Howling on the Moors

Almost thirteen years after Basil Rathbone had filmed his final screen appearance as Sherlock Holmes, Hammer Studios decided to resurrect Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s internationally famous detective in a Technicolor remake of The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959) which had been previously filmed with Rathbone in 1939. The eerie tale, which opens in a flashback sequence to an earlier time, depicts the origins of the Baskerville curse: the decadent Sir Hugo Baskerville brutally murders a servant girl who flees a group orgy at his mansion. Immediately following her death, however, Baskerville hears a strange braying on the moors before encountering an immense spectral hound which avenges the girl’s death. We then flash forward to the present, where Sherlock Holmes and his partner, Dr. Watson, are investigating the mysterious recent death of Sir Charles Baskerville.

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Racetrack Visions

What are your favorite film adaptations of famous short stories? Among the titles in my top 20 list are Rear Window (1954), based on Cornell Woolrich’s “It Had to Be Murder,” All About Eve (1950), adapted from Mary Orr’s ”The Wisdom of Eve,” The Body Snatcher (1945), which was taken from Robert Louis Stevenson’s story of the same name, It Happened One Night (1934), based on Samuel Hopkins Adams’ “Night Bus,” and The Rocking Horse Winner (1949), which is one of D.H. Lawrence’s best known short stories. However, the latter film is a largely unsung minor masterpiece of the British cinema that is highlighted by impeccable performances and an eerie Gothic atmosphere with almost supernatural overtones.

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