redfiona99

D took me to the Mockingbird Cinema (https://mockingbirdcinema.com/MockingbirdCinema.dll/Home) because, as an indie cinema, they reshow older films sometimes.

I had seen Time Bandits before, but never in the right order. As you can imagine, it has a very different effect in the right order - it works better, despite it very much being Terry Gilliam doing the child hero's journey.

And ending it very Gilliamly. (Which I define as an ending that is sort of, if not unhappy, then lacking in comfort. I think that might be the hallmark of his films, they provide no direct comforting message.)

But at least things look interesting. (I will forgive a lot for interesting)

Writing this has made me realise how difficult I find it to describe Terry Gilliam's films and my responses to them. They're very much experiences rather than a solid thing that can be described, or certainly not by me, who, I admit, comes from the science and sense end of things rather than humanities and sensibilities. I am happier with things that are and aren't, rather than -ish, but Gilliam's films are full of -ish and questions, but I like that about them. They're full of that feeling, without trying to explain everything, as opposed to some films that aim for that and then try to explain, and that never works for me. (Spoiling my review in advance, I think that's why I did not jive with 'Everything, Everywhere, All At Once'.)

Catching up on film reviews

Wiser heads than me have written about how weird, wrong and bad it is to have Scarlett Johansson as Major Kusanagi, so I shan't be writing about that.

The thing that freaked me out was how things that the Major did in the animated film version became things that happened to her in this.

Obviously it's not a shot for shot remake but there's several scenes that are blocked to look and play out in really similar ways.

The example I'm going to use is from towards the end, so there's slight spoilers.

In the big end fight, in the animated film, already injured and knowing that interfacing with the wild killer robot guards will do her further damage, the Major chooses to plug herself in to solve the mystery.

In the equivalent scene in the live-action film, the robot plugs the Major into itself.

It's not the only example, but it's probably the clearest because of how similarly the two scenes are shot.

It gives the film (and the Major) a very different vibe than in the animated version, and I do not approve.

Batou is my favourite, but if Batou isn't my favourite in any version, that's probably a signal that I'm trying to tell you I've been kidnapped and am being held against my will.

Because L assures me that sometimes my post should be up to date and my film reviews are now running 5-6 years late.

I start with some caveats:
1 - in my comic book days, I was very much a Marvel girl. Make mine Marvel etc. The nearest I got to DC was Batman.

2 - James Gunn is one of those creative types who appears to have a direct line to my soul. He is responsible for an excessive amount of me crying in cinemas; somewhat famously, the time Guardians of the Galaxy made me cry so hard I gave L a migraine.

I have very little skin in this game (Superman) and I know that I will enjoy it anyway.

That being said, it's so nice to see a friendly Superman on screen.

I blame a mixture of Quentin Tarantino and the comics' Dark Age for the dour Supermen we have been having on the big screen recently (this applies to big screen only, the cartoons have been suitable).

Quentin Tarantino because of the whole which of Clark Kent's identities is the "real" one spiel, and everyone wanting to be an auteur like him and ape him in every possible way. (Said with affection for his films)

The Dark Age for that period of comics were everything had to be bleaker than bleak. And fellas, I understand the appeal, because those were the comics of my teenage years too. But they were a short blip in a long lifetime of the Superman character.

Superman is the best of us and happens to be an übermensch, not just an übermensch.

My "not first released in 2024" option is Galaxy Quest, which I saw at the Electric, about two weeks before it closed. Which was a real shock! The owner was perpetually threatening to close it but hadn't ever (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clm7nnyx2d5o). It just means I really need to get myself more organised to actually get back to going to the Mockingbird (https://mockingbirdcinema.com/MockingbirdCinema.dll/Home) when I get the chance.

For films released this year, I am applying my usual 4 criteria:

a – did the film do what it set out to do?
b – did it use its resources to its best ability? A £250,000 film is not going to have as good explosions as a £25,000,000 film, or it shouldn’t, and if it does, there’s something wrong with the £25,000,000 film. Basically, it's a technical merit score.
c – Intellectual satisfaction – does the film’s plot pull some really stupid move at the last moment? Does the plot rely on characters being more stupid than they are?
d – Does this work as a whole? Did it work for me? I am aware that this is the most subjective of subjective criteria!

I saw 13 films this year, 12 in the cinema and one on a plane, because the cinema-to-plane turnaround time is ridiculous nowadays. The bottom 3, which didn't make the top 10, can all be missed quite happily.

