[SPOILER ALERT: Those who have not yet read The Hound of the Baskervilles, please be warned that the novel’s secrets are revealed below. —MK]
THE BOOK —
The plot of The Hound is doubtless familiar to all readers of this magazine, but a brief synopsis may be useful for the discussion to follow. Holmes is consulted by Dr Mortimer, who recounts a seventeenth-century legend of a curse plaguing the aristocratic Baskerville family of Dartmoor, ever since a decadent family member fell victim to the jaws of a demonic hound. Mortimer proceeds to describe the recent mysterious death of Sir Charles Baskerville, who was found with his features horribly distorted, as if he had died of sheer terror, and in proximity to traces of the fabled monstrous dog. Mortimer, fearing for the life of Sir Henry Baskerville, the successor to the estate, seeks Holmes’s guidance. When the heir, undeterred by a warning letter, the theft of two boots, and a sinister shadow, decides to inhabit Baskerville Hall, Watson is assigned to accompany him, both as a bodyguard and on-the-scene investigator. He diligently reports his observations and speculations to Holmes, stuck in London on another case. Watson meets the neighbors — the naturalist Stapleton and his attractive sister Beryl, and Frankland, a local litigious crank estranged from his daughter. Watson himself hears a “long, low moan,” which Stapleton identifies as the sound the local peasants attribute to the hound of the Baskervilles. Sir Henry rapidly falls in love with Beryl. Suspicious nocturnal ramblings by the Baskerville butler, Barrymore, first suggest his involvement in the plot against the family he has served, but the good doctor and Sir Henry discover that the servant has been providing supplies to his brother-in-law, Selden, a murderous escaped convict in hiding on the moor. Their pursuit of Selden is unsuccessful, but during it, Watson spots a mysterious figure outlined against the moonlight. When Sir Henry agrees to keep Selden’s whereabouts a secret until he can leave the country, Barrymore shares a clue suggesting that a woman had lured Sir Charles to his fatal appointment. Watson not only traces the woman, Laura Lyons, but tracks down the mysterious figure, who is revealed as Holmes himself. To keep his investigations free from scrutiny, the detective had been hiding on the moor himself, putting together clues that led him to label Sir Charles’ death a murder, and Stapleton as the culprit. But, as proof of the scientist’s guilt is lacking, Holmes plots to catch him red-handed, a strategy that seems to fail when the hound claims another victim. This time, Selden, who had been wearing the baronet’s cast-off clothing, is the victim. To lure Stapleton into a trap, Holmes and Watson pretend to return to London; instead, they lie in wait as Stapleton sets his beast on Sir Henry, fatally shooting the animal just in the nick of time. The creature is revealed to be a huge ferocious dog, daubed with phosphorous to create a supernatural aura; its master, in reality Sir Henry’s cousin with eyes on the succession, who had forced his wife to pose as his sister to tempt his relative, flees into the mire, and is apparently sucked into its depths.
Of course, such a Monarch Notes-like summary cannot begin to conjure up the incredible experience of reading the book itself. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote it as a way to sate the public’s demand for more Holmes, without bringing Holmes back permanently, so he set The Hound before the fateful Reichenbach Falls death-struggle with the Napoleon of Crime; yet it is not only one of his best stories, The Hound is unquestionably one of the great Gothic mysteries of all time, if not the greatest: replete with memorable lines (“Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!”, “forbear from crossing the moor in those dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted.”) and unforgettable scenes — especially Chapter 14’s climactic appearance of “the dreadful shape which had sprung out upon us from the fog.” Watson’s reports to Holmes from Baskerville Hall vividly create a mood of dread and suspense that most others authors labor at in vain. While locked-room aficionados can legitimately debate which John Dickson Carr puzzle is the trickiest impossible crime yarn ever, no rivals to The Hound immediately spring to mind (a quick challenge to the reader — name one without thinking for a few minutes).
FILMING THE STORY —
For many readers, it is only natural to seek to extend the pleasures of a favorite book by experiencing the story in a different medium such as film. And in some cases, movies have actually improved upon the original, preserving the original structure while altering minor plot details to make the story more logical or more resonant. (For example, the Peter Ustinov version of Agatha Christie’s Death on the Nile, which was far superior to the overly-faithful and listless recent David Suchet version).
Ironically, because The Hound is so well-loved, translating it to film is harder than adapting a lesser-known story — as Bert Coules, the supremely-gifted head writer on the BBC’s recent radio dramatization of the complete Canon, has observed, “Because people love the best known stories — The Hound of the Baskervilles, ‘The Speckled Band,’ — they have very fixed ideas about what can and cannot be done with them.” But “harder” is not the same as “impossible.” A few years ago, many devoted Tolkien fans would have been skeptical that any film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings could do that master work of romantic fantasy justice, and yet, in the loving hands of Peter Jackson, three superb films were made that have not only brought Tolkien’s epic to a wider audience, but satisfied many of his most devoted fans. So what is it about The Hound that has been so difficult to master?
Space limitations preclude a more-detailed critique of each film, or an enumeration of the gratuitous and often odd changes to the story. For example, the impact of the 1939 Dr Mortimer’s account of his observations of traces upon the ground was somewhat dissipated because it came before the legend was recounted, making the presence of a pawprint ominous, not merely odd.
DOGS THAT DON’T HUNT —
It should go without saying that any film version of The Hound that does not scare, startle, or give viewers the creeps has not done its duty; the original story is more of an eerie thriller than a study in ratiocination. And yet none of the film versions have evoked such feelings in me. A large part of the answer lies in the immense difficulty, if not impossibility, of matching the drama of the book by creating “an enormous coal-black hound, but not such a hound as mortal eyes have ever seen.” The images our individual imaginations have conjured of the creature, with “[f]ire burst[ing] from its open mouth, its eyes glow[ing] with a smouldering glare, its muzzle and hackles and dewlap … outlined in flickering flame” may never be satisfied by another’s vision. I will not spend time here comparing the dogs who have been miscast, or, as in the latest BBC version, mis-computer-generated, in the story’s title role — suffice to say that none have struck me as being scary, and some (especially the 1959 animal, “enhanced” with a rabbit-skin mask) have been unintentionally silly-looking.
But many versions also make the mistake of showing their hand (or paw, as it were) too early, leaving little doubt from the outset that a flesh-and-blood dog is involved. The 1983 Ian Richardson version, for example,