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HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES (1958)
MGM DVD (region 1)
d. Terence Fisher; pr. Anthony Hinds; scr. Peter Bryan; novel. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; ph. Jack Asher; m. James Bernard; ed. Alfred Cox; cast. Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Andre Morell, Marla Landi, David Oxley, John Le Mesurier (87 mins)

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Hammer Studios plan for the first Sherlock Holmes film series in Color

The fortunes of England’s Hammer Studios were aided tremendously by the success of their revival of classic horror stories. 

Indeed, their versions of the Dracula, Frankenstein and Mummy tales, although often vilified at the time for their lush horror have proven amongst the best and most influential treatments.  Their director, Terence Fisher, in turn evolved into one of the greatest of all horror (and Hammer) visionaries.  Flushed with the popularity of the horror revival in the latter half of the 1950s, Hammer sought to expand their mythology and turned their eyes on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s classic detective, Sherlock Holmes, deciding that one tale in particular, The Hound of the Baskervilles, would lend itself to their luxuriant sense of decadent horror.  Hammer fully expected the film to be the first in a series of Holmes adaptations, to star Peter Cushing in the lead role, and heavily promoted the film as the first Holmes movie to be made in color.  Cushing relished the role and insisted on small details to lend authenticity to the elaborate production.  On its release, however, the film ran into some problems with the British censors and several small cuts were made to ensure compliance with the desired rating.  Despite the promotion and the increasingly high profile of Hammer, The Hound of the Baskervilles proved a box-office disappointment, thereby alas ending the studio’s plans for a franchise of Holmes movies.

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Synopsis (contains spoilers)

The film is about Holmes’ investigation of a family curse.  Long ago, Sir Hugo Baskerville, a cruel man, was shunned by a woman and in retaliation sent her away and loosed the hounds on her.  Hunting her down and violating her, he then hears a howl and is dispatched by an unseen hound. 

Ever since then, a curse has afflicted his descendents, who are repeatedly preyed upon by this “hound from hell” roaming the moors.  The curse has struck again and a man is found dead on the same traditional spot, seemingly scared to death.  Sherlock Holmes (Peter Cushing) and Dr. Watson (Andre Morrell) are soon entrusted with uncovering the curse and protecting the next heir (Christopher Lee), who is unconvinced by such superstitions.  However, Cushing urges caution be observed.  Whilst Cushing stays away, Morrell goes to the estate to look over Lee.  In the meantime, Lee becomes enamored by a lowly peasant girl, the daughter of one of his long-serving grounds-men.  Her feisty nature leads Lee to become somewhat reckless in his choices for personal safety.  When Cushing makes his reappearance, it is for a showdown on the traditional night of the curse, aware that Lee’s time may be numbered.  He discovers an underground lair that shows signs of a canine presence and seeks to investigate, although it seems that some people may have other plans, as the girl leads Lee to a strange encounter.

Peter Cushing

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Rationalism and Superstition in the World of the Arch-Detective

As found in so many of Terence Fisher’s films, the central conflict in The Hound of the Baskervilles concerns the clash between rationalism and superstition / religion. 

Holmes is the man of reason, thrust into a world dominated by superstition and intent to find a logical explanation for the evil that people fear.  Indeed, here Fisher suggests that religion and evil are virtually synonymous (at the least symbiotic) and that it is the duty of scientific rationalism, as personified best by Sherlock Holmes, to explain evil in concrete terms related to human nature.  The belief that there is such a rational explanation to evil propels Cushing and is for Fisher the key to the master detective’s character.  Fisher is here determined to root this particular evil in a recognizable (and even contemporary) British social context.  Thus, the director skillfully sets up long-standing class resentment as a major factor in the proceedings.  In this manner he is almost sly subversive, from the outset depicting the landed gentry as vile, selfish and inhumane people who deserve their hellish affliction by the hound.  However, he is equally scornful of many of lesser standing.  Nevertheless, this sense of a debauched, arrogant aristocracy is also very much a consistent Fisher theme, revealing contempt for the perversity that is the British class system, though stopping short of outright misanthropy in that Holmes carries what hope there is left for progress.

Investigating the Hound (and Holmes)

As a pioneering fusion of detective and horror story, The Hound of the Baskervilles succeeds admirably, further testimony to the creative invigoration of Hammer’s most fertile phase. 

