Der Hund von Baskerville, 1. Teil

Normally I begin my reviews by giving my readers an idea of the set-up of the movie's plot. I won't do that here, because the novel it is based on is very well known, and has been adapted to the movie and television screens so many times. Also, this version has almost nothing to do with the story.

What can you usefully say about a version of a classic Sherlock Holmes story in which the villain masquerades as Holmes, Holmes doesn't show up until 28 minutes into its 65-minute length, where Watson appears just long enough to be dismissed, where the dread Hound is a slobbery, affectionate Great Dane, and Baskerville, stated to be in Devonshire, is populated by ghillies in the sma' kilt and tam? The villain is also liberally supplied with bombs that look like cricket balls, which he uses to blow up a mail box. Horrors!

Some people think this is a humorous version of the story. I think it is inept. Screenwriter Richard Oswald, in his first screen credit, adapts a stage version he had produced five years earlier, full of secret passages and chairs that trap whoever sits in them. It's clear to me that Oswald was simply trading on the name and good will of Sherlock Holmes, and director Rudolf Meinert has no more clue about what he is directing than a pig has of calculus.

One of the reasons that Holmes remains a popular media character more than 130 years after his introduction, is that he first appeared shortly before the birth of the movies; by 1906, the Danes were producing a series of films about him, and his reputation as The Great Detective remains because of the wit, clean writing, and classic mystery structure that Arthur Conan Doyle provided. This one, however, adds almost nothing to the legend. There's some nice camerawork, but that's about it.