Director: Terence Fisher
Writers: Peter Bryan
Stars: Peter Cushing, André Morell, Christopher Lee
1 Hour, 27 Minutes
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We see that in the past, Sir Hugo Baskerville beat and severely burnt one of the local peasants. The daughter of the peasant climbed out the upstairs window to escape him. “Release the hounds!” He yells. He goes out on the hunt, looking for the missing girl. He catches the girl and kills her; just then he hears a howling nearby. He’s attacked by “A hound from Hell.”
Dr. Mortimer tells the story to Sherlock Homes, who then points out a bunch of minute details about the man. He then reads us the newspaper about the much more recent death of Charles Baskerville. Two weeks ago, Charles was found dead in the moor. It was the same place and similar circumstances to the death of Sir Hugo long ago. He wasn’t killed by an animal, but he appears to have died of fright.
Doctor Mortimer explains that the Baskervilles seem to suffer from heart conditions, and Henry Baskerville is his heir. Mortimer wants Holmes to investigate and protect Sir Henry from the same fate. Henry doesn’t believe in the Hound of the Baskervilles.
Watson goes with Henry to Baskerville Hall. Holmes forbids Henry from going out onto the moor at night. Holmes spots a killer tarantula crawl out of Henry’s boot. They think it was placed in there deliberately.
They learn from the coachman that there was an escape recently, and Seldon, an insane murderer, had escaped. That night, Watson hears howling out on the moor.
The next morning, we meet the local bishop, who stops in to ask for things for the church sale. He tells Henry his duties with leading the sale. Watson goes out the investigate the moor that afternoon. He runs into Mr. Stapleton, a poor man who lives in the moor. Watson chases a girl who leads him into quicksand, but Stapleton pulls him out. The girl, Cecile, is his daughter, and she ran because she thought he might be the escaped convict.
That night, they find a candle in a window, and a similar light out on the moor. The two of them run out onto the moor in the dark. The see a crazy man and pursue him, but he gets away. They hear a howling and Henry starts having chest pains. Henry goes back home, but Watson continues his search of the moor. He runs into Holmes, who has been lurking in the ruins of the moor all day. “There is more evil around us here than I have ever encountered before,” Holmes says ominously.
They hear howling and a scream. The find Henry dead on the ground. They head back to Baskerville Hall. They find Henry alive and well back at the house; they assume the dead man was Seldon, wearing Henry’s clothes. The next morning, the body is gone, but they track the blood drippings to the ruins. They find Seldon, and his body has been mutilated in some unholy ritual, with the same knife Sir Hugo used all those years ago. The maid was Seldon’s sister, and she gave him the clothes set aside for the church rummage sale. The candles in the window was a “the coast is clear” signal to let Seldon come for food.
Holmes goes to see the Bishop, who is a bug collector and expert on rare spiders. Holmes knows that the Bishop lost his own spider. Dr. Mortimer and Mr. Stapleton both visited the Bishop on the day the spider went missing.
Henry talks to Cecile, and she tells him their family’s story. Holmes talks to Mortimer, and he’s hostile about everything. He asks Mortimer about an abandoned tin mine on Stapleton’s property. Mortimer warns him away from that dangerous old place. They go to the mine. They hear the Hound deep down in the mine. Holmes find a recent beef bone in the mine. They back to the house and find the dagger has been stolen.
Henry has been invited to the Stapletons. Holmes knows that Henry is going to be targeted once again, and they set out to follow him. Holmes has already figured out that Stapleton is next in line to the Baskerville fortune.
Cecile leads Henry to the ruins on the way to their home. She admits the whole thing, knowing that she’s going to kill him the same way she killed Charles. A giant dog attacks Sir Henry. Watson shoots Stapleton, while Holmes shoots the dog. Cecile runs away. She falls in quicksand and dies. The dog had been starved, then they put a mask on it to make it more terrifying.
Commentary
So at the end, they pulled the mask off and beneath it they found Scooby-Doo. This was to be the first in a series, but it didn’t do well at the box office, so there was no series.
Christopher Lee gets a lot of dialog here, and he stands a full foot taller than anyone else in the cast. Cushing certainly has the severe look and shows a general lack of intolerance for stupidity. Andre Morell is Watson, and he’s neither comic relief nor a buffoon. He’s useful, competent, and smart in his own right.