The Hound of the Baskervilles is, of course, the Sherlock Holmes mystery where Holmes goes undercover for the whole middle part. He is always lurking just offstage, but in this 1983 production we especially miss, for an awful lot of the film, the marvelous voice and presence of Ian Richardson. If like me, you tracked down this mystery solely to get more of the virtuoso Richardson, whose acting highlighted the BBC House of Cards trilogy, this gap will disappoint you, although we are compensated by the great Denholm Elliott as the country doctor who comes to Baker Street to fetch Holmes. These are the acting highlights: Martin Shaw as the young American Baskerville heir seems to be thrusting his way through on sheer goodwill--he is likable enough that you wish that for his own sake, Sir Henry would heed the many warning signs, head back to London and take acting lessons. Meanwhile, stuck in small parts as the mansion's head servants are Eleanor Bron and Edward Judd --now there's a pair who could have made a great Holmes and Watson on their own. There is just enough good stuff here to carry you through—cinematographer Ronnie Taylor makes the scenes on the open moors in daytime epic in scope, and the night scenes amid the boggy, fog-shrouded moraine around the remote mansion are often scary. In the grand climax, a chase by black silhouettes against bottomless fog is staged and filmed with great skill. On the other hand, too often this "Hound" offers the standard Masterpiece Theatre stuff of lamplit Victorian parlours, tame-looking city streets and city folk hobnobbing with the rustic locals, and seems pretty generic considering the acting and storytelling talents elsewhere on display.

Ranking this one a point above Rathbone and Brett's versions. Taken as a whole, it's just a little better. Ian Richardson was a splendid Holmes. It's too bad he didn't get to do more of these than just THOTB and TSOF. Donald Churchill is fine as Watson, though David Healy in Sign of Four opposite Richardson is better. Production values are very good, especially for TV, and the supporting cast has gold in it. Martin Shaw is wonderful as Sir Henry, a full-fledged cowboy in this interpretation, and Nicholas Clay is a particularly nasty Stapleton (and Sir Hugo). The scene of Sir Hugo in the swamp with his captive -- well, let's just say you won't be sorry to see him get eaten by a devil dog. Which brings up the hound, one of the main reasons I like this version. The title character looks better here than in just about any previous version. For once, they stick with the novel and make it a spectral dog than glows wildly with fire in the night, and they make it look good. Though he didn't get to do many Holmes films, Richardson did make the series Murder Rooms, based on Dr. Joseph Bell, Doyle's professor who inspired the Holmes character. Check those out after you watch this.

Hound of the Baskervilles, The (1983) *** (out of 4) Made-for-TV version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic novel has Ian Richardson playing Holmes, Donald Churchill as Watson, Denholm Elliott as Dr. Mortimer and Martin Shaw as Henry Baskerville. I believe this here was my fifth version that I've seen of this novel and I plan on going through all of them for no better reason than to just be a completest. I was bit nervous going into this one but it turned out to be one of the more impressive ones and with a little editing it might have turned out to be the best. From what I've read from Holmes experts, this novel has never been told in a great fashion so perhaps someone in the future will do it justice. This here tries and comes close but a few things needed to be dropped or changed. One thing that should have been changed was the green tint around the murderous dog. There are a couple good shots of people being hunted by the dog yet all atmosphere and tension are lost when you see the green tint around the beast. Another thing that could have been changed was the actual running time as 101-minutes was just a bit too much here. Both Richardson and Churchill are good in their roles but I do wonder if the director sat them down to watch the Rathbone/Bruce entries because there are a few times where it seems like the actors are trying to impersonate the previous masters. With that said, I found both to be entertaining in their roles with Richardson really standing out and making an intelligent Holmes. It's always important that whoever is playing Holmes come off as intelligent and Richardson certainly does that here and he makes the story fun to go through no matter how many times you've seen it. I also enjoyed Elliott in the role of Mortimer and Edward Judd is good as Barrymore. I wasn't too impressed with Shaw as he comes off too much like a Texas redneck. Director Hickox does a very good job at building up tension and making a thick atmosphere, which are two important factors to this story. Another major plus is that we have a few new sequences including a clip of Mortimer telling how the Baskerville's became cursed and an alternate take on the murder attempt of Henry. Both sequences are quite good and add to the film.

I won't deny this is my favourite Sherlock Holmes yarn. I must have read the story a dozen times and I own 10 film versions of it. IMO this is one of the best. True, they didn't quite stick to the story at times but in contrast to some other productions they did with the crucial parts of it. Although you can make a point of it that a film is quite a different art form and it is thus no offence to alter the storyline of a novel when adapting it to a movie I am somewhat sensitive when it comes to Sherlock Holmes adaptations. Although Richardson is in this movie not the epitome of my idea of Holmes he did a good job. As did everyone else of the cast. Another thing that struck me was that this is by far the scariest version of the HOUND I've seen. All in all it even surpasses the Brett version even though Brett generally did a better job at playing Holmes.