Of the 10 here, I can find something to recommend in everything down to 9, while I'd say the top 4 are actively good and Kalki 2898 AD is intriguing but that might be my lack of knowledge.

1 - Monkey Man - If we could give Dev Patel all the money he wants to make any film he wants, I would be so grateful. This was marvellous. Fills my need for arthouse violence exactly.

2 - Kneecap - I am going to caveat this one. How do you feel about about swearing, drink and drugs? If any of the above are not your thing, please skip. The politics is also ... intriguing (let's be honest, they go with 'Band banned by the UK gov' for a reason). (The politics is a whole section of the full review, a long section.)

On the other hand, other than 'oh heck, Fassbender is old enough to be playing parents', this was good. Openly, 'our story as told by a drunk', in the best sense, and DJ Provai can act (the other two, not so much but not worse than many pro-actors).

3 - The Beekeeper - Kurt Wimmer is a member of the Garth Marenghi school of writing, where subtext is for cowards. His style really works for me. The Beekeeper is a very straightforward story of good guys, bad guys, necessary bad guys and a lot of violence. They fill this out by casting a bunch of British actors in random roles (and have Josh Hutcherson being the sleaziest sleaze ever).

Catnip for me.

4 - The Count of Monte Cristo - It needed to be a mini-series. But I enjoyed what there was. Pierre Niney was excellent, I did not expect to fall for Andrea Calcavetti quite that hard and loved how they did Dantes acting as the Count.

5 - Kalki 2898 AD - The full story of how I ended up watching this will wait until the write up. Safe to say it was longer than expected, and could have done with some judicious cutting. On the other hand it felt very fresh, although how much of that is me not knowing the Mahabharata, I do not know. (It is a gap I am planning on fixing eventually)

I do find it interesting that 4 out of my top 5 are not English as their main language. Monkey Man and Kneecap (and the Count, to an extent) are also good at the way people who use more than language use their languages and flow between them.

6 - Furiosa - It wasn't as good as Fury Road (but that's a very high bar), and it did make Furiosa far too nice and cut-out how she was supporting Immortan Joe. But the images were still awesome and it does interesting things with revenge.

7 - Dune 2 - I am the problem with this. I acknowledge this. But there are three scenes I demand in any adaptation of this part of the book, and it whiffs all of them. I grant there's reasons for one of them - can I recommend SelenaK's review here - https://selenak.dreamwidth.org/1573791.html? - but I still want those scenes.

8 - Argylle - It has problems. For spoilery reasons, Bryce Dallas Howard is mildly miscast, but she's not miscast for the more important part. I would have re-edited several of the scenes that ran too long. But it's pleasingly silly, and does some fun things.

9 - The Fall Guy - This is probably better than Argylle, I just do not vibe with Ryan Gosling. The parts that are David Leitch's love letter to stunt guys, and any part that features Winston Duke, are absolute love, mind you.

10 - Venom 3

Everything above 10 has some redeeming feature. Films 10-13 have almost none of these. Venom 3 comes the top of them because while it is a pointless sequel (like film 11), I enjoyed it more than 11. Unlike film 12, I didn't consider that it might have been written by AI, because AI would be more evenly-toned. Unlike film 13, it didn't make me drunkenly rant at L, because it's just so wrong.

Also, it did have Venom Horse and Mrs Chen.

And Venom Penguin!

In 2023, I watched 12 new films in the cinema. I was on track for more, but then I broke my leg. A determination to watch Napoleon was on of the things that helped get me out of the house.

The very best film I saw last year was Blue, which I saw with ioplokon as part of the Horrorshow exhibition (https://www.somersethouse.org.uk/whats-on/the-horror-show) [fuller review of the show eventually].

If we agree that art is trying to convey experience through a medium, Blue is exceptional. It's undoubtedly one of the greatest works of art I've seen in any medium.

The chance to see things like that, so utterly better than any of this year's films (most year's films), is why I have a separate category for films not released in that year.

I was also lucky enough to see Dr. Strangelove and Grand Budapest Hotel at the Electric Cinema (https://www.electricbirmingham.com/)

For films released this year, I am applying my usual 4 criteria:

a – did the film do what it set out to do?
b – did it use its resources to its best ability? A £250,000 film is not going to have as good explosions as a £25,000,000 film, or it shouldn’t, and if it does, there’s something wrong with the £25,000,000 film. Basically, it's a technical merit score.
c – Intellectual satisfaction – does the film’s plot pull some really stupid move at the last moment? Does the plot rely on characters being more stupid than they are?
d – Does this work as a whole? Did it work for me? I am aware that this is the most subjective of subjective criteria!


