Product Details

• Actors: Richard Roxburgh, Ian Hart, Richard E. Grant, Matt Day, John Nettles
• Directors: David Attwood
• Writers: Allan Cubitt, Arthur Conan Doyle
• Producers: Allan Cubitt, Christopher Hall, Gareth Neame, Greg Brenman, Julie Scott
• Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
• Subtitles: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: BBC Warner
• DVD Release Date: January 21, 2003
• Run Time: 100 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (64 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0000797E7
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #45,926 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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• For more information about "The Hound of the Baskervilles" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

David Attwood's fresh and thrilling BBC adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles grabs the viewer by the throat from its opening scene. The plot of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's most famous story should be familiar: Sherlock Holmes (Richard Roxburgh) and Dr. Watson (Ian Hart) take on the case of Sir Henry Baskerville (Matt Day), hoping to protect him from the terrifying fate that has befallen his family for generations. But if you think you know how the story ends, think again.

While Jeremy Brett remains the definitive Holmes on screen, Roxburgh is also outstanding, as are Hart as an unusually passionate Watson and Richard E. Grant as the neighbor Stapleton. Trivia note: Roxburgh continued his take on the Holmes legend in 2003's The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. --David Horiuchi

Product Description

In this energetic and bold adaptation, Conan Doyle?s legendary characters are portrayed with a pace and vigor that capture the spirit of the original story. Sir Charles of Baskerville lies dead on the moors of his family estate. The look of abject fear on his face and the presence of animal footprints around his corpse suggest the impossible; that the ghost of a fearsome hound, long feared by the Baskerville family, is responsible for his death. As the new heir, Sir Henry Baskerville takes up residence at the estate, legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and his trusted associate Dr. Watson arrive to investigate the mystery.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent adaptation, July 10, 2003

By	Sean Brady (Victoria Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is one of the best adaptations of the famous Conan Doyle Sherlock Holmes book. It does take numerous liberties with the text but it's a handsomely mounted production featuring an excellent cast. Ian Hart is great as a more lively than usual Watson. Richard Roxburgh wouldn't have been my first choice as Holmes (co-star Richard E.Grant would have been my pick), but he does a fine job. The direction, costumes, lighting, special effects and excellent location work combine to make for a great looking production.

The DVD itself is well worth purchasing. The widescreen transfer and audio are excellent, and the various interviews and 'making of' feature are informative.

I mark this down one star because of the scriptwriter choosing to include Holmes' drug use. It doesn't add anything to the story and I assume that it was only added to be controversial. Holmes did not use drugs during a case...the character only succumbed to the needle to relieve his boredom between cases, and I don't recall his drug use being part of the original novel. At least we get to see Watson's disgust with Holmes' habit, but it doesn't excuse including it in this adaptation.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars The Wrong Version, September 3, 2005

By	E. Planteen (Sacramento, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Hound of the Baskervilles (2002) [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is a wonderful story and production...originally. However, the BBC Video (company) version I purchased which is 100 minutes in length had been edited so much that there were entire scenes missing right from the begining! I know because I taped the original when it aired on Masterpiece Theatre.
Buyer beware: This is not the full length version of the otherwise excellent program.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Yet Another Dog of a HOUND (Spoilers included), January 20, 2003

