listed as ‘executive producer’. So he does seem to have some hand in this, even if it’s like nothing he penned for the Doyle estate under that Young Sherlock Holmes moniker. 
Finished it in a couple of days - which already says a lot. Even though it’s only marginally closer to Holmes than Ritchie’s film adaptations - if that - it’s fun in its own right. Ends with the customary setup for another season that would seem a given. Tiffin, Finn, Irons, McElhone and Cattle would likely all reprise their roles, and if production standards remain as high there’d probably be another winner.
The show is more adventure-mystery - as you would expect from Ritchie - than a ‘real’ Sherlock Holmes mystery. It would probably function just as well without the Doyle characters as some pulpy fun at the intersection of Indiana Jones, Blake & Mortimer and Adèle Blanc-Sec. In fact, during the last two episodes it occurred to me Ritchie might be a good fit to tackle a Modesty Blaise adaptation.
That occured to me a few times watching the series as well.
By the by, most interesting characters - to me - were James Moriarty…and Edie. Expect them to feature prominently in future seasons. And this is perhaps where the limits of this will show themselves: by using Holmes and Moriarty they cut a number of possible directions this could evolve in.
Had this been the Fairbairn family (father Jacob, mother Eloïse, the sons Myron and Fawnlock, plus their sister Beatrice) and Fawnlock’s friend Seoirse O’Coughlin, then this whole story would not just work as well, it would also offer a lot of different outcomes from the obvious one.