The Hound of the Baskervilles (Priklyucheniya Sherloka Kholmsa i doktora Vatsona: Sobaka Baskerviley)

LENFILM

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES AND DR. WATSON

ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

Part One

Starring

SHERLOCK HOLMES - Vasily Livanov

DR. WATSON - Vitaly Solomin

Mrs. Hudson - Rina Zelenaya

Also...

Irina Kupchenko, Nikita Mikhalkov,

Alla Demidova, Svetlana Kruchkova

Alexandr Adabashian, Borislav Brondukov

Sergei Martinson, Evgeny Steblov

Oleg Yankovsky

O. Belov, D. Bessonov, O. Palmov

A. Hudeyev, R. Chirov and others

Well, Watson, what do you make of this stick?

I believe you have eyes in the back of your head.

My dear friend, if you read my treatise on organs of perception of detectives...

...you would know that they have got special heat receptors at the tips of their ears.

Which is to say I do not have eyes in the back of my head.

He can see your reflection in the coffee-pot.

To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C. H...

...and the date "1884".

What do you make of the owner of the stick?

I think that Dr. Mortimer is an elderly medical man.

I suppose he is...

...a country practitioner. - Why so?

Because this stick, though originally a very handsome one

has been so knocked about that I can hardly imagine a town practitioner carrying it.

And then again, there is the engraving.

I should guess that the letters "C.H." Probably stand for the local...

...hunting club.

Dear Watson, you have mastered my method of deductions but

I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were erroneous.

A presentation like this to a doctor is more likely to come from a Hospital.

The letters 'C.C.H.'

Make me think of "Charing Cross Hospital".

- You may be right, you may be right. - Let's move a step forward.

A doctor who is well-established in a London practice would not drift into the country.

More likely he was a house-surgeon or a senior student.

He left London 5 years ago - the date is on the stick.

So, my dear Watson, your grave, middle-aged family practitioner vanishes into thin air.

And there emerges an amiable young fellow...

under thirty, unambitious, absent-minded,

As only an absent-minded man could wait a whole hour in our room

and then leave his stick. And he...

...is very fond of his dog.

Judging by marks of its teeth on the stick...

it is larger than a terrier...

...and smaller than a mastiff.

As to the latter part, there are no means of checking it.

Elementary, my friend. It is a curly-haired spaniel.

- A spaniel? Did you say a curly-haired spaniel? - Exactly, a spaniel.

You insist on it being a spaniel?

Mr. Holmes, your yesterday's visitor is here.

Yesterday he left his stick and today he has brought his dog with him.

I am so very glad!

I was not sure whether I had left it here or in the Shipping Office.

- A presentation? - Yes.

- From Charing Cross Hospital? - From my colleagues on the occasion of my marriage.

Dear, dear, that's bad.

I had hardly expected, Mr. Holmes...

so dolichocephalic a skull

or such well-marked supra-orbital development.

Your skull would be an ornament to any anthropological museum.

I am flattered.

I consider you the second highest expert in Europe...

Indeed, sir! May I inquire who has the honor to be the first?

To the man of scientific mind the work of Monsieur Bertillon must always appeal strongly.

But as a practical man of affairs it is acknowledged that you stand alone.

I trust, sir, that I have not inadvertently...

Just a little.

I have in my pocket a manuscript. It is an old manuscript.

Early eighteenth century, unless it is a forgery.

Amazing! How can you say that, sir?

You have presented an inch or two of it

...to my examination all the time that you have been talking.

I put that at...

...1740. - The exact date is 1742!

This is a family treasure.

It was committed to my care by Sir Charles Baskerville,

whose sudden and tragic death some three months ago created...

...so much excitement in Devonshire.

I was a personal friend as well as a medical attendant to sir Charles.

He was a strong-minded man, shrewd, and practical man.

Yet he took this document very seriously.

The manuscript is very short. With your permission I will read it to you.

Of the origin of the Hound of the Baskervilles there have been many statements.

Yet as I come in a direct line from Hugo Baskerville...

...and as I had the story from my father, who also had it from his,

I have set it down as is here set forth.

And I would have you believe, my sons, that no ban is so heavy

but that by prayer and repentance it may be removed.

It chanced that our ancestor Hugo came to love

(if, indeed, so dark a passion may be known under so bright a name)

The daughter of a neighboring yeoman. One dark night he stole down upon the farm

and carried off the maiden, her father and brothers being from home, as he well knew.

The maiden was placed in an upper chamber, while Hugo and his friends drank downstairs.

