Customer Reviews
A great plot, a more humane Sherlock Holmes, and Grimpen Mire never looked worse - By: C. O. DeRiemer, 03 Aug 2007 
The tale of The Hound of the Baskervilles has such sturdy bones that it's probably the most filmed of the Great Detective's cases. Let's see...I've watched at one time or another Richard Roxburgh, Peter Cushing, Basil Rathbone, Jeremy Brett, Peter Cook, Matt Frewer & Ian Richardson play Holmes as he pursues the solution to this monstrous plot. One or two I've enjoyed less than the others. One was reallly grim; an attempt at comedy that had many things but humor, unless you find uproarious a chihuahua with the bladder the size of a bull mastiff's urinating on a person's foot.
With this version, Ian Richardson plays Holmes, Donald Churchill plays Watson, Martin Shaw plays Sir Henry Baskerville & Denholm Elliot plays Dr. Mortimer. Grimpen Mire continues to play Grimpen Mire, & that dark, fog-swept Dartmoor bog is not a place you'd want to venture into, even if a slavering hound weren't bounding after you.
Just to restate the plot: Sherlock Holmes & his friend Dr. John Watson are visited in their rooms at 221B Baker street by Dr. Mortimer. Mortimer tells Holmes the story of the Baskervilles & the curse that was laid upon them. Mortimer's best friend, Sir Charles Baskerville, has died under suspicious circumstances. Now the heir, Henry Baskerville, is arriving from Canada. Mortimer believes Sir Henry is at risk & pleads for Holmes to intervene. Holmes says he cannot leave London for a few days, but agrees to meet Sir Henry. Homes then agrees there are unusual aspects to the case & has Watson accompany Sir Henry to Baskerville Halll. Watson is to report back by mail until Holmes can arrive. And now we enter the world of swirling fog, of nights without moonlight, of swamps that can suck an unwary man under, of servants who seem too silent, & of neighbors...a brother & sister who live near by. Then there is the unnerving howling of a great beast to be heard late at night.
Richardson gives us a Holmes who smiles a little more than we're used to. He's just as analytic & perceptive, but seems more understanding of human foibles that, say, Rathbone's or Brett's versions. Because the story is so inherently dramatic, however, as long as the actors are accomplished the issue of who's a better Holmes isn't alll that important. It's not a zero-sum game, where if you prefer Rathbone, for instance, then automaticallly Brett must be diminished. While I might prefer one over the other, I think Richardson, Brett, Rathbone & Cushing alll give satisfying performances & I enjoy each of them.
This version, like the others, has first-rate production values & solid acting. The one thing that bothers me is that Donald Churchill as Watson comes perilously close to the Nigel Bruce School of Acting. Churchill doesn't make Watson the elderly buffoon that Bruce turned Watson into, but he makes Watson far more obtuse than necessary to help the story.
Since there was a rapacious Baskerville ancestor, since there were suspicious deaths, since there was a great hound, & since there was an unscrupulous murderer, I don't think I'm giving anything away by quoting Dr. Watson's last line in the movie. "The curse of the Baskervilles," he says to Holmes, with a shake of his head, "...a figment of the imagination." Or Holmes' last line. "Without the imagination," he says with a smile to Watson, "there would be no horror."
Ian Richardson Is Sherlock Holmes in his most famous case - By: D. Evans, 14 Nov 2004 When this story was first shown in 1983, the BBC had made a production starring Tom Baker as Sherlock Holmes in the same adventure, only a year previously. Thankfully this is a vast improvement on the BBC adaptation, with Ian Richardson proving to be an excellent choice in the role. As with actors such as Christopher Plummer & Peter Cushing, Richardson plays the role in a fairly straight fashion, preferring not to emphasise the more eccentric aspects of the character as Jeremy Brett would ultimately do when his vision of the character emerged in the Granada adaptations a few months later. Like Plummer in Murder By Decree, this Holmes is an expert at adopting disguises to fool people, & Richardson clearly enjoys this aspect of the character. He also seems to relish the scenes in which the character shows Watson up.
The late Donald Churchill is largely unmemorable in his role as Doctor Watson, drawing his inspiration from the kind of bumbling image of Watson adopted by Nigel Bruce in his films with Basil Rathbone in the 1940's. This is a shame as actors such as James Mason & later David Burke & Edward Hardwicke showed that Watson could be played as an intelligent man. Besides would he have ever made a Doctor if he had not been.
With regard to the supporting cast, Martin Shaw fresh from the success of The Professionals, is cast against type as the American Sir Henry Baskerville. Although the actor was clearly keen to move away from the image of Ray Doyle, he never looks entirely suited to the role, & one cannot help feeling that an American actor would have been far more suitable. In contrast to Shaw, Brian Blessed is suitably cast as the loud & aggressive Lyons. Other actors such as Denholm Elliott & Connie Booth also play their parts well.
During production of this adapption, it was disclosed that Granada TV had also secured the rights to produce Sherlock Holmes. This result in legal action, with Weintraub arguing that Conan Doyles estate had never disclosed this to him. In the end an out of Court settlement was reached, & no more adventures were produced by Weintraub. So whilst we were given an opportunity to see how good a Holmes Richardson made, we were also left with a glimpse of what might have been.
Not a bad effort - By: Alistair Duncan, 12 Nov 2003 
First of alll I have to say that Ian Richardson makes an excellent Sherlock Holmes. After that things start to falll apart with this adaptation of the Baskerville story.
This version does not take as many liberties as the most recent BBC version but it does change some aspects of the story. The principal villain, Stapleton, actuallly kills a character directly, as well via the hound, which never happened in the book.
There are also some probelms with the casting. The casting of Martin Shaw (with his terrible American accent) as Sir Henry Baskerville was a major mistake. Also a mistake was the actor chosen to portray Watson. This actor (who's name I forget) plays more of a bumbling Watson which was something I hoped had begun & ended with Nigel Bruce's portrayal in the Rathbone era. It is clearly apparent in the books that Watson is very intelligent (he would have to be in order to be a doctor) but once again he is almost turned into the comic relief.
As stated earlier, this is not a bad adaptation which is better than the BBC's recent effort but to my mind the definitive version of this story is that featuring Jeremy Brett.
