The Hound of The Baskervilles has been one of the most often adapted tales of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary sleuth, Sherlock Holmes, including films produced not just in England, but also in Italy, Russia, and here in the US.
In 1972, Universal, which produced a series of Holmes movies years earlier, gave "Baskervilles" another shot, this time as an ABC Movie of The Week, with a star studded cast including Stewart Granger (ex-The Virginian: The Men From Shiloh) as Holmes, opposite Bernard Fox, fresh from Bewitched, as Dr. John Watson. The cast also includes Alan Caillou, Sally Ann Howes ("Chitty Chitty Bang Bang"), John Williams (no, not the future Oscar winning composer, the actor best known to American audiences as the 2nd Mr. French on Family Affair), Anthony Zerbe, and William Shatner.
In the book, Dr. James Mortimer (Zerbe) recounts the origins of the Baskerville Curse, but in the movie, its origins are shown in flashback, and narrated by Watson. Shatner plays the dual role of Hugo Baskerville, in the flashback, and his descendant, George Stapleton.
You'll note that there's no credit for a composer on this picture.
ReplyDeleteThe theme music at the beginning and the end comes from Vic Mizzy's score for The Night Walker, which William Castle made some years before; the rest of the music tracks are from Universal's music library.
I don't know how - or if - Mizzy was compensated for the use of his music (which was rearranged for this film), or whether the music would have been used had ABC picked Sherlock Holmes up as a series (it was earmarked as part of a wheel to be called The Great Detectives).
I'd read about the pilots before posting the video. I'd wondered why the music wasn't credited, which was unusual.
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