Sherlock Holmes and the Baskerville Curse, 1983 Animated film, directed by Eddy Graham
2024 edit: here's the trailer for the movie. the movie is easy enough to find online otherwise but i can't directly link to it because it could be taken down for any reason.
what's up? been a bit. i've been busy. turns out while i can consume a sheer metric ton of sherlock holmes and mystery content, doing the research and writing for my review essays can take up a huge amount of time.
that huge amount of time was instead spent finishing up the rulebook and playable mystery for a mystery tabletop rpg i wrote, called FICSion: Episodic Mystery RPG. this is one of the projects i alluded to in my "productive" mission statement for A Study in Spectrum. i want to write mysteries, and mysteries people can play as games! so i did that. there will be more of that.
i have been working on more reviews, but now that it's been a hot second since i consumed the media i was gonna review i might have to give myself a refresher again. could be a bit before the next post, this one was something that just caught my attention.
last night youtube recommended me the video at the top, an animated adaptation of Hound of the Baskervilles. so i watched it. and it has consumed my thoughts since then. up top i'll frankly admit this is not a particularly good movie, it doesn't have that good of voice acting or animation, it's more or less a direct adaptation of the story and you'd probably have a better time reading the book than watching this, and yet. there's a quality to it. i don't know what it is. maybe we can figure it out.
one of the best there is
the Hounds of the Baskervilles needs barely any introduction, it's one of the most popular canon stories, one that everyone knows by name if barely any of the specifics about it. All you really need to know is that there's a big spooky dog curse and that's pretty enticing as is. Hounds of the Baskervilles is one of the four full novels ACD wrote for the Sherlock Holmes canon. this means the story is a bit longer but the atmosphere and pieces of the mystery coming together is some of the most compelling of the entire canon in my opinion.
A scan of the cover of The Hound of the Baskervilles, design by(?) Sidney Paget - Internet Archive identifier, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10971840
the basic synopsis is that an old man named Sir Charles Baskerville is taking a night walk out on the moors of Dartmoor. his dead body is discovered by his friend Dr James Mortimer and he sees what appears to be dog tracks around the body. afraid it could be the Baskerville curse rising once again, Mortimer seeks out the help of Sherlock Holmes before the new heir of the Baskerville family, Sir Henry, falls to the same fate.
Holmes agrees to help, but says he needs to do work here in London yet, so Watson is sent out to Dartmoor to accompany Sir Henry. this makes at least 50% of the story focusing around Watson which is fun! Watson gets to show off his own developed deductive talent outside of Holmes guidance and it's a really interesting development of his character over the series of stories.
Watson, Mortimer, and Sir Henry arrive at Baskerville Hall and meet the housekeepers, a married couple called the Barrymores. they also learn that an escaped convict from the Dartmoor Prison was seen among the moors and so it could be dangerous at night.
Watson and Sir Henry meet some of the neighbors and locals, them among them being the Stapletons, a brother and sister pair, Jack and Beryl. Jack is very curious about Sir Henry but Beryl warns Sir Henry to stay away from the moors as much as possible.
"Watson meets Stapleton" By Sidney Paget (1860 - 1908) - File published on Camden House (Ignisart.com), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11165314
Mortimer tries to convince Sir Henry the curse of the Baskervilles is real, things only backed up by hearing howling on the moors at night. the original curse involved the death of Sir Hugo Baskerville via an enormous hell hound sometime around the English Civil War. this dog has haunted the moors and killed all heirs of the Baskerville family prematurely according to the curse's legend.
Watson continues to investigate, the Stapletons appear to be very suspicious as when Sir Henry talks to Beryl by herself, Jack gets furious and tells him to stay away from her. the Barrymores are caught conveying light signals across the moor, however it appears that the Mrs. Barrymore is related to the convict that is hiding out on the moor and the signals are what they've been using to tell when/where it's safe to get supplies and food.
Eventually Watson hears word of a suspicious person hiding out on a digsite where some burial tombs were discovered. Watson goes to investigate and finds that Holmes is there! he's been hiding out on the moor to do his own investigation and the pair confirm the knowledge that they have. Watson is able to testify to the people and situations that he has encountered thusfar, and Holmes confirms that the hound is real and belongs to Jack Stapleton!
they go back to the Baskerville Hall to confirm their suspicions and upon looking through the portraiture of the Baskerville family, Stapleton is a near spitting image of Sir Hugo Baskerville! where it all starts to come together is Holmes discovered a woman named Laura who sent a letter to Sir Charles for them to meet the night he died, but Stapleton told her not to keep the appointment. she reveals that she and Stapleton are to be married, which is why he had so much influence over her in that way. However to make matters worse, Stapleton is already married, Beryl is his wife and he is forcing her to pose as his sister in order to make these plans all work.
