"THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES" (1978)

Starring

Peter Cook

Dudley Moore

Denholm Elliot

Joan Greenwood

Terry-Thomas

Kenneth Williams

Directed by Paul Morrissey

83 minutes

"The Hound of the Baskervilles", one of the few films that Peter Cook and Dudley Moore made together, and featuring as it does a fantastic cast of respected comedic talent, is commonly regarded as an absolute travesty. "Wasted talent", "dreadfully bad taste", and "simply not funny" are phrases often bandied about to describe it. Now, I can see where everybody’s getting at – there’s a lot of misfired jokes, and certain scenarios are funnier in concept than their realisation. The director and stars’ combined wish to incorporate lots of old material from episodes of "Not Only But Also" is a bit wearying as well. But, well, I still quite like it. It’s certainly not particularly good, but it’s far from terrible. It’s about average.

I’ll state at the beginning that the R2 DVD of this film is a bit odd in that the main feature is presented in full screen ratio and lasts for about 73 minutes, with a newly edited, and astonishingly cheap looking, opening credits sequence, whilst a widescreen version of the film which lasts for about 8 minutes longer is hidden away in the "Special Features" menu. Which is odd. I haven’t yet trawled through the shorter version to find out exactly what was cut from it, so I can’t include any scintillating bits of trivial knowledge for you on that score. Still, I bet I’ll be able to compensate for that with enough praising of Terry-Thomas later on to bore you to tears with instead.

I’ve only really started being an admirer of the undisputed comedic genius that was Peter Cook relatively recently. Though my head has long been filled with all that is Sellers, Hancock, and "I’m Julian and this is my friend Sandy…", the work of Cook n’ Moore has for a long time passed me by. A couple of years ago, my grandad sat down with me to watch a film that he’d taped called "Bedazzled", as it was meant to be "Quite a funny film that I remember seeing, ooo, years ago, and I think you might like it." He, as was and still is so often the case, wasn’t wrong. "Bedazzled" was utterly top notch in almost every way (and I’m delighted to see that it’s up for DVD release in but a months time), and in particular I found Peter Cook’s version of the Devil to be sublime. A few weeks later I caught "The Wrong Box" on ITV, a film that was meant to be rather wonderful as well, featuring both Peter Sellers and Tony Hancock in its all-star cast, which also included John Mills and Michael Caine. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a lacklustre and thoroughly tepid little film which, for all I know, I might love if I saw it now, but back then it quelled any immediate desire to sample any more of Cook and Moore’s work.

However, about a year later, I stuck "The Hound of the Baskervilles" onto my Christmas list, for the sake of a film that had Terry-Thomas and Kenneth Williams in it if nothing else, and ended up liking it quite a bit on my first viewing. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore were funny again. Disappointingly, there are precious few pieces of their work available on DVD, though the BBC’s "Best of" compilation was a welcome release for me, even if half of the sketches on it ("The Glidd of Gludd," and most of "How to Make a film" for instance) were boring. I’ve since watched documentaries on them, listened to one of Peter Cook’s "Just a Minute" appearances, and earlier this year watched and loved Channel 4’s "Not Only But Always" biopic, so much so that I immediately bought the DVD release. I’m currently reading my way through "Tragically I Was An Only Twin", happy in the knowledge that Peter Cook was perhaps the wittiest man that ever lived. Dudley Moore was a nice enough chap, and a great performer, but Cook was of course the source of comedic innovation. Though Tony Hancock remains my favourite comedian, and Peter Sellers my favourite actor, Peter Cook is simply ace in almost all respects.

To get back onto the main focus of this review, I now find it funny to remember that it was this film that convinced me to give Peter Cook and Dudley Moore another go, as it now looks a rather tired and hit-and-miss production, with central performances given by two comedians who frankly look a bit bored by it all.

That isn’t to say that there aren’t any good ideas here. I’m sure most of you know the core story of The Hound of the Baskervilles – Sir Henry, he of the cursed family and recent inheritance, is badly in need of help from top detective types when he fears the onslaught of a deadly hound from Hell. Enter Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson to sort it all out. Now, I must confess, I’m not really up on my Holmes, nor my Conan Doyle in general. In fact, the Hammer horror version of this story is, as yet, my only other sampling of this particular legacy of literature. So I’m probably a bit of a heretic or something, I don’t know. But anyway, even I know that some liberties have been taken with the central characters here. Peter Cook, for example, besides trying to put on a stereotypical Jewish accent, decides to play Sherlock Holmes in an even more acerbic way than the character usually seems elsewhere. One of the central failings of the "Baskervilles" story that many productions have struggled with (so I’m told) is the fact that Sherlock Holmes is of course missing from the central third of the narrative, supposedly watching events from afar. In this version, Holmes simply can’t be bothered, and whilst Watson is carrying out investigations on his own, his senior counterpart is wandering about London trying to find tarts to rub his back, followed by a visit to see his mother. One quite witty change to the plot concerns this latter development, as Holmes only actually takes the case up and goes to Baskerville Hall once bullied by his mum into doing so! Peter Cook plays the part quite well, though seems unsure of himself some of the time, especially when repeating some of his past sketches (more on this later).

