Movie Night: The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)

Review #272: The Hound of the Baskervilles.

Cast
Peter Cushing (Sherlock Holmes), André Morell (John Watson), Christopher Lee (Henry Baskerville), Marla Landi (Cecile Stapleton), Ewen Solon (Stapleton), Francis de Wolff (Richard Mortimer), Miles Malleson (Frankland), John Le Mesurier (Barrymore), and David Oxley (Hugo Baskerville), Directed by Terrance Fisher (#257 - The Curse of Frankenstein and #258 - Dracula.)

Review
Once again I'm reviewing a Hammer film with who else but with Cushing, Lee, and Fisher all involved. And it is grand in its approach and it is also a lot of fun. This is adapted from the 1902 novel by Arthur Conan Doyle of the same name (Strangely enough, I've read the book. Me reading a book and then the film based upon that? Impossible!), and it has been adaped into film and television over 20 times since the first in 1914. Anyway, the acting is good here, with Cushing and Morell doing a really good job conveying the two they are meant to portraying, Holmes and Watson. Lee does a fine job here (He's moved from being Dracula to the Creature to a character who speaks a good deal of dialogue.) It does change from the novel (such as having a sacrifice, a tarantula and a mine shaft involved along with giving a certain thing a mask instead of phosphorus paint.) But I won't be angry for that. Why? Because the film still keeps to its roots of just being a detective mystery that is still a lot of fun, deviations and all.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.