"Holmes sees a clue in the Baskerville portrait" By Sidney Paget (1860 - 1908) - File published on Camden House (Ignisart.com), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11165346
they have to set a trap now for the man himself. Holmes and Watson pretend to leave Dartmoor while Sir Henry accepts an invitation to have dinner with the Stapletons. Holmes and Watson meet up with Inspector Lestrade of Scotland Yard and lay and wait for the hound to be set upon Sir Henry as he leaves the Stapleton home.
A thick fog rolls in, but they manage to kill the hound before it is able to kill Sir Henry. the hound was covered in phosphorous, giving it the unearthly and ghastly glow as it moved about the moor. they rush back to the Stapleton home to arrest Jack, but find Beryl tied up and Jack apparently escaped out to the mires of the moor. they try to catch him but instead can only hear his cries as he sinks into the mire, it's too dangerous to try to follow after him and they resolve he is as good as dead.
the story ends with Holmes explaining that Stapleton was the nephew of Sir Charles. his father had a bad reputation with the family and fled to South America and was claimed to have died unmarried and childless. he did marry and did have one child, Jack. Jack married Beryl in Costa Rica and then moved them back to England where they changed their last name to Vandeleur and then Stapleton. in Dartmoor, Stapleton encountered Sir Charles and formed a friendship with him. Stapleton learned that Sir Charles had a weak heart, so exploiting the family curse, purchased a hound, starved and abused it, so it would attack any man on sight. Sir Charles died of fear more than he died of any wounds from the dog. Stapleton might've never known about the heir of Sir Henry, but aimed to do him in the same way and claim Baskerville Hall and the Baskerville name for himself once no heirs could come forward.
so now we gotta talk about this animation
"The Baskervilles Curse" being an adaptation does change around a few elements of the story but for the most part, the clues and details remain relatively in tact. All of the notable plot points and characters are discussed and talked about.
the first notable thing about this adaptation is that it's actually an Australian produced television film! Eddy Graham wrote, directed, and produced this adaptation of Hound of the Baskervilles. The production company behind this film is Burbank Films Australia, which changed it's name to Burbank Animation Studios around 1991.
this studio produced a lot of adaptations of classic stories such as Charles dickens books, Alice in Wonderland, Don Quixote, and more. they produced three other Sherlock Holmes adaptations, all of the other novels in the canon, this being Study in Scarlet, Sign of Four, and Valley of Fear. Baskerville Curse was the last they attempted to adapt of the canon.
a very good run cycle animation
when watching this film, is very obviously thing that stands out is the animation. it is in that style of 80s cell animation that doesn't understand any amount of animation technique. there's nothing that would be qualified as "squash" or "stretch" or "anticipation" or "follow through" here. it's all very plainly animated and very jittery at that as if the cells were not very well aligned at certain times of being captured. the lip sync is probably the only thing that's good about the animation, and thankfully since Sherlock Holmes stories is people talking in very flat shots and scenes it's not too distracting.
feels like you can actually see the individual cells of his face and head.
the second thing that stands out is that the Holmes in this animation... has a very very monotone voice. Holmes is played by Peter O'Toole, who has a lot of acting credits on and off the stage, but surprisingly people would probably know him the best as Anton Ego from Disney's Ratatouille. what a career this man has had. despite that, his portrayal of Holmes does feel very classic in his calm and collected manner that's depicted in the canon stories, but any amount of fun in the voice acting comes from any of the other characters. Watson's voice actor, Earle Cross, does a pretty ok job in the role, however his performance does bring more warmth to the scenes.
the music is also... bizarre. i wouldn't say it's unsuited to the story, but things range from what might play in the beginning of a tom and jerry short film, but then also ranges to some of the weirdest mood setting ambient music for a mystery story i've ever heard. the music is this strange, untraceable era or tone with strong instrumentals, especially in the drums and string instruments. it's not "bad" per se, but... it's not good. the sound design is also very strange, the sound effects all seem ill fitted toward what they are trying to convey, and notably the sound of the hound feels like that stock panther growling noise rather than a growling vicious dog.
