Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles[1]) is a 1983 British made-for-television mystery thriller film directed by Douglas Hickox, starring Ian Richardson as Sherlock Holmes and Donald Churchill as Dr. John H. Watson.

[2] Charles Edward Pogue was enlisted to pen the screenplays[2] but only The Sign of the Four and The Hound of the Baskervilles were ultimately filmed before Granada Television's Sherlock Holmes series premiered in 1984.

You see, when Sy Weintraub was planning the films, he was unaware that the copyright on the Holmes stories was about to expire in England and he had to go through a great deal of legal negotiations with the Conan Doyle estate in order to gain permission to use them.

He had a very good case, apparently; but eventually there was an out of court settlement for an extraordinary sum of money - something like two million pounds - which was enough for Weintraub to cover his costs on both The Sign of Four and The Hound of the Baskervilles, and make a profit, too.

"[4] Matthew Bunson in The Encyclopedia Sherlockiana praised the "first rate" production and Ronald Lacey's performance as Lestrade but felt that Richardson's interpretation of Holmes was "a bit too amiable.