Made in the first flush of what might be called Diana-ism in Britain, in which, by some strange retrograde movement in the culture, new romanticism was allowed to blossom, this production of a well-worked story, for that, has both weaknesses and strengths, but by and large gets through fine. First things first, every Holmes story depends pretty much entirely on who's playing Holmes, and Ian Richardson does such a swell job, sharp, witty, intense and humane by turns, it's a major surprise he did not play the part more often. After that, one is left with the production values, and this one is a typical 80s combination of on location realism with set dressings of an overly frilly romantic sort that makes things at all times seem like a stage play exulting in its artifice for artifice sake. At times, this is fun, at other times, not so much, but by and large one goes with the flow. Things start out with a surprising vertiginous rendition of the killing of Charles Baskerville, who had apparently set up a romantic rendezvous with a woman in the greenhouse, for him then to be killed by the hound. Next up is Holmes at 221B, the quarters of which are pretty routine, but less routine is that Holmes and Watson bound out into the street to follow Baskerville to the hotel and quash an assassination attempt of Baskerville, with a lot artifice in costume and setting, and then too the hotel is rather more lavishly Victorian in a romantic sort of way than normal. In the same way, the moors of Cornwall are given full rein to vast landscape scenarios, and in this one the nostalgia structure of the movie harks back to 1939 in giving scenic emphasis to the prehistoric house relics that litter the moors, as well as the mounds and cliffs that abut them. An added subplot here is that Baskerville's lover husband is a bounder, confronting even Watson in an also typically quaint and cozy pub scene, including LeStrade coming down to look for Selden. Adding to the artifice, as if throwing smoke in front of the eyes to obscure detection of the obvious, Holmes as a gypsy confronts Watson oddly in a birch woods by the moor, and there is even an extension of that by letting Holmes-in-disguise hide out in a gypsy camp where when he reads the fortune in the palm of Stapleton's sister, who is a veritable Diana lookalike, all creamy and romantic, this actually turns out to the be the turning clue, that she smelled of jasmin, like the note to Baskerville at the hotel (but we find that out at the end, but unique in tellings). With other romantic horserides on the moors, in profile, this one continues to exult in the escapism of it all. Another strength, which surprises one at first, is that this version harks back hardly to the 1939 version in which the fog on the moors is set up almost as a stageset with pure artifice and this is given surprisingly, retrograde sensation. The main problem at the core of the movie is that Stapleton, played, first off, as a butterfly quack, who then turns out to be a hothead, reacting against Baskerville kissing his sister (who is really his wife), obviously looks exactly like the portrait of Sir Charles in the pool hall and the movie ought to have ended the instant he stood in front of that portrait in offering an apology to Baskerville for his outburst. Since this is the major clue in most tellings, for it to be tossed off as just so much tosh and nonsense so early bespeaks the artificiality and fun of the outing. Also highly theatrical is Holmes finally revealing himself to Watson, in disguise as the gypsy, in the cave, this time by way of accordion (the movie exults in implements of antique times) and then, later, when the final show-down comes, Stapleton takes shots at cornered Holmes, in the same cave, only it is a mannequin decoy therefor, for him to be chased down, to go under the bog. The movie also makes much of the green phosphorescent deception of the hound in a dramatically staged killing of Selden (Eleanor Bron of Help! Fame is aboard as Selden's sister, not having that much to do), though seems to forget this trope later. It even makes a face at us by way of a gargoyle when, in his final deceit, Holmes announces to Lestrade that the case is solved, to hauls Watson back to London, when, of course, they have no intention of leaving, and, in fact, set a trap for Stapleton, much like, in terms of mis en scene, like the 1939 Rathbone telling too. When then Stapleton is revealed, by way of the portrait, Holmes saying that it is the best example of a throwback he has ever seen-this remark underscoring deeply the throwback nature of the whole production-we also find out that Beryl is Stapleton's wife not sister, but Henry does not mind, he'll take her, the movie ends with a heavy dose of her pure early 80s Dianaistic blonde purity and sanctity, so that it looks like they will surely couple after the closing credits, a happy ending. All in all, it is a quite lavish affair, and, if you can accept the premise of artificiality which pervades the production values, and their desire to romantically exult in time-worn devices that they might nonetheless have thought a tad dated, just for the sly fun of it, and then turning it out with the true romance of Beryl and Henry, then it will work fine, and, besides, Richardson is terrific from beginning to end, carrying the whole thing off quite nicely.