1 - Polite Society

This gets both style and ridiculousness points, and extra bonus points for Eunice Huthart (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eunice_Huthart) [every girl my age wanted to be Eunice Huthart when we grew up] and introducing me to Nimra Bucha.

It also get a bonus for not being based on a pre-existing media property.

2 - Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning

If you'd told me that Mission Impossible 7 would be one of the freshest films I'd see all year I would have laughed at you. It is still a series of action set pieces barely held together with a plot and the lead villain is miscast, and everything I loved about Elsa Faust's fight choreography in Fallout (https://fulltimesportsfan.wordpress.com/2019/04/06/mission-impossible-fallout-is-solid-but-the-fight-scenes-are-exceptional/) this one got wrong.

On the otherhand Vanessa Kirby, Rebecca Ferguson, Henry Cserny and Shea Whigham's Briggs. I am so easily pleased.

3 - Across the Spiderverse
It's not Across the Spiderverse's fault it's not as good as Into the Spiderverse. Unfortunately, some of it did feel like filler when they realised that they'd made one and a half films and they needed to turn it into two.

I also really don't like cliffhangers.

4 - Guardians 3

Was it "a bit much"? Yes. Does James Gunn need someone to shout "no" at him? Yes.

On the other hand, did I go in knowing that? Yes. Did various bits of it, not least of all Teefs, break me in the way James Gunn always breaks me? Yes.

It was horrific, in a way this sort of film often isn't, but probably should be. It also had the best explanation of why I skew Marvel rather than DC - "everyone deserves a second chance."

5 - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

Could I have done without the romance? Yes. Other than that, it was pleasing Turtle-y nonsense.

6 - Antman and the Wasp: Quantumania

To return to the cake metaphor I first used for the first of the Fantastic 4 films, bad superhero films are like bad cake. Yeah, it's bad, but it's still cake. And this was only mediocre cake, not actively bad cake. I didn't like what they did with MODOK, and it was too obviously setting up Wave 4 rather than being its own film (see also my problems with Stephen Strange 1 and 2) and there wasn't enough of team minor criminal, but it was bland not bad.

7 - Indiana Jones 5

I know what they were trying to do, it just didn't work for me. Sallah steals the film entirely.

8 - Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Amongst Thieves

I am the problem with this one.

My first exposure to D&D was Neverwinter Nights so I totally squeaked when they moved around Neverwinter, and when I play that I almost always play a lady barbarian so Holga, entirely my speed, ditto Doric.

On the other hand, it was just too ironical for my tastes. I find irony fine seasoning but a poor main course.

9 - John Wick 4

The problems with John Wick 4 were accidentally caused by John Wick 3. That was a series of excellent set pieces barely held together by some excellent acting. In this one, the thread holding the action set pieces didn't work, because John spent 3 desperately trying to find the Elder, only for spoiler to happen at the start of this.

Okay, given spoiler, ragnarok is coming for the High Table. I could get behind that.

Only then they don't do that either.

The plot made no sense!!!

10 - Three Musketeers: D'Artagnan/Three Musketeers: Milady

If this ranking was just based on the acting, the set design and the lighting, these films would be in second.

The directing would have moved them down anyway (directors, we have steady cam, use it).

And then we hit the screenplay. May the good Lord grant me the self-confidence of someone who adapts one of the most popular books in the world, one which has been consistently popular since its release, and then changes every single bit of the plot.

By the end of the second film, it wasn't even suggested by Dumas anymore.

Also, given they changed everything, one of the revelations in part 2 means someone's actions in part 1 make no sense, and it's just urgh!

I can happily recommend everything down to 3, would say 4-8 depend on people's likes and dislikes, and several of them have been moved around in this ranking every time I sat down to update it, and 9 and 10 had serious flaws.

The year it came out, I named "Blinded By The Light" my favourite film of the year. I stand by that.

I have no idea if it's a good film mind you, because it just blows past good, straight past all my critical faculties.

It captures that teenage feeling of no-one understanding you except your band, in all its melodramatic glory. I mean it, that windswept scene, who hasn't felt precisely that.

