Sherlock
Holmes in The Last Vampyre + The
Hound Of The Baskervilles (1984)
Picture: C
Sound: C Extras: D Telefilms: C+ each
Here are two separate DVD issuings of full-length
Sherlock Holmes British telefilms from MPI.
There are so many similarities that we decided to combine the two.
For starters, there is the endless debate about who
best portrayed Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson on screen. Usually, the argument chooses actors from
big-screen feature films, but there is a small cult who has been bonkers over
Jeremy Brett n the role of Holmes. He
played Holmes in a series of TV programs in the 1980s on British TV. MPI is also issuing a boxed set of five DVDs
of these shows. The Last Vampyre and Hound Of The Baskervilles are two
feature-length presentations from their teleseries.
Though Brett is not bad in the role, he is far from
the best in the role, and supporting his interpretation over many other actors
seems to negate the eccentricities that made the character so great to begin
with. This is a more straightforward
Holmes that is likable, but seems to stray too far from the legend. When murder occurs in a remote village, its
citizens jump to pointing the finger at a man from a family supposedly mixed in
vampirism for a century.
This particular installment of the show is
interesting in the way it plays with what people want to believe in when it
comes to the mythology of vampires (or vampyres) as it lays out its
mystery. It examines superstition from
a somewhat scientific angle, but does not go far enough in the examination.
As a book, “The Hound Of The Baskervilles” remains
one of the great Detective Mystery achievements in all of literature, but the
adaptations of it to big and small screens have had a torrid history worthy of
a Sherlock Holmes story. Purists love
to reject the Basil Rathbone version, but it was actually one of his best, with
one of his biggest budgets. The Hammer
Studios version with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee is not bad either, while
the recent Ian Richardson version from 1983 is also highly respected.
This Jeremy Brett version was made about the same
time and shows the problems, especially in comparison to the Richardson
version, the many things that just do not click in this series. Again, Brett is not the problem, but it is
the limits, and currently accepted conventions of “quality” British TV that
dulls out even a great classic like this.
These programs were shot in the PAL analog video
format, and then transferred to film.
Since PAL has practically the same frame rate as sound film, the
match-up is on the seamless side, but the muddiness of the PAL’s 600 lines is
the dead giveaway. This is acceptable
practice on British TV, but was always a bit obnoxious otherwise. It is like seeing episodes of H. R. Pufnstuf
on syndicated film prints, instead of their native videotape presentation. The result is a near-poor image, even on
DVD, with sound to match.
The sound is very simple Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono at
best, with dialogue usually clear, but the accents get in the way that makes
one wish stereo was used. Music is
audible, but nothing extraordinary. It
should also be noted that the feature is shorter by three minutes than the DVD
box indicates, while the second film differs by 16 minutes! The first DVD gives you 5 sketch pictures of
the classic Holmes as drawn by Howard K. Elcock that plays like a brief video
segment with no frame-by-frame control, while Hounds offers 10 sketch
pictures of the classic Holmes as drawn by Sydney Paget. That features frame-by-frame control this
time.
Credits for each telefilm are as follows:
Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, Edward Hardwicke
as Dr. Watson, Keith Baron, Roy Marsden, and Freddie Jones. Music by Patrick Gowers, Edited by Kim
Horten, Teleplay by Jeremy Paul, based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Sussex
Vampire”, and Directed by Tim Sullivan.
Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, Edward Hardwicke
as Dr. Watson, Raymond Adamson, Neil Duncan, Rosemary McHale, Bernard Horsfal
and Kristopher Tabori. Music by Patrick
Gowers, Edited by Alan Ringland, Teleplay by Trevor Bowden, based on the book
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Camerawork by Michael B. Popley, and Directed by
Brian Mills.
The story deserves credit for being one of those
rare delving of Holmes into the world of the supernatural or near-supernatural,
but it is a far cry from Murder By
Decree or even The Hound Of The
Baskervilles (with its many versions) as a way to offer more than the usual
mystery. Though Bram Stoker’s book
“Dracula” was new at the time, the mythology had been around for many centuries
before, so the story has an interesting weight to it.
In the end, though, this version of the story does
not manage to get much above the standard content this series of Holmes seems
to stop at, so it is only recommended to those who enjoy the cast and set-up.
