|
This six-disc box set contains all the BBC's previously released
Sherlock Holmes DVD material - including two versions of The
Hound of the Baskervilles and 2004's The Case of the
Silk Stocking - as well as the 2005 fact-based drama The
Strange Case Of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle,
which is new to DVD.
Sherlock
Holmes and Dr Watson are called upon to investigate a mystery
that threatens the life of a Dartmoor Baronet. His predecessor,
Sir Charles Baskerville, has apparently been slain by a savage,
spectral hound that is believed to have haunted the Baskerville
family for generations...
The
Hound of the Baskervilles was part of a 16-episode Sherlock
Holmes television series that was made between 1968 and 1969
and which followed on from a run of 13 black-and-white episodes
recorded during 1964 and 1965 starring Douglas Wilmer. But
it was the appointment of Peter Cushing to the role that made
its mark with mass audiences (on its original run the production
attracted viewing figures of more than 15 million).
Cushing's
willowy frame and well-spoken panache were made for the role
of Holmes. It's just a pity that he couldn't have been cast
as a regular far earlier in his career. In Hammer's 1959 film
version of Hound he was just the right age, whereas
by the time of this series he was looking rather old and grey.
This
was one of the very first BBC series to be made in colour,
though you'd never realise it from the overall picture quality,
which is generally excellent. The episodes clearly had a lot
of money spent on them - if you didn't know better, their
production values might lead you to believe they were made
in the late 1970s rather than the '60s. The episodes do occasionally
show their limitations when sets or cameras wobble, but then
many a classic show, including Doctor Who and Fawlty
Towers, have been prone to such forgivable failings.
This
two-part adaptation was also the first dramatisation of Hound
of the Baskervilles to be shot at the actual location
of the novel and ranks among the most faithful adaptations
(certainly more so than the 2002 Richard Roxburgh version,
which is also included in the box set but was not available
for review). Aided by strong central performances from Cushing
and Nigel Stock (who had previously accompanied Douglas Wilmer's
Holmes in the earlier series) as Dr Watson, the production
boasts a solid script by Hugh Leonard and all the strengths
of the BBC's much admired costume dramas of the period.
For Holmes fans this is therefore unmissable and for casual
viewers it'll also be a treat.
An American is found dead with the word RACHE - German
for "revenge" - written in blood above the body. Holmes' investigation
takes him from the dangerous London streets to the atmospheric
world of the music hall...
From Baskerville Hall to the music hall. Unlike Hound,
A Study in Scarlet, the very first Sherlock Holmes
story, is here adapted into a single 50-minute episode, despite
being based on a novel rather than a short story. Dramatist
Hugh Leonard has pared down the plot accordingly, omitting
the initial introduction of Watson to Holmes (since, of course,
the audience already knew the two characters well by this
point).
It is notable how some 1960s attitudes have crept into the
adaptation. Rather than being a helpless victim of the advances
of Enoch Drebber (Craig Hunter), Alice Charpentier (Edina
Ronay) appears to put up only a token (i.e. not entirely sincere)
resistance.
Worthy of study.
A young man is found over the body of his father, an odious
bully who has been brutally beaten to death. Holmes is called
in to ensure that an innocent man is not hanged for the crime...
Each
of these episodes boasts a stellar cast, including plenty
of faces that will be familiar to sci-fi fans. A Study
in Scarlet stars Gerry Anderson stalwart Ed
Bishop as Joseph Stangerson, while The Boscombe
Valley Mystery features Space 1999's Nick Tate
as James McCarthy. Doctor Who fans might also recognise
Jack Woolgar, who played Staff Sergeant Arnold in The
Web of Fear, as Moran.
Nigel Stock provides good support as Dr Watson, though he
is prone to some of the bumbling tendencies that Nigel Bruce
brought to the role in the 1940s movies, particularly during
this episode. Not until the 1980s would David Burke finally
rid the character from such associations. However, Watson
comes across much better in the next episode...