Maybe that's why I love the film - the way it reflects so many of my experiences. Not just "my favourite band are the only people who understand me", but the town in economic distress ('Luton is a Four-Letter Word' indeed), the friend you shared your music with, Leicester being the escape from your rundown town, so much of it. That's before we get to Roop looking so much like A who was my mate who shared his music with me. (No, seriously, that was uncanny, and means I get guilt for not keeping in better touch with A every time I think of the film.)

The whole thing is filled with so much love, from Javed on down. Everyone is trying to get tomorrow and helpd each other as best they can (except Eliza's parents and the National Front, and fuck the National Front).

The love is everywhere - find me a scene more filled with love than the one where Javed's Mum dyes Javed's Dad's hair.

It would have been so easy to make Javed's Dad the boo-hiss disapproving Dad of legend, but he's not. He disapproves, yes, and he doesn't understand, but he's trying so hard and it's clear throughout that he loves his son. Even if he's terrible at showing it.

The other thing I really like is that Javed is not over-idealised. As it's based on an autographical book, it must have been so tempting to make Javed super-sympathetic and always right, but he isn't. He gets to be mean, throughtless and selfish at times. He's a teenager and feels like it. I also like that, unlike a lot of other Bildungsroman-type films, Javed grows through his own experiences and not the suffering of others.

In short, I loved it.

You'll notice this top 10 is lacking one film. That's because I didn't see 10 new releases in 2022. The cinema had two things working against it in summer, excellent weather and the Commonwealth Games, and then the end of November/start of December when I would normally have caught up, I was taken out by the cold that knocked me sideways for 3 weeks (yes, it was just a cold, no, I have no explanation).

This means I've not seen Black Panther 2 yet, which I aim to remedy shortly. I doubt we're going to have excellent weather two years in a row, so hopefully 2023 will see me watching more films in the cinema.

I am applying my usual 4 criteria:

a – did the film do what it set out to do?
b – did it use its resources to its best ability? A £250,000 film is not going to have as good explosions as a £25,000,000 film, or it shouldn’t, and if it does, there’s something wrong with the £25,000,000 film. Basically, it's a technical merit score.
c – Intellectual satisfaction – does the film’s plot pull some really stupid move at the last moment? Does the plot rely on characters being more stupid than they are?
d – Does this work as a whole? Did it work for me? I am aware that this is the most subjective of subjective criteria!

1 - Cyrano

I cried for three quarters of this film. I am not sure I can recommend it more than that (matters were not helped by me knowing what happens next).

Sure, I have opinions on some of the changes and the marketing, but it's a joy.

(Also, I will never forgive awards ceremonies for not giving Wherever I Fall something - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHo3w5ORcdY)

2 - Parallel Mothers

The thing I like about Almodovar is he writes woman who are real in all the best, jagged ways. I have no idea what they'll do next.

I know some people find him a little too much but this is one of his good ones.

3 - Bad Guys

This is an absolute joyous delight of a film.

I love Snake the most, of course I do, and this deeply stupid joke https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_inDxb7wQ-Q got the second biggest belly laugh of the year out me.

I'm cheating slightly, because I saw this on an aeroplane, but despite a 24 hour delay to the flight, it still made me smile so much. The lady who sat next to me would also like to add her vote.

That's how good it is - it makes jetlagged strangers talk to each other.

4 - Bullet Train

D wanted to see a stupid film to keep him amused for a couple of hours. This filled that gap.

Is it good? I don't know. But it is enjoyable.

The Boomslang's character card got the biggest belly laugh of the year.

5 - Everything Everywhere All At Once

This one is actually probably me being the problem. Like, I love the idea of it, and the execution of it (and the rock universe), but mindless positivity annoys me as much as mindless negativity.

6 - Dr Strange in the Multiverse of Madness

Skipping all my spoilery comments, this was a fun film, even if it's yet another example of Strange being used as the springboard for other people's films rather than getting one of his own. (I still want Strange vs Mordo. I am never getting Strange vs Mordo. I refuse to accept this.)

7 - Spiderman: No Way Home

I am the problem with this. Nine tenths of this is solid, it's just the remaining tenth annoys me to beyond reason. And yes, it's to do with the not-quite-avunculicide.

8 - Thor: Love and Thunder

I appreciate Taika Waititi's attempt to do a Brechtian superhero film. Even if it didn't work, I appreciate the attempt. I am also deeply amused that, the things I didn't like about Thor: Ragnarok, that I got told I was being a spoilsport about, are the things everyone else who loved Ragnarok hated about Love and Thunder.

Also - killer bunny!

9 - Uncharted

This was just bad. At some point, Hollywood will have to realise that a tragic backstory does not equal characterisation.

