The Hound of the Baskervilles
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DVD details
Actor: Ian Hart, John Nettles (II), Matt Day, Richard E. Grant, Richard RoxburghBrand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 100 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2003-01-21
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: E1731
Studio: BBC Worldwide
Product features:
- In this energetic and bold adaptation, Conan Doyle's legendary characters are portrayed with a pace and vigor that capture the spirit of the original story. Sir Charles of Baskerville lies dead on the moors of his family estate. The look of abject fear on his face and the presence of animal footprints around his corpse suggest the impossible; that the ghost of a fearsome hound, long feared by the
DVD Reviews of The Hound of the Baskervilles
DVD Review: Yet Another Dog of a HOUND (Spoilers included)
Summary: 1 Stars
I had the misfortune to be a victim of this latest misguided HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES when I watched it on its MASTERPIECE THEATRE debut. To paraphrase one of the characters, if you value your Holmes, stay away from this perfectly dreadful HOUND. Conan Doyle's original novella - often regarded as one of the finest detective stories ever written - is a pretty straightforward affair, one which would seem relatively a breeze to adapt for the screen. Perhaps that's part of the problem then, because in every film version I've seen (save, perhaps, for the Jeremy Brett Granada one, where the hound looked as though it merely wanted a Milk-Bone and a nice tummy rub), scriptwriters can't resist the temptation to add dubious "improvements" to Sir Arthur's masterwork. This latest BBC attempt is one of the worst offenders of the criminal lot, thanks largely to the woefully unfaithful script by one Allan Cubitt. Mr. Cubitt apparently ignored the book and used the recent, thoroughly wrongheaded version of OLIVER TWIST as his template for "adapting" the Holmes tale. It's off and running to a bad start: gone is the crucial opening scene of Holmes and Watson examining Dr. Mortimer's forgotten walking stick; in it's place, Cubitt has - for some strange reason - cribbed the Turkish bath scene of an entirely different Holmes adventure. (Why? To hint at a more than intimate relationship between the good doctor and the sleuth?) It's downhill from there, folks, as Cubitt makes major changes in the story, such as tossing out important characters while creating entire chunks of business which add absolutely nothing to Sir Arthur's finely constructed plot. When he sticks to the original - such as when Holmes identifies the culprit from an ancient portrait - the film every so often feels on target. Redefining the Holmes-Watson dynamic in a mostly negative light, revealing the villain's identity halfway through the film (!), inventing a seance and Baskerville Hall Christmas party and - worst of all - having Holmes shoot up in the Gents of the Essex train station show that Mr. Cubitt will go to any depth to rip the source material to shreds. Set the hound on him!
Casting isn't much of an improvement either, as Australian Richard Roxburgh makes the second worst Holmes in recent memory - the top "honours" there go to Matt Frewer for his snide, spastic sleuth in those awful Hallmark TV films. Roxburgh's Holmes is blond, bland and utterly lacking in charisma, which is painfully obvious when he's in his scenes against wily Richard E. Grant's Stapleton. (Somehow, casting Richard E. Grant as Stapleton pretty much gives the game away right off the bat; yet with his tall, slender build, Holmesian hairline, feline grace and dusty velvet voice, Grant seems more like a natural Holmes than poor Roxburgh, betrayed by his occasional Down Under twang.) Peter Cushing R.R. sure ain't, and his polka dot tie certainly doesn't help him very much. Ian Hart fares somewhat better as a more active and intelligent than usual Watson, but he's physically wrong for the part: small, chinless and even more rat-faced that the film's Lestrade. Supporting players come off best - Aussie Matt Day makes an appealingly naive Canadian Sir Henry Baskerville; Ron Cook is a nicely mysterious Barrymore; lovely Neve McIntosh is a Beryl Stapleton worth sinking into the Grimpen Mire for, and Grant pretty much makes his scenes endurable when nothing else does. However, a fat Selden (Paul Kynman)? Let's just say that Stevie Wonder could see the difference between Sir Henry and the escaped convicted murderer Selden in this production, which makes Holmes look like a total idiot at a crucial plot point.
And the hound itself? The CGI work does indeed create the most fearsome canine - far more terrifying than the hapless german shepherd pressed into duty in the even worse Frewer version. In fact, the digital hound looks like a leftover critter from WALKING WITH PREHISTORIC BEASTS - not an abused modern day pooch. (And in a "whaddya know", the CGI effects animator did work on the WALKING special; time to vary things a bit with a Poppin' Fresh gig, eh?) And where was the animal's ghostly glow? Another glaring omission on the filmmakers' part. Perhaps they were all too busy shooting up with Holmes in that Essex men's room...
No denying, then, that another opportunity to adapt a definitive version of this hoary Holmesian chestnut went straight to the dogs. Granted, the 1959 Hammer version and the 1982 TV flick with Ian Richardson aren't much more faithful, but they each have an excellent Holmes - Cushing remains my favourite, as he restored Holmes from the cliché which Rathbone made him, and Richardson had an airiness which still seems refreshing compared to Brett's ham-upon-ham approach. Both of those versions are preferable to Auntie Beeb's latest atrocity. If you do catch this one, be prepared to do a lot of howling yourself - in outrage.
Description of The Hound of the Baskervilles
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