It's obvious that Staplton was the one trying to kill Sir Henry, but wat about Dr. Mortimer? Holmes mentions "when Staplton tried to kill me", referring to the "accident" in the old mines. Obviously Staplton dies at the end, but nothing is said about Dr. Mortimer. Was he apart of it aswell? If so, why didn't anything happen to him at the end?
shareI think Hammer tried to make Mortimer a red herring so people unfamiliar with the book would be suprised by the reveal. The scene where Holmes throws the knife near Mortimer's hand is another part in adding to him as a suspect but, as in the book, he is innocent.
shareJust exactly where was Lassie while all this was going on?
shareI agree, wasn't it Mortimer and the labourer fellow who set off the mine collapse by pushing the truck type-thing into the beams? Stapleton wasn't even present. Hence Mortimer must've been in league with Stapleton,no?
shareI don't know, maybe my memory is playing tricks, but I just watched this thing again a few weeks ago...I thought the "labourer fellow" you're referring to WAS Stapleton. (Guess I'll have to go look again!)
But on the subject of unanswered questions, one thing that's always bothered me (about this movie AND, if I recall correctly, also in the book) is...how on earth did the legend ever get started, and passed down over a century or two, in the first place? Where did the original hound come from? It's hard to believe that something not all that historically remote could be blown up to such an extent. Of course, that's easy to say nowadays, with everything covered by film and recordings, but even if back then some incident with Sir Hugo might have become a legend, how did it survive over the years, to the point where, the instant all these years later that another Baskerville is mauled to death, one immediate conclusion is that it's the work of the hound? Have there been other such deaths over the years? If so, who's been doing the killing? I certainly didn't get the impression that the Stapletons have been running a cottage industry in hounds all these years!
(Also, and a bit off the "who's the killer" topic, here's another unanswered question: I don't really mind the added fol-de-rol about the webbed hands that Hammer added...but how did Holmes find out about them in the first place, and how did he know that detail would have shown up in the picture that was missing? I don't recall any of that ever being explained. Maybe I'm just nitpicking here...great movie, though!)
The labourer fellow IS Stapleton.
share1. How did Holmes find out about the webbed fingers? Remember he told Watson he had talked to Barrymore about that picture.
2. I also think Stapleton was in the mine.
3. As for the Hound, I just assumed it was the girl's dog and that she had fled toward home. When her dog heard her screams he came running and killed Sir Hugo. If I remember the book, and it has been decades since I read it, the men from the orgy followed Sir Hugo and arrived in time to see the dog standing over his body.
There's the laborer who stays at the top of the mine, while Holmes, Stapleton, and Mortimer all go down the shaft. The whole thing with Mortimer and the mine cart was just a plot hole that they forgot to tie up.
As far as the legend goes, it was passed down from generation to generation of Baskervilles. In the novel, Mortimer arrives in London with a manuscript from 1742 detailing the legend and dating Sir Hugo's death to "the time of the Revolution" which would presumably be around 1650 (Cromwell). The original Hound appeared when Hugo offered to give his soul to the devil if he could capture the escaped girl, and presumably, the devil took him up on his offer. Also, in the book, the legend restarted because the dog was seen running on the moors prior to Sir Charles' death, and had been seen at Baskerville Hall by both Sir Charles and Dr. Mortimer. The idea of a curse on the Baskervilles didn't so much have to do with strange circumstances of their death as the general ruin into which the family had fallen over the years, I believe.
While the novel doesn't use the webbed hands bit, there was a picture of somebody in the family at Baskerville Hall that was removed by the killer to keep their genetic resemblance a secret. Hammer just went over the top with it. As far as Holmes finding out, again, plot hole. Maybe he spotted it while he was out on the moor, investigating?
In the novel, the legend of the Hound was written down by a descendant of Sir Hugo to his own sons; therefore the legend was handed down through the family.
The original hound was the one that 'tore the throat out of Sir Hugo Baskerville', according to the descendant's manuscript. Sir Hugo's two drinking companions had followed the chase to that spot, and saw the hound do it. At least that is what they probably said to the coroner's jury investigating Sir Hugo's death. Whether they did see the hound or not, that is what became the official story, embellished down the years until the beast that spooked Sir Hugo's horse and killed him became 'the hound of hell'.
The 'webbed hands' were not in the original novel.
In the annotated Sherlock Holmes mention is made of Dr. Mortimer's interest in Holmes' skull. It is possible that Dr. Mortimer is somehow connected with Prof. Moriarty though Holmes has no direct evidence of such a connection of course and can't say anything without leaving himself open for a libel suit. In the book he's a young man unlike how he's portrayed in the movie so perhaps he was even a younger brother of the Prof. Certainly Moriarty did give aid to others who wanted someone killed.
Mortimer was not a bad guy, he was merely a phrenologist among his other hobbies and specialties. Phrenology is now a discredited pseudoscience, but at the time, I assume an interest in the shape of people's skulls determining their intelligence was considered commonplace among the medical profession? But because modern readers (well, viewers, in this case) might find this a little creepy, the dialogue was instead given to Stapleton in the '02 film.
And, uh, no, no, Mortimer isn't related to or involved with Professor Moriarty at all. Moriarty already has two confirmed canonical brothers, he doesn't need a third. All roads do not lead to the character Doyle created as a plot device to try and kill off his least favorite character. Theories like this make me wish Doyle had never created Moriarty. XD
I mean, really, how many times will you look under Jabba's manboobs?