Montreal: Acclaimed Canadian actors Matt Frewer and Kenneth Welsh are the legendary detective Sherlock Holmes and sidekick Dr. Watson, respectively, in the new Muse Productions tv movie The Hound of the Baskervilles.

During a visit to the set in rural Harrington, Que., not far from Hawsbury and the Quebec/Ontario border, it seemed perfectly clear all had been sold on director Rodney Gibbons’ skill and feel for the treatment and Eric Cayla’s stylized 35mm cinematography. But the real story on this $4.5-million tale of demon mythology, murder and inheritance has been the performances from Welsh and Frewer.

The Hound of the Baskervilles (scripted by Joe Wiesenfeld from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s 1904 novella) is licensed by ctv in Canada and by Odyssey Channel in the u.s. New York-based Hallmark Entertainment is selling the movie around the world.

Sign of the Four is next

The production, which wrapped last month, was one of those rare and wonderful experiences where everything came together in a way no one could have realistically anticipated. The clients, specifically distrib Hallmark and executive producer Steve Hewitt, were so pleased with the performances by the two leads, along with the daily rushes and the crew’s on-set execution, the decision was made to immediately order a second movie, prior to any broadcast or convening of a network programming committee.

The Sign of the Four will be shot with much the same cast and crew, starting in October. And the latest word out of Muse and executive producer Michael Prupas is that the Welsh/Frewer take on the famous detective duo is destined to become an international movie collection, with production anticipated through to next spring and beyond.

Rural Harrington stood in brilliantly for the desolate midland moors of Devonshire, Eng. The baronial Baskerville manor was filmed during a second unit trip to the English midlands, although a manor facade was also replicated locally. The spectacular Mount St. Stephens Club was used for the manor’s interiors and an alley off Port Royale in Old Montreal stood in for 1890s Baker Street.

The shooting locations and extensive night photography, added to all the fog and smoke machines, helped create the story’s stark and mysterious look.

Welsh (Love and Hate, Hiroshima, Margaret’s Museum) speculates the chemistry between himself and Frewer emerged from their shared backgrounds in theatre.

‘We respond to each other as theatre actors,’ he says. ‘So right away we felt we could respond as though we were working on a stage production. It’s physical, it’s vocal, it’s response, it’s talking and listening, a little bit the way actors do it on stage. We pick it up and it’s a different flare, a different technique. It’s a gag response in a way.’

With many on-camera performances, Welsh says relationships are essentially developed in the editing process. On this show, he says, the response has been ‘purely theatrical and [based on] an appreciation of each other’s experience in that area.’ The shared identification was so strong, he says, a single afternoon of to-and-fro quippery, on the very first day, seemed more like a month of rehearsal.

Closest to original Watson

Welsh was determined his modern Watson would be an empirical, virile sort of investigator, in many ways the equal of the cerebral Holmes. Welsh says Frewer has taken Sherlock in a more comedic direction. ‘The [characters] respond to each other sharply and with humor and understanding. And Watson will quip back at Holmes, just as quickly.’

In taking the role, the great actor quickly determined Watson would not be a ‘stumblebum, a kind of toady soundboard for Holmes. It wouldn’t have been any fun for either one of them, certainly not for me. I wanted to find moments when Watson is the keen investigator, Holmes’ equal. Otherwise, why the hell would Holmes be spending time with him?’

Welsh’s recent work includes the feature film Love Come Down, which will premier at the Toronto International Film Festival, and the u.s. movie Focus, based on an Arthur Miller story.

Frewer (Max Headroom, Generation x) hadn’t previously worked with Welsh and says the chemistry between the two came as ‘more than a pleasant surprise.’

So many have portrayed Holmes and Watson in the past, but Frewer says ‘what I think we’re bringing to it that may be different is that these guys have a genuine love for each other. It’s an interesting relationship of push and pull. Watson is quite happy to have Sherlock strut his brilliant stuff and is a wonderful foil for him. I think what you’ll see out of this version is that these guys do have a genuine love for one another.’

Frewer says Sherlock’s darkish humor is based on irony and a certain sense of glee in his own superiority. ‘Also, there’s a certain amount of humor that comes out of his eccentricity, purely derived from his brilliant mind. So what you get are these literal brainstorms, what I think of as a kind of mild epilepsy where he can hardly contain himself.’

Frewer is slated to star in and produce a self-penned Victor Victoria story, Helga: A True Story, sometime in January. Gary Howsam of Toronto’s Greenlight Entertainment is the film’s other producer.

Gibbons says Welsh’s Dr. Watson is closest to the original Conan Doyle character – brave and vigorous. ‘As for Matt, he is such a natural comedian and everything he does is so funny, and there are humorous elements within the story itself. Together, with Ken, there is such a great dynamic and they really enjoy playing it out between them.’

Gibbons (Slow Burn, Little Men) was filming various night scenes with the massive, demon hound when Playback visited the set. One of the movie’s key stylization goals was to make the (painted) black dog look supernatural. This was done by lending the beast hellish red eyes (in cgi) and by using an 8 fsp shooting ratio, which created a blurred, shadowy moment, with the creature ‘re-substantialized’ whenever it stopped moving.

Cast and crew of The Hound, 50 to 60 on the floor, are entirely Quebec-based, with the exception of Welsh (who lives outside of Uxbridge, Ont.) and u.s. actor Jason London (Jason and the Argonauts, The Rage) as the handsome, young rightful heir to the Baskerville fortune.

Irene Litinsky, the movie’s producer and Muse’s vp production, says the story’s classic appeal helped in signing a first-class crew, including production designer Jean-Baptiste Tard, costume designer Renee April, associate producer/ first ad Pedro Gandol and picture editor Vidal Beique.

‘Like any part of film, it all starts with the script,’ she says. ‘If the script and story are interesting, and certainly the Sherlock Holmes short stories and novellas are brilliant, they are classic. To be frank, it’s not been so hard a sales job to get the creative community involved in something like this because the material speaks for itself – designing turn-of-the-century London, the spooky stories, larger-than-life characters, and the costumes are simply beautiful.’

Litinsky’s busy summer and fall schedule also includes supervising the big-budget, six-hour Spelling Television/upn series All Souls, the upcoming Sign of the Four, producing on the tv movie service shoot Cut to the Heart, and the four-hour cbs miniseries Jackie, crewed under her supervision. *