The Hound of the Baskervilles (1972)

I got to see this today for the first time since 1972, and I was amazed how bad it was. An ABC Movie of the Week, the music was lifted from the 1962 Cape Fear and mostly from The Night Walker (1964). The film's sets were cheap Night Galley-looking also with stock footage. Stewart Granger, a good actor was probably cast just because he was English, Shatner is hardly in it at all. I thought the best performances were Bernard Fox and Anthony Zerbe. Many things from the first 2 movies were changed around, I suppose because of time constraints, but the best Hound film and the best Holmes and Watson is the 1959 version with Peter Cushing and Andre Morrell. Watch this only out of nostalgia.

And that is understated! The film does take a lot of liberty with the original story. But not only that. Stewart Granger who might not be a bad actor after all is certainly not a Shelock Holmes. And who in those days would have appointed a person as looking like Mortimer as Medical officer of any district in those days. I mean - why create a mysterious character where there is no need of one. One thing however is remarkable in this case. According to the book Mortimer is "a fellow under thirty". Anthony Zerbe was 36 when this film was made. Still older than the original Mortimer yet younger than Lionel Atwill in the film from '39 who was then 54 or Francis de Wolff who was 46 in ‘59 when Terence Fisher chose to make his film or Denholm Elliot in the '83 version who was then already 61. The Set has been commented on in several critics and there is nothing much to add to this. The costumes are all right, I guess (even if it seems that the whole male population of London was wearing Inverness Capes) but why did Holmes have to wear that ridiculous Bow-Tie in the beginning. One thing however should be mentioned: Bernard Fox. I have not seen any other performances of his but I did like him as Watson. He is not quite the bumbler as in many other Holmes films but has in fact some rather bright moments in this one. Anyway he is not unlike the Paget Watson.

Awful retelling of the Doyle story with a poor script, amatuerish settings and gross miscasting of Granger as an uninspiring Sherlock Holmes. Fox at least has the befuddled look down for Watson. Shatner is the worst one off here.

This film is cheap, nasty and very funny. William Shatner at his plank-like best. Why Stuart Grainger ever got involved with this dog, is a mystery of the first order. The sets steal the show, the major laugh coming from the use of old cowboy film sets to represent a Dartmoor village! Too many liberties taken with the original story to mention, but I was not the only one who lost the plot, so did the director.A major insult to Arthur Conan Doyle, but a bloody good chortle for anyone who doesn't take their Holmsian epics too seriously.