O Cão dos Baskervilles

Painful. Wincing. Shameful. Just a few quick words to summarize my experience sitting through what looked to be a promising parody by a couple of generally very funny and talented men - Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. This film starts off badly and then bottoms out within the first ten minutes. The rest of the film really became an onerous chore to sit through and only and I mean ONLY was saved by the promise of seeing some great British character actors and funny men/ladies in bit parts. Unfortunately watching Hugh Griffith, Prunella Scales, Terry-Thomas, and oh so ever did I feel sorry for someone Joan Greenwood embarrass themselves with witless, nonsensical, unfunny material did little to improve matters at all. Peter Cook plays Sherlock Holmes and really misses the character entirely, but he need not fear because Dudley Moore as Watson with a hideous Scottish brogue is even worse. The jokes are stale for the most part - missing hugely. There is a terrible Exorcist sequence that made me just want to fast-forward the rest of the film. but like a trooper I sat through till the end and was relieved when it finally finished. The story has the basic structure of the Doyle novel intact with some obvious changes meant to be funny. And some of the changes would have been funny maybe if a little more had been done with the material. I am not saying there is nothing funny in the film. There are a few bright spots. Dudley Moore with a chihuahua and Denholm Elliot was a decent comedic scene until it just went on and on. And I also liked the sequence with Cook and Moore as a one-legged man trying for a position as a runner on the moors for Holmes. That was, for me at least, easily the funniest scene in the entire film. The rest is a mismatch of things that just didn't work for me at all. Maybe a bit more respect for the material would have rendered this more amusing. Maybe some more realistic characterizations and less broad, really broad, and embarrassingly broad portrayals by Cook and Moore and Griffith as a man with a young girlfriend with the bust of a popular stripper and who enjoys throwing chunks of meat on the moors, Joan Greenwood, yes, Joan Greenwood, vomiting pea soup with spinning head, and Kenneth Williams really going over the top- even for him - toning it down a bit and making their characters a bit more believable might have helped. The script though is woefully lacking even for a farce like this. Director Paul Morrissey show little talent here and it is a real pity when you have such huge talents to work with. Penelope Keith is wonderful in a brief cameo as a bordello hostess(sultry too). Spike Milligan has a fine brief cameo as a policeman. Terry-Thomas is Terry-Thomas in a final bow as that which he basically made his career playing, a cad. This was his last meaningful screen role - a pity for Thomas fans but at least you get an older vintage Thomas nevertheless. More than anything else I was just surprised at the low level of intellect, given a title like The Hound of the Baskervilles, required, nay, even expected, to enjoy this moronic, sophomoric tripe. A real pity as I said.

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.

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.

This story sees Holmes being approached by Dr Mortimer to investigate the death of the owner of Baskerville Hall. While the death is officially natural causes it is suspected that the real cause may be a beast known as the Hound of the Baskervilles. Holmes declines the case but passes it on to Dr Watson; it is to be his first solo case. Watson, Mortimer and Sir Henry Baskerville, the dead man's heir, head to the hall on a bleak moor. Once there Watson and Sir Henry meet the locals, all of whom are more than a little strange and rather suspicious. Inevitably Watson eventually has to call Holmes for help.

Given the array of comic talent on display one might expect this to be a comedy classic... unfortunately it isn't. There are a few funny moments but elsewhere gags aren't particularly funny or go on far too long. The script feels like something rejected by the Carry On team, even they never sank to having gags about urinating Chihuahuas. The cast was solid enough given the material, although I'm not sure why Dudley Moore played Watson with a Welsh accent. All of them have been in better films. Overall I wouldn't recommend going out of your way to see this; it is just about worth watching on TV if there is nothing else of interest on or if the DVD is in the bargain bin at a charity shop.