The Missing Hound of the Baskervilles

Hi Woodsy

There just does not seem to be anything around in the way of Hound of the Baskervilles toys - not a Hellhound in sight. The only thing I came up with was a three-figure set by King & Country, consisting of Holmes with a revolver, Dr. Watson with a rifle, and the Hound.

King and Country is a modern maker of metal figures for collectors, based in Hong Kong. They are 1/30th scale, or a bit over the usual 54mm size, and come painted.

They do a number of Sherlock Holmes figures and sets, which are listed on their website under World of Dickens. Not the first place you would look.

Very high quality, but also very expensive. They are not toys.

https://www.kingandcountry.com/1/WsProductList.php?catg_id=685

Why did Aurora never make a kit of the monstrous Hound ? I have no idea - it would really have suited their Glow-in-the-Dark horror kit line.

Here is an old Moonbase Central post on the subject, from 2021.

https://projectswordtoys.blogspot.com/2021/02/the-hound-of-baskervilles.html

It looks like you will have to make your own Hellhound, by re-painting an existing model or toy. Most toy dogs are just too friendly looking, but there is always a wolf or even a hyena.

Schleich do some large fantasy models, one of which I bought some time ago with the idea of doing a re-paint. I really must get around to that.

Top photo of the King and Country set from Worthpoint

Paul Adams from New Zealand

Broadway, Baskervilles and Goodbye to the Exe

Well, our hols are more or less over. We are en route to God's own county (Yorkshire!) but have broken the journey in half, overnighting in Broadway in the Cotswolds, half hour from the M5 motorway and the final two hour stretch home tomorrow.

Broadway is a long Cotswolds village, peppered with mansions and listed sandstones. James Martin has an old huge gastro pub here. It's an affluent place but we still found four charity shops, from which I sadly garnered nowt.

We stayed here one Winter years ago, twinkling with Christmas lights and decidedly quiet, where we visited Snowshill house.

Not so today. It's rammed to the Grade 1 rafters with tourists: big coaches of Japanese folks on a grand tour and fleets of slick black SUV's housing retired couples in loafers and pastel pullovers draped over svelte shoulders. The difference is startling. It's a honeypot of dosh.

Being retirees ourselves we have retired to our room in an old, modest, crooked inn, kaput and ready for our evening grub at 7pm. Hopefully we'll have scoffed and retired once more before the football starts on the pub telly when England take on Holland and things get tense.

In our cozy room is this old print hung on the wall. It immediately reminded me of one of my favourite Hammer horrors, the Hound of the Baskervilles and the opening scenes, where the jilted Baron, hell-bent on revenge, screams that immortal line,

'Release the hounds!'

Sherlock Holmes aka Peter Cushing eventually solves the case but only in the nick of time, the current Baron coming frighteningly close to the sulphurous maw of the Hell Hound.

It was a true shocker when I was a kid and only shown post-watershed after 9pm. These days I've watched it mid-afternoon on the telly!

I was always surprised there wasn't more merchandising made of the story. I can't recall any games, jigsaws or toys at all. It would have made a great Aurora model, especially the glow-in-the-dark feature, perfect for the beast's fiery jaws.

Maybe Sherlock Holmes licences were difficult for model and toy companies to acquire?

I do recall thinking about the Baskerville curse as we drove through Devon's darkling lands between the Exe and the Dart and in particular heeding the warning at its heart

'to forbear from crossing the moor in those dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted.'

Do you have a hellish hound near you?

THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES

I'm currently re-reading the Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle. Its a novel I return to at least once every couple of years. Yep, I like the hound a lot.

In fact its the only Conan Doyle book I've ever read despite owning several different copies of the Lost World with the formidable Professor Challenger.

My first encounter with the Baskerville hound, like many of my generation I suspect, was the 1959 Hammer horror film starring Peter Cushing and Andre Morell. Its depiction of the deranged Hugo Baskerville at the start stayed with me, especially his dreadful call to 'release the pack' on the unfortunate village girl who escapes from the Hall only to perish on the Moor. 

It was and is a terrific film and Peter Cushing's depiction of Sherlock Holmes, along with Morell's Dr. Watson, remained my favourite movie adaptation until I saw a modern version from 2002 with Richard Roxburgh and Ian Hart. This is truly fine film-making and I always enjoy seeing it again and again. 

