Brief note: The Hound of the Baskervilles (1981)

Specifically, the Vasili Livanov/Vitali Solomin Hound of the Baskervilles (Sobaka Baskerviley), which we're discussing in the Sherlock Holmes and adaptation course next week.  One of the telefilm's most striking revisions of the original comes in its treatment of Sir Henry Baskerville.  Sir Henry, as Holmes fans will recall, has spent most of his life out in the wilds of the USA and Canada before returning to take up his place as heir to the Hall; he's certainly rather less polished than his English counterparts, but "there was something in his steady eye and the quiet assurance of his bearing which indicated the gentleman" (ch. 4).  Arguably, the moment in which he casually hands over his "old wardrobe" to Barrymore, as his new English clothes have been delivered (ch. 8), counts as a subtle moment of naturalization: the Americanized Englishman returns to his proper roots, despite his desire to update Baskerville Hall to the latest American technological standards.  Nevertheless, as is frequently the case in the Holmes stories, the outsider doesn't fare well at the plot's hands: the gentleman winds up with "shattered nerves" (ch. 15) and must make a global grand tour before he can once again begin to think of his grand plans for modernizing Baskerville Hall.  (In that sense, he's a reverse Watson--Watson, after all, begins the series in a bad way, thanks to his time abroad.)   

The Russian Sir Henry is no gentleman at all.  He enters the story loud, impolite, appallingly dressed (a gigantic fur coat), and carrying...a saddle.  (Quipped one reviewer, "Overacting doesn't come much better.")   He puts his feet up on the table.  He's a sloppy drunk (and is drunk for a good chunk of the film).  Indeed, he's the source of most of the film's comic relief, whether it be his would-be efforts to dress up as a proper English gentleman, or his running battle with Barrymore over the locked drinks cabinet.  In a particularly bizarre moment, he lets off steam by galloping around the moors in a set of Western chaps while shooting off his pistol--a transplanted cowboy stereotype.  (Or, as another reviewer marveled, an "over-the-top cowboy motif and a bonhomie verging on psychosis.")   In other words, the film never propels us towards thinking about Sir Henry as carrying even the potential for revitalizing the decaying Hall; indeed, he conspicuously fails as an authority figure, as his inability to properly handle Barrymore implies, and his consistently bizarre behavior suggests that he cannot be rescued for proper "Englishness."  The comic ending is, in its execution, exceptionally creepy.  Sir Henry, bedridden and voiceless, is infantilized by Barrymore's chattering wife, who baby-talks him while feeding him the English "cereal" (porridge) he loathes; eventually, he smiles back at her and obediently eats his cereal, while Dr. Mortimer and Barrymore look on approvingly.  The would-be aristocrat becomes an overgrown child--the condition in which he has, it seems, really existed all along, enabled by his wealth.  In this 80s-era Russian translation, revitalizing the aristocratic traditions of the Hall is not, then, the way forward...