It's a film that features a battle between airborne pirate ships and it's still the worst film I saw in the cinema last year by some way, that is how bad it is.

I did warn you all that it would be a very occasional series. There are also spoilers for the book and for the way various films and adaptations vary from the book.

There are many, many filmed versions of the Three Musketeers, and I will not cover them all.

The Three Musketeers is an interesting beast. Like all of Dumas's work, there's a deep, multifaceted story hiding underneath the action adventure headline. When they make adaptations, they tend to stick to the broad strokes of the action adventure story. Very broadly, most of the time.

That does mean that it's very easy to name the best adaptation of the Three Musketeers.



It's easy because it's the only one that passes both my basic requirements:

1 - None of the Musketeers are presented as an idiot (except you know those moments when they are in the book, D'Artagnan, you hot-headed young fool)
2 - The Cardinal is an antagonist, not a villain.

The Cardinal was very much a foundational character for me. Here we have someone who is doing his level best to defeat our heroes, and our heroes are sworn to beat him back but even they admit he is probably a better ruler than the person they're fighting for. They're only against him because they've promised to fight for the King. The Cardinal meanwhile, is a reasonable villain, he only wants what's best for France, and has no time for vendettas. He's not boo-hiss villainy and he doesn't want the crown. He just wants the King to do as he's told.

And in this film I get *that* played by Vincent Price. (He even gets a white cat to stroke sinisterly.)

All that, and excellent swordfights - give me a dancer and I can make a fine fencer out of them - and glorious technicolour and Lana Turner in glorious technicolour ... oh it's marvellous and perfect, and actually elides very little of the plot given when it was made.

A lot of other people like the Michael York/Richard Lester films but for me they fail point 1 - they make Porthos an idiot and I will not stand for this because Porthos is my favourite (please don't tell the others because they are also my favourites).

The Chris O'Donnell version fails on point 2. The Cardinal is a boo hiss villain in it - I know they had Tim Curry and temptation can be hard to resist but he can do more than just boo hiss villainy - *and* they screw up Milady. The idea of a Milady de Winter who voluntarily throws herself off a cliff misses something/everything about the character. It also messes with her death being at the hands of our heroes (or at least due to their decision to hand her over to the Axeman of Lille), and the question of "what does that make them?" It makes them our beloved, damaged broken heroes, but you know, not necessarily nice. I have had the argument in the "Dumas Club" in real life, and well, I am on Aramis's side. Although, I admit I have occasionally had problems and thought "what would the Musketeers do?" and then immediately done the opposite. As a strategy, it works.

The Logan Lerman/Paul WS Anderson version is actually solid for all that it changes a lot, and at least it passes points 1 and 2. It could do with more Porthos (Ray Stevenson as Porthos <3 <3 <3) and I have no idea what to do with a version of Athos who gets over himself (I love you really, Athos). It also has Christoph Waltz giving it quietly sinister as Richelieu and Freddie Fox as an adorbs King Louis and I am generally fonder of it than I ought to be.

Similarly changing everything but with enough charm to get away with it is the recent BBC Musketeers, which is very much in name only but I forgive them. There are also two old BBC adaptations which I have not seen but would dearly love to, one with Roger Delgado as Athos, and one with Jeremy Brett as D'Artagnan and Brian Blessed as Porthos (which my mother has raved about for my entire life, but may have suffered from the BBC wiping it).

If you want something a little different I recommend Dogtanian and the Muskehounds.



(I, like many of my generation, can sing this song word for word without excessive thought) (If you would like to hear it in a variety of languages, please see here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XQGZ_1sjjI)

Now Dogtanian does one weird thing, which is switch Athos and Porthos's characters, but none of the Musketeers are idiots and while the Cardinal is mean, he doesn't want to be king. Special note, I mean the TV show not the recent film version of this. I'm not sure why the film just didn't work for me while the TV show did but it didn't.

Avoid at all costs:

The Musketeer - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0246544/

Which is the third worst film I have ever seen.

I don't know how you make the Musketeers boring and tedious, but somehow this film manages it.

Rochefort is now mysteriously called Febre, and it Tim Roth giving it villainy (which he can do, but it just doesn't work in this film). It also has Stephen Rea as Richelieu and somehow doesn't use that to it's own advantage.

Then again, it's also a version of the Musketeers where Athos only appears in one scene and we never see the Three Inseparables together.

It's terrible and I disrecommend it utterly.