In the stress of her fear the lass did a desperate thing.

By the aid of the growth of ivy she came down from under the eaves,

and so homeward across the moor towards her father's farm.

Some little time later Hugo left his guests to visit his captive alone,

but found the cage empty and the bird escaped.

Then, he became as one that hath a devil.

Hugo ordered to put the hounds upon her and off went the pack.

Hugo got into the saddle and followed the dogs across the moors.

Revelers were unable to quickly understand what the haste was about.

Finally the whole of them took horse and started in pursuit.

They had gone a mile or two when the drunken squires came upon the hounds.

These, though known for their valor, were whimpering in a cluster around the horses.

The company had come to a halt. The torches lit upon a clearing,

and there in the center lay the dead maiden.

And then hair rose upon the heads of the sobered daredevils.

Standing over Hugo, and plucking at his throat, there was a foul thing.

It was a great, black beast, shaped like a hound.

The beast turned its blazing eyes...

...and dripping jaws upon them.

None of them remembered how he got home.

To that Providence, my sons, I hereby commend you, and I counsel you

by way of caution to forbear from crossing the moor in those dark hours

when the powers of evil are exalted.

Do you not find it interesting, Mr. Holmes?

It is... to a collector of ancient tales.

Now then, Mr. Holmes. This is the Devon County Chronicle

of May 14th of this year with a short account of the facts

elicited at the death of Sir Charles Baskerville.

The death of Sir Charles Baskerville,

whose name has been mentioned as the probable Liberal candidate for

Mid-Devon at the next election, has cast a gloom over the county.

Being himself childless and single, it was sir Charles's openly expressed desire

that the whole countryside should, within his own lifetime, profit by his good fortune.

And many will have personal reasons for bewailing his untimely end.

On the basis of the post-mortem examination

coroner's jury returned a verdict of sudden death from natural causes.

So what?

Quiet, Snoopy.

I don't believe one single word of it!

While I was examining the body in the yew alley, I noticed footprints.

A man's or a woman's?

They were the footprints...

...of a gigantic hound.

Did any one else see them?

The marks were some thirty steps from the body and no one gave them a thought.

I don't suppose I should have paid attention to them had I not known this legend.

- You say the footprints were very large? - Enormous.

- But they did not approach the body? - No.

I understand that the yew hedge is penetrated at the far end by a gate?

Yes, the wicket-gate leads on to the moor.

Now, tell me, Dr. Mortimer, and this is important,

Were those the only marks besides those of Sir Charles?

No, there were also the footprints left by his butler Barrymore, who found the body.

You interest me exceedingly.

Another point. Was the wicket-gate closed?

Not only closed, but padlocked.

Was anything found by the wicket-gate?

It's hard to discern anything on the well-trampled snow.

Sir Charles had evidently stood by the wicket-gate for five or ten minutes.

How do you know that?

Because the ash had twice dropped from his cigar.

Did you examine the body?

No evidence of violence.

And the post-mortem?

- A long-standing organic disease of the heart. - We shall take up this case.

Mr. Holmes, there is a realm in which the detectives and the police are helpless.

Local people told me that before the tragic death of Sir Charles

some of them had seen a terrible creature upon the moor

which corresponds exactly to the hell-hound of the legend.

I assure you that there is a reign of terror in the district.

In a modest way I have combated evil, but to take on...

the Father of Evil himself would, perhaps, be too ambitious a task.

What exactly are you asking me to do?

I haven't requested anything of you so far.

Why then, have you come here, Dr. Mortimer?

To get advice.

Tell me, what I should do with Sir Henry Baskerville

who arrives at Waterloo Station in exactly...

...one hour and a quarter.

- He being the heir? - Yes, he arrives from Canada.

There is no other claimant?

Sir Henry is the last of the Baskervilles.

We shall be waiting for you and the heir.

And don't frighten sir Henry in advance.

My late husband used to say that this one was the most detailed atlas of Britain.

Here in this volume you'll find Devonshire.

- Thank you. You are so considerate. - That's true.

Has you visitor left his cane again?

This is the place that interests us.

That is Baskerville Hall in the middle.

With a wood around it, mark it.

The yew alley is not marked here,

But I fancy it must stretch along this line, with the moor, upon the right of it.

This small clump of buildings here is the hamlet of Grimpen

where, I take it, our friend Dr. Mortimer

has his headquarters.

Then about fourteen miles away...

Right here

the great convict prison of Princetown.

There are only a very few scattered dwellings.