The Hound of the Baskervilles (1983)

Please don't spend money on this.

good back-story, and good acting

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Of all the Hound renditions, this one is probably the most precise, and yet it still has to play with Conan-Doyle's wonderful plot. Most of the plot elements are in place, but they had to misuse characters such as Laura Lyons and create an abusive husband, an artist living in the area. Also, they couldn't resist the sappy ending, with Sir Henry and Beryl immediately joining hands. The other issue that I take with virtually every incarnation of this epic is he treatment of Watson. Remember, he is a wise enough soul to write the exploits of Holmes for publication. Once again, he's portrayed as a bit of a buffoon. Let's blame Nigel Bruce for that, one of the worst of the Watsons (though the one first thought of when we look back on our viewing). The two men who portrayed him in the Jeremy Brett episodes captured him so much better. The acting here is OK. Richardson does a pretty good job with the great sleuth. Henry is dull and uninteresting. Stapleton was surprisingly good. Someday, someone will trust the story--unfortunately, I may not live that long.

I watched this movie on the television the other day. I am a great Sherlock Holmes fan and have read all the stories several times. This film is not bad. You get the usual irritating plot changes and extra characters thrown in but overall they keep to the original story pretty well. Ian Richardson gives a competent if rather weak performance as Holmes but Donald Churchill is dreadful as Watson. Unfortunately he tries to do a Nigel Bruce impression and the result is terrible to watch. There is none of the humour and charm that Nigel Bruce brought to the role; however much you hate his version of Watson. The rest of the cast are pretty competent. Martin Shaw is okay as Sir Henry. I am not sure what Ronald Lacey and Brian Blessed are doing in the movie but Ronald Lacey (one of my favourite actors) is pretty amusing and brings a welcome bit of light relief to a pretty dour movie. I think Stapleton - like Moriarty - is one of the most difficult villains to portray in film because the evil is all hidden. Nicholas Clay is no worse than many others. All in all strictly one for Sherlock Holmes fans I think.

Probably my favorite version of the Holmes novel. Ian Richardson makes a great Sherlock Holmes, who (like Rathbone) strongly resembles the earlier drawings of Holmes. It's true that Richardson's Holmes is much nicer than the rude and moody Holmes of the novels, but I don't really mind it. Donald Churchill makes a good Watson, seems like a buffoon at times, but not nearly as much as Nigel Bruce. A treat to see in movie are RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK actors Denholm Elliot as Dr. Mortimer and Ronald Lacey as Inspector Lestrade, who was not in the novel, but a nice addition. The hound in the movie, is the best I've seen. Large black, and glowing, definitely closer to the description in the book than probably any other movie has gotten. This along with the Rathbone version are my favorite versions. I don't understand why so many people liked the Granada version. Even though it was closer to the book, it was rather dull and poorly directed I thought. The hound it the Granada version was a downright disappoint, nowhere near as good as the one in this one. I haven't seen the Richard Roxburgh version. Ill probably review that when i can.

Spoilers herein.How funny! At root, the Holmes stories are about introspective situation. They were written at a time (Darwin, Freud)when science was beginning a fifty year period as being something that people actually strove toward. They thought that they would be better if they incorporated a scientific approach - meaning in this case logical, introspective, aware - then life would be richer.That's true, but the exceeding purity of deduction seems to be what has stuck to these stories by most moderns. They've lost the notion that Holmes was acutely situated in his environment.That said, the 'Hound' was Doyle's most developed situation (merely because it was the longest story). The whole idea was to emphasize the bog, the isolation, the strange. Now, I don't need every Holmes to be Basil Rathbone, but the tone of this version is straight out of seventies pop culture. It is colorful and light and choppy in a trendy sort of way. Its not even aware of its own situation. What a disaster.Incidentally, they did carry over from the older films the odd notion that Watson is a bumbling idiot instead of an observer less astute than the master. That, I suppose, is a tenet of old British film-making (the goof, usually a cop), but it never works for Holmes and is more out of place in this story.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.