There are countless TV and film versions of the Hound and I admit I have yet to see many of them including the famous Basil Rathbone outing. There are films akin to the spirit of the curse too and one that springs to mind is the Brotherhood of the Wolf, which struck me as a similar and equally exciting period piece mixing moorlands and hell hound werewolves. 

Hammer's own screen Hound was part of that genre-defining flurry of late fifties/ early sixties films they made, directed by the likes of Terence Fisher, which helped to spark the monster craze in Britain, when monster mania landed on our shores from America, itself kicked off by Forry Ackerman's Famous monsters of Filmland and Universal's re-run of classic monster movies. I adored the monster craze and it made me who I am today and who I've always been. A monster nut. 

Despite its obvious horror chops and Hammer credentials, the Baskerville Hound never made it as a toy or game as far as I can tell. I certainly didn't have any merchandise as a kid. I know there was a comic version done, maybe Classics Illustrated who covered Frankenstein too. The Hound would have made a great Aurora model kit, the crazed mastiff drooling over Hugo Baskerville on the moors. But we will all have favourite books and films which we think Aurora should have captured in plastic I'm sure - what's yours I wonder readers?

There are some Baskerville inspired figurines I found online. Sarum Soldiers offer a small set of painted figures ....

and fellow blogger's Toy Soldier's and Dining Room Battles own custom diorama of the hell hound.

As regards books, the first edition is a thing of beauty with its gothic swirls and solid lack hound which, alas, most of us can only see online as a copy can cost a King's ransom.

My own favourite ands far more ownable is the 1961 John Murray published paperback, which I have in the Moonbase collection.

My siblings kindly got me this cool 2014 graphic novel of the tale as well for my 60th.

I couldn't find any vintage games based on the Baskerville curse, which I was surprised about. I did have this Tri-ang Sherlock Holmes board game at Moonbase for a good few years. I found it at a car boot sale and it was in excellent nick, complete with the inner tracing paper. Alas, like everything I sold it as part of a my monster and mystery board games sell-off on Ebay when I had shop. All in all a beautiful game from 1967.

So I await bedtime to read another chapter of the Hound of the Baskervilles and follow the progress of Holmes and Watson as they wander the moors at night when the powers of evil are exalted.

Are you equally Baskervilled as I am readers?

Collecting Baskervilles

Its funny how odd references can form a notion.

Last night I caught the film Enemy of the State on the box. Twenty years old and starring Will Smith it was one of those flicks about state surveillance of the public and a lost dodgy file. You know, The Pelican Brief and the Net were more of the same.

But it was seeing a young Ian Hart that surprised me. I'd seen the film before but never noticed him in what is admittedly a junior tech role.

Why my interest in Ian Hart? Well, one of my all-time favourite horror-mystery novels is The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I've collected many different versions of the book like this one

 ... and seen various adaptations on the TV. 

For a long time my number one film version was Hammer's classic starring the masterful Peter Cushing as Holmes. I have to say that a more modern film has taken the top spot of late, the 2002 TV film starring Richard Roxburgh as Holmes and yes, Ian Hart as Dr. Watson.

He plays the sleuth's companion brilliantly, cutting a dashing, diminutive figure on the moors in his tweed suit, stubbed revolver always to hand. 

There is something fascinating about the moustached Victorian gentleman-agent like Watson and for me Hart's gritty modern performance is superb.

Born in Knotty Ash, Liverpool, Hart went on to play Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself and reprised Dr. Watson once more too. He also played fellow scouser John Lennon and Prof. Quirrel in Harry Potter.

I've not seen any of these flicks nor his role as William Harrison in Longitude, an acclaimed TV series about John Harrison, genius clock maker 

By pure coincidence the birthplace of John Harrison, is down the road from Moonbase in the Yorkshire hamlet of Foulby! [my own Lancashire ancestor's were clock and barometer makers but possibly not geniuses!]

Richard Roxburgh is equally excellent as the debonair Sherlock Holmes in the 2002 movie. Is he the best one yet or are you a Rathbone or Cushing fan?

But it was only this week that my brother Steve reminded me that he'd played Dracula in Van Helsing too! How do you think he ranks as the Count?

Who'd have thought that the Baskerville Hound could be so much fun. Could there be any toys I wonder?

Which is your favourite film version? Maybe a radio series?

Have you got the book?