Some Thoughts on Character: Sir Henry Baskerville

“…the clock had just struck ten when Dr. Mortimer was shown up, followed by the young baronet.  The latter was a small, alert, dark-eyed man about thirty years of age, very sturdily built, with thick black eyebrows and a strong, pugnacious face.  He wore a ruddy-tinted tweed suit and had the weather-beaten appearance of one who has spent most of his time in the open air, and yet there was something in his steady eye and the quiet assurance of his bearing which indicated the gentleman” (HOUN).

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle resurrected Sherlock Holmes with The Hound of the Baskervilles, which is reason enough to make it a favorite canon story with many people.  Even if a person has read no other Sherlock Holmes story, he or she most likely read HOUN (or a selection from it) in a high school English class, during a book club, or at the behest of a particularly insistent relative.  Doyle himself termed the story “a real Creeper,” and as Christopher Redmond points out in the Sherlock Holmes Handbook (Second Edition), “…the dominant colors in this story are the black and white of night, the grey of uncertainty, and the green of the moor’s vegetation.  Somehow this grim environment has appealed to Sherlockians…” (24).  The spectral hound and his gruesome errand hold a universal appeal, which keeps readers returning to Dartmoor over and over, on the page and screen.

The plot of HOUN revolves around the young Sir Henry Baskerville, who has inherited his family’s estate and immense fortune, after the suspicious death of his uncle, Sir Charles.  Sir Henry returns to England from Canada, where he has been farming, and immediately finds himself embroiled in a complex and dangerous plot against his family legacy, and his own life.  The baronet has been played by a wide range of actors over the years, including Richard Greene, Christopher Lee, Nikita Mikhalkov, Kristoffer Tabori, and Jason London.  The production team behind “Sherlock” has announced a modern reinterpretation of HOUN in the second season of the show, and fans are eager to see how the role of Sir Henry will be filled in a 21st century capacity.  The character of Sir Henry Baskerville embodies all the characteristics necessary to propel the plot of the novel forward, and therefore stands on equal footing with Sherlock Holmes or Doctor Watson.  Sir Henry is not solving mysteries, but he is the foundation of one.  He moves the story even more so than the legendary hound that stalks him from across the moor.

To begin with, Sir Henry appears to be almost utterly fearless.  When he is finally completely informed of the situation that awaits him at Baskerville Hall, and the dangers that have been dogging him since he set foot in London, Sir Henry’s response is only to say: “There is no devil in hell, Mr. Holmes, and there is no man upon earth who can prevent me from going to the home of my own people, and you may take that to be my final answer.”  If Sir Henry had chosen that moment to refuse to return to Baskerville Hall—a not unreasonable notion in light of everything he has learned—then there simply would have been no mystery, and no story.  He could have liquidated the Baskerville real estate and claimed the financial assets while in London, or from other safer country.  Indeed, if Jack Stapleton had succeeded in his plot, the villain could have attempted to lay claim to the Baskerville fortune from the safety of Costa Rica—which begs the question of why Sir Henry could not have done the same, and why he returned to England at all.

Early on, the reader learns from Dr. Mortimer that Sir Henry had been farming in Canada, prior to his uncle’s death.  And while farming is not necessarily an occupation conducted in total isolation, it is rather strenuous and difficult; furthermore, he is separated from what little remains of his family, and from familiar country, by a vast ocean.  According to Redmond, “In Holmes’s time Canada was still, in British eyes at least, a colony; young Henry Baskerville went there to farm, but had no hesitation about returning to the motherland when his time came” (173).  Basil Rathbone’s 1939 version of HOUN starring Richard Greene as Sir Henry, makes a point of showing a newspaper clipping bearing news of the baronet’s return to England from Canada (the latter country’s name emphasized in a large, bold typeface) as if Sir Henry were a foreigner, returning from some exotic distant locale.  But in truth, he is merely a loyal soldier, returning to his home port for a new assignment.      

In a similar vein, the young Baskerville is also a herald of progress and change.  Upon surveying his new home, and lonely isolation of Dartmoor, he proclaims: "It's no wonder my uncle felt as if trouble were coming on him in such a place as this…It's enough to scare any man.  I'll have a row of electric lamps up here inside of six months, and you won't know it again, with a thousand-candlepower Swan and Edison right here in front of the hall door.”  Such an addition would offset the gloom of Dartmoor in both a literal and a more metaphorical sense.  Watson describes the moors and the country of Baskerville Hall as gloomy and barren, an isolated country:

“We had left the fertile country behind and beneath us.  We looked back on it now, the slanting rays of a low sun turning the streams to threads of gold and glowing on the red earth new turned by the plough and the broad tangle of the woodlands.  The road in front of us grew bleaker and wilder over huge russet and olive slopes, sprinkled with giant boulders.  Now and then we passed a moorland cottage, walled and roofed with stone, with no creeper to break its harsh outline.  Suddenly we looked down into a cuplike depression, patched with stunted oaks and firs which had been twisted and bent by the fury of years of storm. Two high, narrow towers rose over the trees. The driver pointed with his whip.