By	John Buckingham "Smokey Raku-Potts" (Worcester, MA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I had the misfortune to be a victim of this latest misguided HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES when I watched it on its MASTERPIECE THEATRE debut. To paraphrase one of the characters, if you value your Holmes, stay away from this perfectly dreadful HOUND. Conan Doyle's original novella - often regarded as one of the finest detective stories ever written - is a pretty straightforward affair, one which would seem relatively a breeze to adapt for the screen. Perhaps that's part of the problem then, because in every film version I've seen (save, perhaps, for the Jeremy Brett Granada one, where the hound looked as though it merely wanted a Milk-Bone and a nice tummy rub), scriptwriters can't resist the temptation to add dubious "improvements" to Sir Arthur's masterwork. This latest BBC attempt is one of the worst offenders of the criminal lot, thanks largely to the woefully unfaithful script by one Allan Cubitt. Mr. Cubitt apparently ignored the book and used the recent, thoroughly wrongheaded version of OLIVER TWIST as his template for "adapting" the Holmes tale. It's off and running to a bad start: gone is the crucial opening scene of Holmes and Watson examining Dr. Mortimer's forgotten walking stick; in it's place, Cubitt has - for some strange reason - cribbed the Turkish bath scene of an entirely different Holmes adventure. (Why? To hint at a more than intimate relationship between the good doctor and the sleuth?) It's downhill from there, folks, as Cubitt makes major changes in the story, such as tossing out important characters while creating entire chunks of business which add absolutely nothing to Sir Arthur's finely constructed plot. When he sticks to the original - such as when Holmes identifies the culprit from an ancient portrait - the film every so often feels on target. Redefining the Holmes-Watson dynamic in a mostly negative light, revealing the villain's identity halfway through the film (!), inventing a seance and Baskerville Hall Christmas party and - worst of all - having Holmes shoot up in the Gents of the Essex train station show that Mr. Cubitt will go to any depth to rip the source material to shreds. Set the hound on him!

Casting isn't much of an improvement either, as Australian Richard Roxburgh makes the second worst Holmes in recent memory - the top "honours" there go to Matt Frewer for his snide, spastic sleuth in those awful Hallmark TV films. Roxburgh's Holmes is blond, bland and utterly lacking in charisma, which is painfully obvious when he's in his scenes against wily Richard E. Grant's Stapleton. (Somehow, casting Richard E. Grant as Stapleton pretty much gives the game away right off the bat; yet with his tall, slender build, Holmesian hairline, feline grace and dusty velvet voice, Grant seems more like a natural Holmes than poor Roxburgh, betrayed by his occasional Down Under twang.) Peter Cushing R.R. sure ain't, and his polka dot tie certainly doesn't help him very much. Ian Hart fares somewhat better as a more active and intelligent than usual Watson, but he's physically wrong for the part: small, chinless and even more rat-faced that the film's Lestrade. Supporting players come off best - Aussie Matt Day makes an appealingly naive Canadian Sir Henry Baskerville; Ron Cook is a nicely mysterious Barrymore; lovely Neve McIntosh is a Beryl Stapleton worth sinking into the Grimpen Mire for, and Grant pretty much makes his scenes endurable when nothing else does. However, a fat Selden (Paul Kynman)? Let's just say that Stevie Wonder could see the difference between Sir Henry and the escaped convicted murderer Selden in this production, which makes Holmes look like a total idiot at a crucial plot point.

And the hound itself? The CGI work does indeed create the most fearsome canine - far more terrifying than the hapless german shepherd pressed into duty in the even worse Frewer version. In fact, the digital hound looks like a leftover critter from WALKING WITH PREHISTORIC BEASTS - not an abused modern day pooch. (And in a "whaddya know", the CGI effects animator did work on the WALKING special; time to vary things a bit with a Poppin' Fresh gig, eh?) And where was the animal's ghostly glow? Another glaring omission on the filmmakers' part. Perhaps they were all too busy shooting up with Holmes in that Essex men's room...

No denying, then, that another opportunity to adapt a definitive version of this hoary Holmesian chestnut went straight to the dogs. Granted, the 1959 Hammer version and the 1982 TV flick with Ian Richardson aren't much more faithful, but they each have an excellent Holmes - Cushing remains my favourite, as he restored Holmes from the cliché which Rathbone made him, and Richardson had an airiness which still seems refreshing compared to Brett's ham-upon-ham approach. Both of those versions are preferable to Auntie Beeb's latest atrocity. If you do catch this one, be prepared to do a lot of howling yourself - in outrage.