There are many things in life and death that we do not understand, Mr. Holmes.
Happy birthday, Peter Cushing! Tomorrow would have been the old gent's 100th, so I marked the occasion one day early by watching one of the films he made for Hammer where he was unequivocally the hero: 1959's The Hound of the Baskervilles. Not only was it Cushing's first crack at playing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic character (he would do so again in a 1968 television series and once more at the end of his career in the TV movie Sherlock Holmes and the Masks of Death), but he was also the first screen actor to play Holmes in color. Unsurprisingly, Hammer played up the horrific aspects of the story, which suited director Terence Fisher just fine, and cast Cushing's frequent co-star Christopher Lee (who's still kicking and will in fact be turning 91 on Monday) as Sir Henry, the last of the Baskervilles. At first the aristocratic Lee isn't so sure that he requires the services of a detective, let alone one so famous, but accepts that he may be in real danger when attempts start being made on his life -- and that's even before he has a chance to come face to face with the demonic dog that has apparently been hounding his family for generations.
One of the great joys of this film is watching Cushing bring Holmes's prickliness to the fore, as well as his cutting sense of humor. (He's also quite expert at needling people, which is one way to get information out of them.) As such, it's somewhat disappointing that he disappears such for a long stretch after he's been engaged, letting Dr. Watson (André Morell) take the lead on the investigation -- or so he thinks. The rest of the supporting cast is filled out by Francis De Wolff (as the family doctor who is the one who tells them about the Baskerville curse), David Oxley (as the scoundrel who brought it down on the family in the first place), John Le Mesurier (as their faithful retainer), and Marla Landi (as the hot-blooded daughter of Lee's new neighbor, bitter gentleman farmer Ewen Solon). I trust I don't need to say which one is most likely to lure the new lord of the manor to his death out on the moors, do I?