’Baskerville Hall,’ said he.”

The arrival of Sir Henry and his electric lights demonstrates a rush towards modernity.  Baskerville Hall will no longer exist in a darkness and gloom; Dartmoor will abandon its technological isolation.  And Sir Henry will no longer feel as if he has “walked right into the thick of a dime novel.”

Finally, the mystery of HOUN hinges upon Sir Henry’s utter wholesomeness, and sense of traditional propriety.  As Redmond states, “In The Hound of the Baskervilles, much of the dramatic complexity comes from the relations between the sexes: the apparently wholesome attraction between Sir Henry Baskerville and Beryl Stapleton, the sadomasochistic relationship between Beryl and Jack Stapleton…” (64).  Sir Henry’s pursuit of Beryl Stapleton is remarkably proper and respectable, especially given the sinister motivations that dwell just below of the surface of their courtship. 

Surely if the baronet had known that Miss Stapleton was, in fact, Mrs. Stapleton, and that Jack Stapleton was not the young woman’s brother, but her husband, he would have been a bit less affectionate in his description of her: “I tell you, Watson, I’ve only known her these few weeks, but from the first I just felt that she was made for me, and she, too–she was happy when she was with me, and that I’ll swear.  There’s a light in a woman’s eyes that speaks louder than words.”  Indeed, if Sir Henry had been a bit less proper, had pressed his hand or taken advantage of his position a bit more forcefully, Beryl Stapleton may had felt inclined to reveal all (or at least crucial elements) of the machinations of her brother/husband that much sooner.  Sir Henry’s respectability and traditional values are ultimately what keeps the plot of HOUN moving.

I’ve spoken elsewhere about whether or not Sherlock Holmes exists in a vacuum, and whether or not his character creates enough momentum to propel a narrative forward on his own.  Sometimes the Great Detective creates enough force to drive other characters—Dr. Watson, Inspector Lestrade, the Irregulars—into action, which may or may not create the desired consequences.  Sir Henry Baskerville is different, however.  He is already a force in his own right when he enters the narrative of HOUN; he is already acting and being acted upon.  In many ways, Sherlock Holmes is caught up in the momentum of the youngest Baskerville, moved along by the violent current.

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Sources:

• Redmond, Christopher.  Sherlock Holmes Handbook (Second Edition), Dundurn Press, September 2009.

Sherlock Holmes on Screen: "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (2002), and "Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking" (2004)

In recent months, if anyone mentions “Sherlock Holmes” and “BBC” in the same sentence, thoughts immediately turn to Benedict Cumberbatch, Martin Freeman, pink suitcases, and blind bankers.  But in 2002, the BBC launched the first of two new Sherlock Holmes made-for-television films, beginning with an adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles, and two years later, an original mystery called Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking.  Both scripts were written by Allan Cubitt.   

Ian Hart, who is perhaps most recognizable from his roles as Professor Quirrell from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and, appropriately, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle from Finding Neverland, appears in both films as Dr. John Watson.  The role of Sherlock Holmes is filled by Richard Roxburgh in 2002, and Rupert Everett, in 2004.

These two films successfully conjure up the images of the young men that Holmes and Watson undoubtedly were at the onset of their partnership, unlike the old men as whom they are so often portrayed.  Hart’s Watson is much more the iron-willed, former solider that most Sherlockians prefer to see, and both films make excellent use of setting and atmosphere.  Therefore, the problems with both films hinge on the erratic and unpredictable interactions between Hart’s Watson and his accompanying Holmes; and also on Holmes’s likewise unpredictable and erratic drug use.

·         The Hound of the Baskervilles (2002); Starring Richard Roxburgh and Ian Hart

Perhaps more than any other canon story, the dramatic tension in HOUN is dependent on setting and the 2002 adaptation excels immediately in this respect as it was filmed on the Isle of Man, in order to replicate the moody and atmospheric setting of Dartmoor.  According to Jack Tranter, who was BBC Controller of Drama in 2002, “…[in 1901, when the film is set] London is welcoming in a new age of electric light and internal combustion engines while the moorland of Dartmoor is like the wild west—bleak, inhospitable, and lawless” (Davies 188).    

Yet despite the film’s relatively close adherence to the plot of Doyle’s original novel, the film lacks something that is not directly related to the narrative.  In effect, Roxburgh and Hart lack chemistry, and as a result, the film lacks the warm friendship between Holmes and Watson that is so often crucial to the success of Sherlock Holmes stories.  According to David Stuart Davies, author of Starring Sherlock Holmes: A Century of the Master Detective on Screen, “This [lack of chemistry] is due perhaps to the way their relationship is presented in the script.  It is laced with cynicism, mistrust, and constant bickering.  Watson’s last words to Holmes in the movie are, ‘No, I don’t trust you’” (189).  In portraying Dr. Watson, Hart is humorless and ill-tempered, and there is little about his attitude that explains why he would have put up with Sherlock Holmes and his antics for so many years.  Hart’s Watson may have been long-suffering at one point, but at the time of this version of HOUN, he is a kettle about to boil over.

