Le chien des Baskervilles

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.

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.

Harry Thompson's very readable biography of Cook gives some of the background to the making of this dismal effort. Cook and Moore didn't have the creative control they should have done, and for whatever reason didn't feel able to pull the plug when it was clear that things were going horribly wrong.

The main problem is that Paul Morrissey has no clue about how Pete & Dud's humour works. This leads him to try and shoehorn them into his idea of "Carry on Sherlock" (a genre which he also fatally misunderstands).

Worse, much of Pete & Dud's groundbreaking work from the 60's is recycled in debased form - notably the one-legged man auditioning for the part of Tarzan.

I didn't even make it all the way through this when it was on TV a while back. See "Bedazzled" which has the benefit of a proper director and is a worthy showcase for perhaps the best English comedian of all. This is only notable as evidence of/a contribution to Cook's sad decline.

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.

A wonderful cast are here involved in what must be the lowest point in all their careers.For some reason Dudley Moore plays Dr.Watson as a high voiced Welshman,and Peter Cook gives Holmes a "stage Jewish" accent!Made up of series of draggy sketches,everything but the kitchen sink gets thrown into the pot-including "The Exorcist" and Pete and Dud's "one leg short" sketch;the result is an incoherent mess.Most potentially amusing moments are killed dead by the sloppy approach of Paul Morrissey's direction.No attempt is made to capture the mystery of the original story, and the players shout,mug and flail around among pathetic threadbare sets.According to Harry Thompson's biography of Cook,Pete and Dud were deeply unhappy about Morrissey's approach to the material,and saw they'd got themselves into a disaster.

No wonder the off screen audience throw rotten vegetables at Dudley at the end.A truly stupid film. .....that rumbling noise whenever this film is shown is old Sir Arthur spinning in his grave!