Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee took a break from their usual horror cycle at Hammer Films to do the most famous of the Arthur Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes series, The Hound Of The Baskervilles. It's not as big a leap as one might think because an integral part of the plot has Sherlock Holmes investigating a legendary hound from hell that has cursed the Baskerville family for many generations.
Which brings us to the last of the Baskervilles, a rakish sort of fellow named Henry Baskerville played in the best lord of the manor style by Christopher Lee. He's not the usual Lee like villain, but he is a man to the manor born and conscious of all the privileges attached therein.
Peter Cushing and Andre Morrell play Holmes and Watson who are brought in to the case after some mysterious deaths that show signs of a brutal animal attack. The legend of the Hound Of The Baskervilles would dampen normal investigations, but we're dealing with Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes only deals in facts.
I'm surprised Cushing did not do more Sherlock Holmes films, he fit quite comfortably in the part and Andre Morrell was not reduced to comic relief the way Nigel Bruce was earlier on as Doctor Watson. It took him 25 years, but Cushing did get a second crack at Holmes in a TV film, The Masks of Death, his next to last film.
There's a good performance by Marla Landi as Cecile, the half gypsy woman who gets Christopher Lee's mojo going. She's part of what constitutes the Baskerville Estate and he's exercising his prerogatives with her.
Cushing and Morrell fit in nicely the roles that Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce are so identified with and Lee is far more of what Conan Doyle had in mind than nice guy Richard Greene was in the RAthbone/Bruce version.
That's elementary.
Which brings us to the last of the Baskervilles, a rakish sort of fellow named Henry Baskerville played in the best lord of the manor style by Christopher Lee. He's not the usual Lee like villain, but he is a man to the manor born and conscious of all the privileges attached therein.
Peter Cushing and Andre Morrell play Holmes and Watson who are brought in to the case after some mysterious deaths that show signs of a brutal animal attack. The legend of the Hound Of The Baskervilles would dampen normal investigations, but we're dealing with Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes only deals in facts.
I'm surprised Cushing did not do more Sherlock Holmes films, he fit quite comfortably in the part and Andre Morrell was not reduced to comic relief the way Nigel Bruce was earlier on as Doctor Watson. It took him 25 years, but Cushing did get a second crack at Holmes in a TV film, The Masks of Death, his next to last film.
There's a good performance by Marla Landi as Cecile, the half gypsy woman who gets Christopher Lee's mojo going. She's part of what constitutes the Baskerville Estate and he's exercising his prerogatives with her.
Cushing and Morrell fit in nicely the roles that Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce are so identified with and Lee is far more of what Conan Doyle had in mind than nice guy Richard Greene was in the RAthbone/Bruce version.
That's elementary.