A Job For Imbeciles

 

 

This is my entry in the Kenneth Williams Blogathon hosted by The Wonderful World of Cinema.

 

 

The classic Sherlock Holmes novel The Hound of the Baskervilles, first published in 1902 by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, has been adapted numerous times, both as a feature film and as part of on an ongoing television series. The story is usually adapted to fit in to whatever the current climate or milieu that is part of the presentation. Many of them featured Sherlock in his own time period of the late 19th and early 20th century. 

 

The BBC TV series Sherlock with Benedict Cumberbatch had an episode, "The Hounds of Baskerville", which had the character investigating the moors of England in the 21st century, and that is one of my favorite depictions of the story. That one includes some mysterious goings on in an Area 51 - like area in the UK, conveniently known as the "Baskerville Research Facility".

 

The original Doyle story has some supernatural aspects to it, but Sherlock, being Sherlock, is dismissive of anything that can't be validated by his logic.  For the most part, those variations present Holmes as the rational logical machine that Doyle presented him as in the canon. The Hound of the Baskervilles, as a novel was originally published as a concession to the overwhelming urging of the public to bring back the character of Holmes to its adoring public. As such, having no desire to resurrect the character from the dead, the story itself, in the context of the canon, takes place in the history between the meeting of Watson and Holmes and Holmes' supposed death at Reichenbach Falls.

Kenneth Williams, one of the comedic minds behind the beloved British comedy series of Carry On... (such as Carry On Cleo, Carry On Sergeant and Carry On Up the Khyber). He was a character in 26 of the 31 Carry On... films. IMDb lists 63 overall credits for Williams, so the Carry On.. films account for a whopping 42% of his output on film.  It is interesting to note that, after his death when his private diaries became public, it was revealed that Williams actually had little regard for the series, although probably some of that had to do with how little money he made off the series.

 

Outside of the Carry On films, Williams had a varied career. He appeared in plays on stage, had roles on BBC radio and television shows, and even wrote several books. People on this side of the pond could be forgiven if they have never heard of any of his output beyond those Carry On films (and there may be quite a number of Americans who would give you a questioning look even if you started taking about THOSE films). But for those who had been around during his heyday in the UK, he was a well known and popular comedian.

In the tradition of comedy films, parody has always been a favorite of mine. And I also have a fairly good collection of movies and TV series featuring Sherlock Holmes. Combining comedy with Sherlock Holmes may seem sacrilege to some aficionados of the Great Detective, but one of my favorite Sherlock films is actually Without a Clue, a parody that postulated that Dr. Watson was the real brains behind the mysteries and that the character of Sherlock was just a figure that Watson created, using an alcoholic actor to pose as Holmes.

This entry falls under that parody genre. It's up to you to determine whether it should be a legitimate Holmes movie, and probably even whether it is a legitimate comedy, for that matter.   

 

 

 The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978):

The opening scene of this film wastes no time in letting you know just how different this Holmes outing is going to be from anything you've ever witnessed before as a pianist (Dudley Moore) comes out on stage to play a chaotic piano intro to our film. This segues into the prologue in which the title card says "French Nuns" as Sherlock Holmes (Peter Cook) wraps up his current case.

 

Only, Holmes hasn't really solved the case. The nuns are concerned about a holy relic that is missing from their church and Holmes helpfully suggests that is is missing because of the "work of thieves." (Thank you, Captain Obvious!) But then, again, maybe he has, because he tells them that, through his extraordinary ability at observation, he knows exactly who stole the relic. It was the member of the congregation that he saw loitering around the place where the relic usually sat, with a bulge that resembled the relic protruding from his pocket. (And why can't Scotland Yard be this "on the ball"...?)

You have to pay attention throughout this movie. Throwaway jokes abound. Like Holmes reading a tome called "Guilt Without Sex". (read that again...)

 

The story proper begins with the arrival of a Dr. Mortimer (Terry-Thomas) from Dartmoor. Mortimer represents the estate of Baskerville. It seems that the estate's prior owner, Sir Charles, had died, of natural causes according to the papers. But Mortimer thinks Sir Charles was murdered. By supernatural means. It turns out that local legend says that every master of the Baskerville estate has had a strange coincidence surrounding their deaths... the appearance of a monstrous hound.

 

Our heroes agree to go to Baskerville Hall and meet the new heir, Sir Henry Baskerville (Kenneth Williams). Sir Henry tells Holmes of  a strange incident recently. Henry had put his boots outside his bedroom door to be shined, but when he went to the door the next morning, one of them was missing... Holmes is aghast. Not at the strange theft, however.

"Do you think I'm going to waste my time combing the streets of London for some old boot? This is a job for an imbecile!" 

 

Holmes declines the case, leaving it in the capable(?) hands of his assistant, Dr. Watson. What follows after this is a discombobulated sequence of seemingly unconnected skits, including a visit to Sherlock's mother (played by Dudley Moore) who is running a scam as a spiritualist leading seances, but it's all fake, with a helper off scene causing tables to rise, etc. 

 

Also, there is a scene that has Sherlock visiting a massage parlor, which may or may not also be operating as brothel (although none of the women are appealing to anyone normal male who would visit a brothel...)

 

There are other scenes that seem to be added to flesh out a 5 minute skit into a full-fledged film, some of which are humorous for about a minute or so, but then become a distraction. For instance, when Sir Henry and Watson show up at the Baskerville estate, they are housed in a room that is ankle deep in water (and with no forthcoming explanation of where the water is coming from, nor with either Sir Henry or Watson commenting on it). 

There is also some very strange parody of The  Exorcist. Why? Who knows. Eventually (after what seems like an interminable time, but is actually only about 90 minutes), the titular hound is revealed to not be some supernatural horror, but an ordinary Irish setter. But getting to that point requires a bit of patience. Which is surprising, since other movies in the Moore / Cook  were actually good and well-made (The Wrong Box, Bedazzled, Those Daring Young Men in Their Jaunty Jalopies).

Kenneth Williams, too, might be sub-par, especially when compared to characters he played in the Carry On films. Here Sir Henry is pretty much a stereotypical upper-crust fop, albeit with some not-so-subtle caricatures of gay tendencies. In addition there are a few other cameos that don't always pan out. Denholm Elliot, who shone as Marcus Brody in the early Indiana Jones films and as the butler in Trading Places is seriously overused but not very well drawn out as a guy who has to carry around a chihuahua that has a serious bladder problem. 

 

A lot of blame for the failure of this movie (it was a bomb in every sense of the word) is often placed on the director, Paul Morrisey, a student of Andy Warhol, who although he could do avant-garde films pretty well (Flesh for Frankenstein, Blood for Dracula), had no idea how to work with Moore and Cook in their preferred comedic milieu.  He rewrote the screenplay that Moore and Cook had originally submitted. I wonder what the original actually looked like.

This one has the lowest Rotten Tomatoes rating of any movie I have ever reviewed, only 0%. (I guess negative numbers are not available...) Critics of the time can be summed as saying it was pretty terrible. It surely didn't make much money. It was originally released in the UK in 1978, but didn't make it's way across the pond to the U.S. until 1981 (and I think that primarily was because of the success of the Moore film Arthur... otherwise it might have stayed overseas indefinitely...)

As a relic of the past, I would say only completists who want to watch every Dudley Moore and/or Peter Cook performance (or for that matter Kenneth Williams or any of the other featured actors) should bother with this one. It has very few really funny moments, and most of those happen within the first 10 minutes.

Well, until next time, folks, drive safely.

Quiggy