Dudley Moore pulls off a triple role extravaganza here, though only one of these roles really affords him any gold to work with. His overeager Dr Watson, with thick comedy Welsh accent, is often rather irritating, and most of his efforts seem to be channelled into keeping the accent going, rather than actually acting and delivering the lines (though it must be said that his "Good God!" catchphrase gets funnier each time you hear it). Another part as a one legged runner is pretty average as well. However, Moore’s drag turn as Sherlock Holmes’s mum is fantastic, and makes the price of admission worthwhile on its own. Living in a world of deceit (she’s a fake medium by profession, and talks behind everybody’s back for fun), her constant outspoken disappointment of her son’s choice of work is bitterly funny ("My own son guilty of insecticide!" "It’s patricide, mother.") Fantastic.

As for the rest of the cast, it’s uniformly excellent in terms of the faces on display, though you get the feeling that most of them are dealing with some pretty rough raw material. There’s Irene Handl and Max Wall as the Barrymoore’s, the former still playing her ’igh class commoner persona to perfection; Denholm Elliot providing a touch of class as an effeminate dog lover ("He just wants to sit in your pocket and be your fwiend!"); some "Exorcist" style shenanigans courtesy of none other than Ealing comedy star Joan Greenwood; Penelope Keith appearing briefly as a sultry lady of the night (yes, really); cameo roles for such notables as Prunella Scales and Spike Milligan (who almost gets run over); and of course a fine co-starring role from Terry-Thomas as Dr Mortimer. Appearing in what would turn out to be his last film role (aside from some short foreign films that barely anybody can remember), Terry does look quite ill, Parkinson’s disease having taken its toll, but he still turns in a quietly dignified performance which actually manages to be the best in the film, simply because he’s the only one playing it straight and not actually fishing for laughs. He simply strolls through the feature, rolling his eyes and generally looking fed-up, and is absolutely wonderful. He gets a great expository scene with Cook and Moore early on, and manages to make the line "It was the footprints of a gigantic hound!" the funniest in the film.

On the opposite end of the scale we have Hugh Griffiths, who barks, shouts and generally overacts in his role as Frankland, and ends up being bizarrely sinister, as if he’s escaped from the Hammer version, making his scene with Dudley Moore rather frightening. Worst of all, however, is Kenneth Williams. I know I’ll probably be burnt in a large wicker Charles Hawtrey for this, and believe you me it gives me no pleasure to criticise the master of acidic campery (if such a word exists), but here Kenneth really does go a bit too far, playing a caricature of a caricature of himself. Even in such dreck as "Carry On Emmannuelle" he retained some dignity by virtue of actually being funny, but here I found the constant onslaught of gurning, winking and arch delivery rather annoying. He admittedly gets some rather bad lines, sending up the camp stereotype for all its worth ("You know how difficult it is to get old people up." "I know, I’ve tried everything…"), but, really, he didn’t do himself any favours with this part and it’s probably the worst one of his career.

Lastly, a natter about the humour. There seems to be an entirely justified general consensus that this film doesn’t quite know what it wants to be, swinging as it does between being an innuendo-laden farce of the "Carry On" variety, and a slightly more highbrow (?) sense of self-awareness, with jokes involving a fog that only springs up inside the Hall, and a running joke about a volcano. Chuck in some groanworthy puns ("I like to hit a happy medium!") and you’re suddenly in Tommy Cooper territory. Oh, and there’s the vague homage to "The Exorcist" as well. All of which means that Peter Cook and Dudley Moore look lost within their own film, and so they resort to using material from their past to try and make themselves feel more comfortable. So we get reruns of the one-legged man sketch that they first presented back in their "Beyond the Fringe" days; the "sausage and mash" guff once mulled over by Peter n’ Dud; and some chatter about criminal activities and identikits ("I can only piece together the appearance of the face of the criminal."). Even St. Beryl (she of the order of the leaping nuns) gets a name check. All of these reruns were funnier the first time round, and really slow the pace up (especially the one legged runner bit, which has no business being here at all besides breaking up Watson’s investigations). Things get so desperate that some material is even plundered from other sources, and so Kenneth Williams gets to do the old "lost at sea" anecdote with the "Did you manage to drag yourselfe up on deck?" feed line, a monologue that may well have originated in "Round the Horne" (it probably didn’t, but that’s where I remember it from). Unfortunately, some of the original material is questionable as well, and there appears to be a "gross out" policy, with Joan Greenwood’s "Exorcist" bit involving random vomiting, and a scene where she talks about the hound "doing things" to her "all through the night", in which she appears to be marginally satisfied with the fact that she was once apparently sexually molested by a dog. Ironically, a running joke about Denholm Elliot’s urinating puppies actually made me laugh quite a bit, simply because Elliot is such a distinguished actor and he plays such scenes with such nonchalance that he gets away with it. The way he keeps aiming the puppy at Dudley’s face is priceless, as is his watering of some flowers in the next scene.

Overall then, "The Hound of the Baskervilles" is an uneven entity, with some good performances here and there let down by some occasionally barrel-scraping "humour". There’s nothing new in this summation, really, as it’s pretty much what everybody else thinks about the film, but there’s nothing I can do about that. Still, Cook is pretty good, and Terry-Thomas and Denholm Elliot are marvellous, so it’s worth watching. I just reckon it could have been better tightened up, with a more focussed direction to work out what sort of film it wanted to be. Oh, and a more restrained musical score. The old time piano music is like that for stylistic reasons, and that’s fine, but did Dudley need to keep playing it over the dialogue?

Score out of Ten