Now for something completely different:

I finish with something only partly related to the Three Musketeers, but it's thing of marvel and wonder.



Philippe Candeloro does proper fencing footwork on ice skates!!!

No, you need to understand - the number of actors in normal shoes who don't do proper footwork and he's doing it on ice skates. Technically accurate footwork on ice skates!!!

(It is also my second favourite men's programme ever. The only thing that beats it is Yagudin's Winter short programme [although Yagudin's Man in the Iron Mask is not bad either.])

Spoilers throughout

With Dark Phoenix I find myself torn because I am not sure how much of my dislike of the film was it being bad, and how much of my dislike is how close it came to being better.

I'll quickly skim through the bits I liked - Kurt being the loveliest (even if Kodi McPhee's accent continues to be made of LOL), Genosha not starting in (hell)fire and the film getting me to shout at Charles the way it wanted me to (even if I don't actually believe in the film's solution to the problem, mostly because Hank does not have the personality to be a headmaster and no-one else is alive or around).

The largest part of the problem was the film spent so long on action scenes that went nowhere that there was no time for character bits. Now that was fine for Xavier and Magneto where we know them well enough, but it's a problem for the characters, or versions of these characters, that we've barely met like this Scott Summers and this Jean Grey.

Jean is the one who suffers the most from this overweighting of action over character. Sophie Turner does amazingly well with nothing, Jean's dialogue being the same three lines on repeat all the way through.

I'd accepted that one of my bluesome twosome was not going to make it out alive, and was just happy it wasn't both of them. Hank suffers a lot from having nothing to do, with a lot of the rage reaction he ought to have being given to Magneto instead. I'm not sure if that's because it's more expensive to pay for the blue furry special effects than Michael Fassbender's wages or what, but it was annoying.

The other person who got to have manpain over the suffering of the female characters rather than be useful is Scott. Now I am miffed because they have finally made a film where Scott gets something to do … and they have given the role to someone with the range of a wooden spoon. The one poor choice the X-Men casting directors have made over 10 films really broke part of the heart of this film. I didn't believe in anything Scott was going through.

But the worst thing about the film is that they finally had a perfect Emma Frost and they made her a space alien for no good reason. I don't even like Emma Frost but Jessica Chastain in the scene they used in the trailer was perfect, all slinky evil and seducing Jean to the darkside; the White Queen of the Hellfire Club writ cinema screen large. Oh, how I would have love the film that scene was from. But no, we got random alien Emma instead.

And that's the point, if they'd wanted aliens there is a Phoenix Force plus aliens story. It's called the Dark Phoenix story - you know the comics arc this film is named for. It's a fantastic story, with aliens, but no Emma Frost. Just make Jessica Chastain Deathbird and have her be the power-mad dictator instead of D'Ken. Or do the Hellfire Club story properly. Do not mix and match and end up with sludge!

(Like I said, I would be happier with this if that one scene hadn't given me perfect Hellfire Club Frostie)

Overall, that’s why the film doesn’t work. It tries to be all things to everyone and ends up missing important things about all of the characters.

It continues to be difficult to find films that are bad but have good, memorable scenes

I mean the Hammer Hound of the Baskervilles

The case for the prosecution:

(Some spoilers)

Hammer, how did you get this so wrong?

You're Hammer, you can make good-looking films (and did, everything else was wrong, but it looked sumptuous). On the acting side you had Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee (and Andre Morrell who is horribly underrated). And you were adapting "Hound of the Baskervilles", which is a classic for a reason.

Yet, this was terrible.

It's probably because they changed the murderer, the motive, the weapon (the hound remains but there are additions) and the characters of pretty much every named character, including Frankland, who becomes a Bishop.

Holmes becomes a bully and a boor - they had Peter Cushing who would have been perfect and did this to him!!! (When they give Cushing actually Sherlock Holmes things to do he is perfect - he's my second favourite Holmes due to those few scenes. My favourite is Ian Richardson - I can go on about the fact that he is perfect, even if his Holmes films are not.)

The scene itself:

Full film is here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZY_hD1Ptn7Y The scene I wish to discuss is 53.55 - 58.19 (arachnid and arthropod warning).


Why the scene is so good:

Even while it highlights the "change in character, plot and motive" problem, it's just the most charming character bit in the middle of nowhere. It helps that Miles Malleson is "befuddled curate" made flesh (he is as Revered Chasuble in The Importance of Being Ernest, the proper version), and it's a scene where Holmes isn't just being mean.