Richard Roxburgh’s Great Detective is similarly unpleasant, described in The Observer as “insipid and unlikeable.”  His performance is often cold and confusing, an impression not helped by Holmes’s random drug use throughout the film.  For example, he slams a door in Watson’s face before dosing himself (just after Dr. Mortimer’s initial visit), and later, injects himself with cocaine in the train station bathroom, just before the film’s climax. As Davies correctly points out, “This is in direct contradiction of Doyle’s use of the detective’s drug habit, which manifested itself only when he was bored and there was no mystery on hand to occupy his mind.  While on a case, he needed no further stimulation” (188-9). 

Indeed, if the writers were going to incorporate Holmes’s canonical drug use into the film, they couldn’t have chosen two more unlikely moments.  In Eliminate the Impossible: An Examination of the World of Sherlock Holmes on Page and Screen, Alistair Duncan posits that these scenes were an attempt to keep Sherlock Holmes more in line with 21st century perceptions (that Holmes's drug use was casual, and not calculated), rather than the way the Detective actually was (15).  The battle between modern perception and canonical reality would carry-over into the BBC’s next Sherlock Holmes film, in 2004.

·         Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking (2004); Starring Rupert Everett and Ian Hart

The London of this 2004 Sherlock Holmes film seems to be permanently enshrouded in fog.  Whenever any character steps outside, they are enveloped in a thick peasouper that distorts all faces and scenery.  However, rather than summoning the spirit of the Sherlock Holmes’s London, which appears to be the intended purpose, it comes across as a mere parody—the London that uninformed viewers expect, rather than what is true.  The same goes for Dr. Watson’s American fiancé “Mrs. Vandeleur,” played by Helen McCrory (recently seen as Narcissa Malfoy in the latest Harry Potter films).  She speaks with a non-regional American accent, and has a rather obnoxious habit of referring to the Great Detective as “Sherlock”; she freely discusses sexual deviancies over tea (under the auspices of her career as a psychoanalyst), and has committed the ultimate crime of convincing Watson to dress down for dinner.  Perhaps the fog is a metaphor for the mystery in which Holmes is embroiled (Davies 192); and perhaps Mrs. Vandeleur is a stab at “English stuffiness or American informality” (Duncan 231).  But the overall impression is more heavy-handed: London is drab and grey; Americans are boorish and unrefined.   

Hart’s portrayal of Dr. Watson remains disagreeable and angry, and Everett, as the new Sherlock Holmes, often seems morally dubious—even slipping into a young woman’s bedroom as she sleeps when he needs her assistance.  To his credit, “Physically, [Everett] has a look and manner of [Jeremy] Brett about him: he is tall, dark, handsome, with saturnine features and a prominent nose, but producer Elinor Day was of the opinion that he was more like [Basil] Rathbone” (Davies 192).  Holmes and Watson seem to spend very little time on screen together, and when they do, a significant portion of their time is spent arguing, sniping, or largely ignoring each other.

Also at issue here, as in Roxburgh’s 2002 performance, is Sherlock Holmes’s drug use.  The film opens with Holmes smoking in an opium den, a lascar at his elbow.  We later learn that he had been absent from Baker Street nearly three days.  Opium is not at all Holmes’s drug of choice, and in the canon only uses it one time as a part of a disguise: “I suppose, Watson…that you imagine that I have added opium-smoking to cocaine injections, and all the other little weaknesses on which you have favoured me with your medical views” (TWIS).  Again, in this film we also see Holmes’s injecting himself with cocaine in the middle of a case, presumably when he would have the least need of it.

Making an appearance as George Pentney is Jonathan Hyde, who previously starred in the 1994 version of “The Dying Detective,” as Culverton Smith.  In addition, Eleanor David, who plays Mary Pentney, was featured in the 1986 version of “The Man with the Twisted Lip,” as Mrs. St. Clair.

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Ultimately, it takes more than a canonically accurate mystery, or even a compellingly original one, to make a successful Sherlock Holmes film.  Dr. Watson isn’t likeable if all he does is bitterly follow Holmes around; he must, at least, do it with enthusiasm, not resentment.  And the ability to be successful as Sherlock Holmes means more than being possessed of height, dark hair, and aquiline features (though it certainly doesn’t hurt, in my opinion).  It’s about elements that sit outside the boundaries of plot structure.

It's certainly improbable, though not impossible, that a Sherlock Holmes film will ever be made that adheres to every single canonical detail that Sherlockians would love to see.  But there is a measure of foundation that is required to keep such a film upright, if you will.  The manner in which Holmes’s mind works (and the way he uses drugs to augment it) is part of that foundation.  And the relationship between Holmes and Watson is undoubtedly the other part.   

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For more on this subject, see Alistair Duncan’s article on “Screen Chemistry & Canonical Fidelity.”