Between 1979 and 1986, director Igor Maslennikov directed a series of Sherlock Holmes adaptations for Soviet Russian television broadcast under the umbrella title Priklyucheniya Sherloka Kholmsa i doktora Vatsona (The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson). Shown in groups of two or three episodes, the series eventually adapted The Adventure of the Speckled Band, A Study in Scarlet, The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton, The Final Problem, The Adventure of the Empty House, The Sign of the Four, A Scandal in Bohemia, The Adventure of the Engineer’s Thumb, The Adventure of the Second Stain, The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, His Last Bow and in its third year, a two-part adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles. Although the feature length episodes took some liberties with the source texts, overall they remain remarkably faithful to Conan Doyle, adapting scenes from the stories that rarely, if ever, appeared in other versions. Starring Vasily Livanov as Holmes and Vitaly Solomin as Watson the series was hugely popular in the former Soviet Union and Livanov was awarded an honorary MBE (Member of the Order of the British Empire) for his portrayal of the Great Detective.
The Hound of the Baskervilles stays particularly true to the source material. All the usual plot elements are present and correct (the visit from Dr Mortimer (Yevgeny Steblov), Watson spending much of the story investigating on his own in Dartmoor, the “gigantic hound” putting in a last minute appearance) and neither Maslennikov or his co-writer Yuri Veksler are in a particular hurry to rush things along. Fans of recent, more frenetic takes on Holmes and Watson might find the pacing off putting but for those looking for the most faithful adaptation of The Hound might well have found what they were waiting for here. The attention to detail is impressive – Holmes’ tobacco is back in the slipper where it belongs, the post boxes and post offices are all marked “V R” (Victoria Regina) and there’s even room for a rare on-screen sighting of young Cartwright, Holmes’ youthful eyes on the street, and his father Wilson.
Holmesians might find Livanov an odd choice for Holmes but he’s undeniably effective. Rather shorter and more slight than we might be used to in our Holmes’, he’s also a more convivial character, as prone to outbursts of hearty laughter as to moments of moody introspection. His genuine joy at being reunited with Watson on Dartmoor is an unexpectedly touching moment. But the show is stolen – as it is throughout the series – by Solomin as Watson. Resourceful, restrained and a very long way from the blustering fool of Nigel Bruce, Solomin’s Watson is as Conan Doyle wrote him, not quite Holmes’ equal but certainly no slouch when it comes to intellect, courage and wit. Nikita Mikhalkov’s Sir Henry Baskerville is perhaps a tad more exuberant than he needs to be and Maslennikov’s decision to play him and Barrymore (Aleksandr Adabashyan) as the comic relief is one of this Hound‘s few minor mis-steps. The rest of the cast (Rina Zelyonaya as a very funny Mrs Hudson, Borislav Brondukov as Lestrade, Irina Kupchenko as Beryl Stapleton, Alla Demidova as Laura Lyons, Sergey Martinson as Frankland and Oleg Yankovsky as Stapleton) are all very good and play their characters much as we’d expect them.
The real stars of any adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles of course are the eponymous beast and the bleak wastes of Dartmoor. Here, the hound is seen only fleetingly but is genuinely creepy – it’s a simple take on the monster, a Great Dane with a phosphorescent skull painted on its face – but it’s brief appearance at the climax does indeed suggest a hound from Hell, a truly terrifying creature that one can easily understand becoming the much-feared thing of local myth and legend. The two-parter never really escapes the fact that not a single second of it was filmed anywhere near Britain but the unusual landscapes used to represent the moors are all a part of its charm. It must be said that this is the most extraordinarily noisy Dartmoor ever captured on film – what on Earth are all those nocturnal birds and animals making that terrible racket every night? But the final pursuit of Stapleton across the bleak, fog-shrouded expanse is wonderfully atmospheric. The moors are certainly better represented than the streets of London – a back street in Riga makes for a distinctive but not at all convincing Baker Street.
Another considerable attraction is the stunning photography of Dmitri Dolinin and Vladimir Ilyin – the aforementioned final chase across the moors is matched – surpassed even – by a fantastically moody shot of what we later learn is Holmes silhouetted atop a rocky crag against a full moon. The score by Vladimir Dashkevich is less consistently impressive. His main title theme was composed to deliberately sound like a piece of music used by the BBC World Service (he believed that it would help cement a feeling of Britishness in the audience) and while his incidental score has some lovely moments, there are some oddities, notably a rather jaunty and anachronistic guitar motif that crops up at least a couple of times too often.
But for all its minor niggles, Sobaka Baskerviley is a hugely impressive piece of work. Its fidelity to the word as well as the spirit of the original by necessity means that the plot unfolds more leisurely than some might find comfortable but for those looking for an adaptation that hews as closely to the original as it’s possible to get this won’t disappoint. Livanov and Solomin may be the very image of Holmes and Watson in Eastern European countries but are less likely to come to mind when Western audiences think of the pair. the series is now available on a series of DVDs and hopefully in time their stature will grow and they’ll take their rightful places among the pantheon of great screen Holmes’ and Watsons.
The EOFFTV Review 