Detectives And Demon Hounds

Charlie's making a nuisance of himself. Again. This morning he's decided to bark everytime I speak. Which is more Hooch's style, but at least Hooch listens when you tell him to cool it.

Dad suggested we have a Hound of the Baskervilles-a-thon. We watched the Basil Rathbone version in the winter, and last night was a version from the 1960s starring Peter Cushing. I kept thinking he looked familiar, and I finally tipped to the fact he was Mr. "I don't need my escape craft because the Rebels won't be blowing up the Death Star." Which is perhaps a disservice to Mr. Cushing, but it's the frame of reference I had.

The story itself was fine. Cushing as Holmes was alright, though he seemed a little harsh. Rathbone's Holmes seemed to enjoy his work more. Then again, Cushing's Holmes is nicer to Watson, so it's a tradeoff. Nigel Stock's Watson was slightly more competent than Nigel Bruce's, though given the choice, I'd still rather have Jude Law's version. If you're hiring Sherlock Holmes, and Watson's there as well, he might as well be useful. Stock's Watson at least was diligent in his observations, if unable to realize what they said as Holmes did.

At the same time, he opts to follow Barrymore out of the manor at night, wearing a gaudy robe and slippers, without a weapon. Plus, when he believed he was menaced by the Hound, he ran. Running's the worst idea, since it'll trigger a dog's instinct to chase. I've seen that plenty with dogs that ignore me as I walk past, but chase after me snarling as I jog. Better to back up slwoly and keep his eyes on it (or where he thinks it is).

The show being in color didn't do it any favors. I think it robbed the moor of much of its atmosphere. The Rathbone moor was considerably spookier, because it was so much murkier. Which may be a video quality issue as well. The scenes shot in the outdoors were very nice, but the nighttime scenes were usually on a set, and it was fairly obvious the rocks and such weren't real, and it robbed the scenes of some suspense.