Perfectly in keeping with such a masterful generic hybrid, it is Cushing’s almost pathological need to rationalize the seemingly supernatural around him that dominates the film.  It is as if he seeks to ambitiously redefine spiritual concepts into recognizable, rational and social ones.  This is what attracts Fisher about Holmes, and perhaps why this Doyle story, the one flirting most closely with a horrifying, irrational world, has been adapted more than any others.  Yet, Cushing’s Holmes is both fascinated and fearful of the concept of evil: as much as he is determined to rationalize it, he seems aware that it can take a significance and force of its own, beyond any rational explanations.  Hence, the important scene where Holmes meets a Priest, both of them fighting evil on their own level – this meeting scene is in turn almost an allegory, an illustration of the period where scientific rationalism was replacing religious order.  The telling difference is that Holmes admits that he positions evil within human nature rather than outside it.  With such conviction though, the irony is that the means of these two to fight evil will also inevitably see them in opposition, a theme not lost on Fisher and present in Cushing’s wearied gaze.

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An Obsessive Terence Fisher Brings Colorful Expressionism to the Visualization of Conan Doyle's World

The visual transfer is marvelous in widescreen letterbox, preserving the lush, vibrant colors of Hammer horror films with remarkable precision.

 Terence Fisher was always noted for his experiments with color and tone; and The Hound of the Baskervilles, with its emphasis on shadow, is one of his darkest, most brooding visions.  With drab browns, murky greens and muddy, earthen moors, there is a deliberate and almost excremental look to some of the landscapes and the idea of being mired or trapped in a ragged and in parts almost melting countryside recurs throughout.  This makes the film decidedly Expressionist in its use of color: in original widescreen as here, this painterly sensibility is simply stunning.  Yet the blending of color and mists also renders a kind of veiled Impressionism to some shots, regulating a subtle flow of moods as the three characters become involved in the seeming supernatural presence around them.  This is indeed a bold stylistic dynamic and in it the muted but evolving colors often contribute to a sense of the uncanny: its use of landscape in particular recalls the final scenes of Fisher’s version of The Mummy.  Special effects are more than capable and the sense of lushness in costume and filter techniques is also perfectly preserved.  The visual transfer truly does capture the work of a remarkable visual stylist: the horror film at its most painterly indeed.

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Fearfulness and an Ominous Offscreen

The sound transfer on this DVD is available in Dolby Digital mono only, although this is in keeping with the original design of this now 45 year old masterwork.

Importantly, the film’s sense of stylized, almost melodramatic scoring and sound effects are perfectly preserved.  A use of voice-over in the initial scenes revealing the curse’s origins creates a context of story-telling tradition which nicely suggests the long-standing conflicts of the past finally working themselves out in the present: a nice set-up for the progress of rationalism over traditional folklore.  The growls and howls of the title hound add an ominous tone to many of the moor scenes, and serve as a nice reminder of the continued presence and impact of the irrational.  Off-screen sounds and implied presences similarly add to the sense of fearfulness.  The emphasis, though, is on the progress of human voices amidst such smaller source details punctuated by an emphatic score (at its most powerful and sinister in the tense mine-shaft scenes).  Silences are often used to ominous effects, in which case the crispness of minor sources contributes to the build-up in tension.  There is also a fine sense of tough movement through the landscape and the intense bitterness in some of the voices positions them in a spectrum of class relations.  The audio track seems cleaned up and is without much hiss or static, making for a clean and clear aural experience. 

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DVD Treats for the Collector

There are several special features, including an original theatrical trailer (unusually in black and white).  There are two extracts from the original Doyle story, as read by Christopher Lee and set to illustrations, as well as a featurette titled “Actor’s Notebook: Christopher Lee”.  In this brief featurette, Lee talks of the Holmes character and on working for Terence Fisher, whom the actor describes as “a superb arranger”.  He also speaks of his arachnophobia (which relates to one scene in the film) and especially of his friend and frequent co-star Peter Cushing as a superb actor with a precise control of physical gesture as opposed to Lee’s own style, which favored stillness and reserve.  He ends the program by talking of their friendship.  Sadly, there are no features about Fisher or Cushing independent of Lee’s testimony.

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