i think the most impressive piece of animation in the entire film is when it comes to the hound however. it only appears technically twice in the film, once at the beginning and once at the end but the threat it poses is very tangible throughout the entire film. the shots are very quick but they leave quite the impression. probably due to all that color and movement they couldn't afford to animate it any more than they had, but it does look pretty neat, not gonna lie.
literally the only times you see the hound move when it's alive.
ok so why do i keep thinking about it
everything about this animated film is wonky, stuff is constantly jittering, it sounds weird, it looks weird, etc. there's so many weird things about it. however, it feels like an incredibly appropriate adaptation of this story, you don't need anything else special to it. the mystery and tone are conveyed really well through the weird... jank of this animation.
the dark scenes feel very dark, the off-putting nature of Stapleton and the Barrymores is appropriate, the hound as the constant looming threat is always there and the risk feels tangible, especially since Sir Henry isn't an unlikable character. i think he initially feels like a weird asshole because of his blatant disregard of the curse, but Sir Henry has a good head on his shoulders. i like the voice actor for Sir Henry a lot, i think his performance is actually the best out of the entire cast. he's a likable character only enhanced by his portrayal and performance in this film!
but i think why it feels so appealing to me is that it's not bad. it's certainly not "good" but it's not bad! it has an animation style and tone close to a Hanna Barbara Scooby-Doo cartoon, but Sherlock Holmes is there! it's an adaption of one of the best Sherlock Holmes stories! it's pretty cool! i wasn't even aware that there were these films by this Australian studio until this one popped up in my youtube recommendations. i really want to watch the other films they've made, especially since i've not seen a visual adaptation of The Valley of Fear, probably one of my other favorite stories so i will probably watch that one soon.
i'm not gonna toot my own horn and call myself an animator on any given day, but i do dabble in the art and i can't see how i by myself could produce anything better than this film, but i certainly could get close if i wanted to adapt a Sherlock Holmes story of my own and that itself is enticing. i have enough tools by myself in the year 2022 to produce an entire film it took presumably a studio to make. i like to take on frankly masochistic projects for a singular person to undertake, and maybe the thought appealed to me.
also, this adaptation gave me probably one of my favorite Holmes lines ever stated:
"That's no apparition. If you can wound, it you can kill it. Shoot again!"
as far as i'm aware, that's an Eddy Graham original.
and where are they now?
there's unfortunately not a lot i can pull up about what Mr Eddy Graham has been up to in recent years, the most i can find out about him otherwise is just more films made with Burbank Animation Studios/Burbank Films Australia. his IMDB and other film database archives mostly just list what you can find on the wikipedia page for the studio page anyway. i can't even find anything easily if he's still alive. there's a bit of obfuscation on the topic too, since there's at least three other eddy/eddie/ed grahams that pop up before you can even see anything about the one i'm trying to talk about.
speaking of Burbank Animation studios, they went defunct in 2008. i can't seem to find any articles about why they went out of business. again with the obfuscation from above, the company named "Burbank" shares a name with the location in California, USA, which is now becoming a place animators and other studios are popping up in the current day. something else notable that comes up when looking up things about the studio is that they were among one of the many animation studios to create branches in the Philippines as their major animation outsourcing location. in fact, Burbank Animation studios was among one of the first.
regardless of these two things, i was able to find a pretty good version of the cover/poster for the film that was used in presumably moreso in it's dvd release:
you probably notice the "THE WHODUNNIT EDITION" on the cover, but i can't seem to figure out what makes it an entirely different edition, but apparently the dvd is a decoder ring? hm. maybe i need to get a copy of this myself. i'm really intrigued. what in the world is that about.
there's also this cover:
which sucks in comparison. that reduction of the color of the hound in the background makes it look like a weird scary monkey in my opinion.
anyway, i think my overall feelings on this adaptation is that it's very interesting and i would recommend it if you like this story at all and if you want to hear the food critic from Ratatouille be Sherlock Holmes.
the films from this studio are probably widely unknown but seem to have had enough distribution over the years that people remember them and continue to try to bring them to modern audiences. the video i found of this film was just posted earlier in 2022 after all, so there's someone out there doing some kind of archival work out there somewhere.
the credits of the movie, sorry it's so fast these were actually longer credits than i thought there would be.