An above-average spinning of Conan-Doyle's familiar tale. Sherlock Holmes (Peter Cushing) and Dr. Watson (Andre Morell) are called in on the case of an enormously wealthy squire who has died of fright, the death perhaps being connected in some way with the legend of a gigantic hound that has plagued the family for generations.
Holmes and Watson travel to the swampy moors and gloomy Arthurian ruins of Dartmoor to visit and advise the new squire, Sir Henry (Christopher Lee), recently arrived from South Africa.
Neighbors are few in this desolate wasteland but all of them are quirky and suspicious. There is a mad murderer at large on the moor. A dreadful howling is sometimes heard at night. The two servants are of no help. In the end, the legendary hound DOES appear and attacks Sir Henry. I won't spoil the ending, even though I figure that anybody who purports to be literate or into pop culture to any degree must know the bare bones of the story. Remakes and parodies abound, a sure sign of iconogenesis.
Well, Peter Cushing is a splendid actor. He had a small role in Olivier's "Hamlet", and in interviews he comes across as a thoughtful, somewhat sentimental, thoroughly grand guy. The problem is that he's too short for Sherlock. Now, Basil Rathbone was just right, and, here, Cushing is too often shot next to Christopher Lee, who is SO tall that he makes everyone around him look short. If it weren't for that, Cushing's bony features and crisp diction would be just about right.
As Watson, Andre Morell rescues the figure from the comic buffoonery of Nigel Bruce. Lee himself is a commanding enough character that he would make a good Holmes. (He played Sherlock's brother, Mycroft, in "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes".) Supporting players turn in seasoned performances, but it's not difficult to guess who the villain is. Even Solon is one of those unfortunates who's features have a default setting resembling a sneer. He no doubt scowls in his sleep. And it was a big mistake to cast Marla Landi as the femme fatal. Her Italian accent mutilates the phones of English, and the writers have fecklessly made her of Spanish descent. I mean, really, she's not the respectable and ultimately moral young Englishwoman that would appeal to Sir Henry. She's a veritable gypsy.
The plot of the novella has been been transmogrified. There is the exploration of an abandoned tin mine, not in the original story, whose timbers must collapse so that the roof falls on Holmes and he must dig his way out. There are other twists whose points I couldn't make out, but none are deadly.
A plus: the hound is the scariest one I've seen in any of the versions of this tale. Oh -- and it's nice to have real outdoor shots of the great Grimpen mire. The Rathbone/Bruce version was studio bound and you could hear the echoes ringing among the paper-mache rocks.
It has its weaknesses but it's not at all a terrible movie.
Holmes and Watson travel to the swampy moors and gloomy Arthurian ruins of Dartmoor to visit and advise the new squire, Sir Henry (Christopher Lee), recently arrived from South Africa.
Neighbors are few in this desolate wasteland but all of them are quirky and suspicious. There is a mad murderer at large on the moor. A dreadful howling is sometimes heard at night. The two servants are of no help. In the end, the legendary hound DOES appear and attacks Sir Henry. I won't spoil the ending, even though I figure that anybody who purports to be literate or into pop culture to any degree must know the bare bones of the story. Remakes and parodies abound, a sure sign of iconogenesis.
Well, Peter Cushing is a splendid actor. He had a small role in Olivier's "Hamlet", and in interviews he comes across as a thoughtful, somewhat sentimental, thoroughly grand guy. The problem is that he's too short for Sherlock. Now, Basil Rathbone was just right, and, here, Cushing is too often shot next to Christopher Lee, who is SO tall that he makes everyone around him look short. If it weren't for that, Cushing's bony features and crisp diction would be just about right.
As Watson, Andre Morell rescues the figure from the comic buffoonery of Nigel Bruce. Lee himself is a commanding enough character that he would make a good Holmes. (He played Sherlock's brother, Mycroft, in "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes".) Supporting players turn in seasoned performances, but it's not difficult to guess who the villain is. Even Solon is one of those unfortunates who's features have a default setting resembling a sneer. He no doubt scowls in his sleep. And it was a big mistake to cast Marla Landi as the femme fatal. Her Italian accent mutilates the phones of English, and the writers have fecklessly made her of Spanish descent. I mean, really, she's not the respectable and ultimately moral young Englishwoman that would appeal to Sir Henry. She's a veritable gypsy.
The plot of the novella has been been transmogrified. There is the exploration of an abandoned tin mine, not in the original story, whose timbers must collapse so that the roof falls on Holmes and he must dig his way out. There are other twists whose points I couldn't make out, but none are deadly.
A plus: the hound is the scariest one I've seen in any of the versions of this tale. Oh -- and it's nice to have real outdoor shots of the great Grimpen mire. The Rathbone/Bruce version was studio bound and you could hear the echoes ringing among the paper-mache rocks.
It has its weaknesses but it's not at all a terrible movie.