Nmkl Pkjl Ftmsch Peter Cook summed up the problems with this would-be-outrageous parody of the Sherlock Holmes stories during an interview with comedy historian Roger Wilmut. In short, Paul Morrissey - best known for his occasionally engaging collaborations with Andy Warhol - was a big fan of British comedy, and apparently enjoyed cordial relationships with most of the performers on the set, but asking him to actually direct a British comedy was like asking Cook to direct an improvised film about homeless junkies in Los Angeles - not at all compatible. In his posthumously published diaries, Kenneth Williams reveals that he apparently had a fun time on the set of this film (and he turns in one of his most subtle, least characteristic performances in the progress), but was hugely disappointed by the end result - what seemed hilarious on paper came across as forced and laboured on the screen, and to be fair, you can see his point. ('And they led me by the point to the police station', as Dudley Moore might have added...)In short, the film is a mess. Cook plays Holmes with a muted Jewish accent, Moore plays Watson with a slightly amusing Welsh accent, and the rest of the cast are left to fend for themselves. But what a cast it is! In fact, it's worth persevering with this one just to see Terry-Thomas, Spike Milligan, Joan Greenwood, Hugh Griffith, Henry Woolf and all the other lovely old comedians and character actors who seem to pop up in cameo roles every few minutes. Plus, there's the voluptuous Dana Gillespie who has an enjoyable scene with Moore and Griffith. Hamish, the donkey-sized Irish Wolfhound who almost stole the show from his human co-stars in 1975's Carry On Behind, puts in a memorable appearance too. Fans of Cook and Moore's Derek and Clive tapes will be amused to hear Moore using his seedy pervert voice from the 'Members Only' sketch during the otherwise baffling inclusion of the 'One Leg Too Few' sketch.Technically, the film isn't too shabby. The widescreen photography gives it a lavish look, the lighting is fine, the sets and costumes are often impressive and Moore's soundtrack score is as good as you'd expect from an accomplished pianist and composer. It's hardly laugh-a-minute stuff, but there are worse ways of spending ninety minutes. Those who are claiming it to be the nadir of British comedy obviously haven't seen some of the real stinkers that emerged at around the same time, such as What's Up Superdoc (1978) - and the less said about more recent, yet infinitely more woeful offering such as the Harry Hill, Keith Lemon and Mrs Brown's Boys films, the better!In conclusion, then... a decent-looking film full of good actors and familiar faces, lumbered by a dodgy script and an unsuitable director, yet it still manages to be a fun and undemanding watch. Try it, you might like it!

bkoganbing With all the comic talent from the British Isles gathered into one film the Peter Cook/Dudley Moore version of The Hound Of The Baskervilles should have come out better than it was. Far from the best of Peter and Dudley, but it wasn't all that bad.Certainly Baker Street purists will be offended, but they're always offended in the least deviation of a Sherlock Holmes story. Then again you would have to change the plot of the story because a man being torn to shreds is hardly a good subject for humor.Knowing the plot of this most well known of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories about Sherlock Holmes the deviations can be plotted like on a road map. Peter Cook is as usual a most detached Sherlock Holmes, but not because he's constantly analyzing. He's got a mother who is constantly urging him into matrimony and not with Dr. Watson. And the man needs a vacation so he goes to Paris to sow a little bit of his version of wild oats.As Holmes fans know, he does dispatch Watson out to Baskerville Hall to lay the ground work while he dons disguise. The time apart from Watson here though introduces the comedy team of Dudley Moore and Kenneth Williams of the Carry On series. Williams made a specialty of playing silly twits and that's exactly how he plays the Baskerville heir who is the object of a fiendish plot to murder him and get his inheritance. I like him here as I do on the Carry On series.I can never give a bad review to a film that has Hugh Griffith who was blessed with those maniacal eyes with which he did so much in film roles. They helped get him an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his Arab sheik in Ben-Hur. He plays a swamp character on the famous Grimpen Mire.As for the fabled hound from hell. Well let's say he's been ballyhooed quite a bit.This isn't the best work of Cook and Moore, but it's not all that bad.

squeezebox There are very few movies I've seen that I found so monumentally awful that I felt compelled to watch them again because I was convinced they could not have really been as bad as I thought. I have not yet re-watched Paul Morrissey's Hound of the Baskervilles, but I intend to. Until then, we'll have to go with my initial, head-spinning thoughts on the movie.To say this adaptation of the classic Arthur Conan Doyle story (screenplay by director Morrissey and co-stars Dudley Moore and Peter Cook) is terrible is an understatement. It is beyond terrible. Other than a few chuckles and maybe one actual laugh the movie is brutally unfunny. The look of the film is drab and unattractive, the pacing is slow and the filmmaking is sloppy and scattershot to the point of seeming downright amateurish.Moore and Cook, two comic geniuses, enthusiastically dive into their characters but cannot wring any joy or even mild amusement out of the material. The rest of the cast, made up mostly of familiar faces that populated classic British cinema in the 60s and 70s, appear utterly confused, as if they walked on the set and Morrissey just turned on the camera and said "action." It appears Morrissey is trying to recapture the gleeful irreverence of his Flesh for Frankenstein and Blood for Dracula but forgot how he managed to accomplish it. The outrageous gore, bizarre characters and non-sequitur dialog juxtaposed against such lush and pastoral settings made for a pair of genuinely idiosyncratic films (which were shot back-to-back).That same magic never materializes in Hound of the Baskervilles. It is an utterly lifeless movie. The actors' performances are akin to witnessing the death throes of a drowning animal desperately trying to stay afloat. That mixed with the mind-numbingly awful screenplay and leaden direction results in an intensely unpleasant and uncomfortable experience.Considering Morrissey's roots with Andy Warhol's Factory, one wonders if that were not his intention all along.

ajcemrush Geeze, that last post was a bit harsh. I found this movie funny when I first saw it soon after release, and when I recently watched it with my three young daughters. I thought the pee pee scene was hilarious, and I enjoyed the homages to Moore's and Cook's other works. It's just fun. It's SUPPOSED to be just fun; not deep, not a cinema-graphic classic, but fun. If my kids can enjoy it now, 25+ years later, It can't be that bad,and it isn't. Find it, watch it with a drink or two in your gullet, and enjoy! Not everything has to be a great work of art, you know. We all need to stop being so pretentious with these critiques. You can enjoy Spartacus AND Evil Dead, The Maltese Falcon AND Ice Pirates, You can enjoy this movie too.