Il cagnaccio dei Baskervilles

Looking at today's conveyor belt of mind-numbing remakes of old shows, idiot teen comedies and action fests that have great special effects but little else, it's easy to get very nostalgic about the 1970s. But the decade of Coppola, Scorcese, Altman, Malik, Bogdanovic etc produced its fair share of cow pats and what an 'Annis Mirablis' 1978 was for truly wretched cinema. Hot on the heals of 'Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' (with the Bee Gees), 'Carry on Emmanuelle' and 'Renaldo and Clara' (a Bob Dylan vehicle..don't ask), came this fetid attempt to satire Holmes and Watson. First off, it has to said that the Cook-Moore contribution to postwar British comedy is immeasurable and would probably fit in third place after the Pythons and Goons. But even the greats have their off days and Pete and Dud were well off when they agreed to let Paul Morrisey direct a comedy that manages to bungle every comic moment. The falsetto Welsh accent of Watson (Moore) and the stage Jewish accent of Holmes (Cook) simply irritate and a very strong cast is completely wasted. Why, for example, is Spike Milligan only afforded a 'fleeting appearance'? Others do their best with lamentable gags. The urinating dog of Denholm Elliot isn't funny, simply disgusting and Roy Kinnear's flasher could have been funny but simply falls flat. Morrisey doesn't know whether to be clever and satiric, akin to 'Life of Brian', or cheerfully bawdy like a Carry On movie. The result is a movie that's neither seaside postcard humour nor the anarchistic satire that Pete and Dud had presented so well a decade before. A truly washed out Kenneth Williams, fresh off 'Emmanuelle' (Jesus wept) is slotted in, his usual flared-nostril, bulgy eyed caricature demolishing the myth that he was a great actor trapped by the Carry Ons. Better artistes like Henry 'Arthur Sultan' Woolf and Prunella 'Sybil' Scales simply have walk ons. Meanwhile, the look of the movie is cheap and stagey while Moore's piano score is out of place in a comedy. Given that he and Cook were successfully belting out the punk humour of Derek and Clive at the same time, this dog can't be explained by the fact that Cook was by then alcoholic and depressed. Perhaps Morrisey was really Moriarty in disguise.

Following the rudimentary outline of Conan Doyle's famous Sherlock Holmes tale, Peter Cook and Dudley Moore concoct a feast of comical whimsy. Or so they would have sold this weak film to its producers. As it is, it is a threadbare piece of work all too briefly lightened with flashes of genius(I laughed out loud when Dud encounters his double in the post office). We have bits of Pete'n'Dud's earlier stage material (ie 'i've nothing against your right leg, and neither have you') which were much funnier (because they were much fresher) in their original versions. Newer material seemed thin and drawn out. The accents that Cook and Moore avail themselves of (Jewish and Welsh) are funny to begin with, but soon pall. Likewise, the piddling dog is hilarious but dragged on for so long that the viewer starts to become annoyed and forget that he ever found it amusing. The music is a major drag. Dudley is an accomplished pianist, but his soundtrack in the manner of an old silent film accompanist falls as flat as the rest of the film.

I have thousands of films in my library. This includes hundreds of Laserdiscs, VHS tapes, and thousands of DVDs and BLURAYs. Much to my wife's displeasure I NEVER fail to watch anything from start to finish - I feel I owe it to the filmmaker to give them a fair chance by seeing it through. As a result I watch a lot of films alone for the second half (or more). This was the ONLY exception I ever made. I had no more cringes left to cringe after about 40 minutes. I just could not take it any more. I kept hoping it would improve but it never did in the 40 or so minutes we endured. We are big fans of Cook and Moore - their "Bedazzled" is genius. I don't know how this went so far off the rails - great source material ripe for humor - two great British comic actors - but it's just painful to watch. Spare yourself the agony.

British humour has such a rich hierarchy of anarchists, loonies, clowns and mad geniuses that it would be very hard to establish any kind of 'A Division.' But undoubtedly Peter Cook and Dudley would be in there. Their work with Beyond and Fringe and later 'Not Only but Also' and 'Derek and Clive' is unimpeachable and they had impressive solo CVs. But in 1978 some kind of evil curse seemed to be floating about given that this year also saw the release of 'Sergeant Pepper The Movie' Renaldo and Clara AND the 'Star Wars' Thanksgiving Special. Paul Morrisey decided to direct this Holmes and Watson spoof without making up his mind whether it would be sea-side English bawdiness in the Carry On style or Pythonesque anarchism. In the event the movie was neither, simply a burst whoopie cushion where every gag falls flat and a strong cast is completely wasted. Tragically Terry Thomas made his last movie appearance in this stink bomb, while Spike Milligan was only given three minutes. Max Wall, Roy Kinnear and Prunella Scales were hardly allowed rescue the movie while Kenneth Williams was inadvisedly slotted in as Henry Baskerville. Prancing around with his 'startled moose' expression and flared nostrils, this movie buries the myth that he was a great comic actor who was trapped by the mundane Carry On scripts. But it is Dud and Pete who really disappoint, affecting (for no apparent reason) Welsh and Stage Jewish accents with Moore playing Cook's insane mother, a potential comedy winner that instead simply irritates. Elsewhere, Denholm Elliot's urinating dog spraying Moore in the face simply causes the viewer to avert his or her eyes while reheated sketches from their 1960s show (i.e the one legged runner) only underscore the movie's lack of invention. Although Cook had problems with drink and depression by the late 1970s, the duo was also producing the much-praised punk humour of Derek and Clive at the same time. That said, it probably was a factor in their 'divorce' and Moore's flight to New York, Lisa Minelli and 'Arthur.' The look of the movie is cheap and shabby and at least a decade out of date. Moore was a fine pianist but his score is out of place in a comedy. It is wholly appropriate that the final credits end with the unseen audience pelting him with rotten fruit

Hound of the Baskervilles, The (1978)

BOMB (out of 4)

As a fan of bad movies I quite often find myself trying to track down and locate some of the worst films ever made. Sometimes these bad movies turn out to be entertaining but sometimes they turn out to be so bad that I often wonder why no one was seeing how bad the dailies were and didn't try to pull the plug. That's what I felt here. This story has been told countless times and since it's the most popular perhaps that's why everyone involved decided to shoot it. We have Peter Cook playing Holmes and Dudley Moore playing Watson but it really doesn't matter because I think anyone could have been in the roles and things would have been bad no matter what. Cook, Moore and director Morrissey wrote the screenplay her and I can't help but picture the three of them sitting around, passing a joint and laughing their heads off at what they were writing. That's the only thing I can think of that would make any of them feel as if they had anything working in this screenplay. The movie gets off to a horrendous start and it doesn't improve any and in the end I couldn't help but scratch my head and wonder why no one put a bullet in this sucker before it could hit theaters. The deadliest sin a comedy can make is that it's not funny and this movie makes the unforgivable sin of not having a single laugh. For the most part we have various characters acting gay and this appears to be the only joke going. Everyone acts extremely strange and that includes Holmes who we first see as some sort of sissy and I guess the screenwriters through this would be hilarious. The rest of the jokes are just downright flat and it almost seems like no effort was made to make any of them funny. For the life of me I couldn't understand how anyone could find this mess entertaining and most of the blame is right on the screenplay. As far as the performances go they're just as bad as the writing. The film ends with many bizarre jokes including an extremely bad spoof of THE EXORCIST that comes out of no where and seems out of place. I tried to think of at least one nice thing to say about this film but couldn't think of one as even the titles are boring and the music (by Moore) is pathetic. A complete disaster this one is and I'm sure you can safely call this the worst Holmes movie in history.