In one of his most exotic adventures, Holmes encounters
lost treasure, a murderous pygmy, a mysterious set of twins
and a beautiful but wronged woman with whom Watson falls in
love...
As with A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four has
been compacted from a full-length novel to a 50-minute episode.
As a result, Michael and Mollie Hardwick's dramatisation flies
past at a rate of knots, though some elements, including the
contribution made by Toby the dog (Toddy), have been pared
down to almost nothing in the process.
There
are all manner of strange characters in this intriguing tale,
including the eccentric twins Thaddeus and Bartholomew Sholto
(Paul Daneman), the one-legged Jonathan Small (Howard Goorney),
and the murderous pygmy Tonga (Zena Keller). It's also quite
remarkable how much tea Mary Morstan (Ann Bell) manages to
guzzle throughout this episode!
Special mention must be made of Nigel Stock, whose performance
as the infatuated Watson is really quite touching.
Holmes declines an assignment to locate a missing gem,
yet the jewel crosses his path thanks to what he describes
as "one of those whimsical little incidents which will happen
when you have four million human beings all jostling each
other within the space of a few square miles..."
Originally broadcast on December 23, 1968 and with a yuletide
setting, there's a distinctly festive feel to The Blue
Carbuncle, which is, in my opinion, the best of the surviving
Cushing episodes. Humorous touches include some nicely played
sight gags involving Holmes and Watson, and larger-than-life
characters such as the pompous Lady Morcar (Madge Ryan) and
the hot-tempered stallholder Breckinridge (Michael Robbins).
Adding to the celebratory mood are passing references to two
of Holmes's greatest cases, A Scandal in Bohemia and
The Hound of the Baskervilles.
And just in case anyone thought that Cushing was too softly
spoken to play Holmes, check out his angry outburst towards
the end of this story.
The
only things that let this episode down slightly are a few
vinyl scratches on the stock music that opens the show and
a rather stilted performance by two times Doctor Who
Time Lord Clyde Pollitt as the Police Sergeant.
Sadly
the other ten episodes that Cushing made are currently missing
from the BBC archives, but the six that survive stand as a
testament to an excellent series.
The year is 1902, and an ominous fog has descended upon
the streets of London. When the body of a young girl is dragged
from the Thames, she is initially assumed to be a prostitute.
However, the discovery of a silk stocking wedged in her throat
suggests otherwise. Sherlock Holmes soon realises that she
is in fact an aristocratic lady...
Written by Allan Cubitt, who penned the BBC's rather unnecessary
2002 adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles, The
Case of the Silk Stocking could scarcely be more different.
Whereas Hound has been filmed to death, Silk Stocking
is a completely original story.
Cubitt makes innovative use of the established characters.
The depiction of the detective's cocaine use is hardly revelatory,
but here the writer and the director (Simon Cellan Jones)
suggest that the drug helps Holmes (Rupert Everett) to see
into the mind of the killer, who has a very different kind
of addiction. Though the tradition of portraying Watson on
screen as a bumbling buffoon is happily far behind us, thanks
largely to the Jeremy Brett/David Burke series, Cubitt and
actor Ian Hart manage to take the character further, by having
him conduct parts of the investigation - very successfully
- on his own.
The
feature-length story takes place during Edwardian times, towards
the latter end of the Conan Doyle canon, as opposed to the
more usual 19th-century setting. This allows for more modern
- yet still authentic - elements to come into play. Thus we
see Holmes using a telephone and the police analysing fingerprints.
Watson
has left 221b by this point, and is soon to be married to
Mrs Vandeleur (Helen McCrory), a liberated American divorcée
whose expertise in psychoanalysis proves to be an inspiration
to Holmes. Though the character may seem rather ahead of her
time, the fact that she in an American mitigates this to an
extent. And, while such unsavoury subjects as foot fetishes
and borderline paedophilia never "graced" the works of Conan
Doyle, they are covered in Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia
Sexualis, a real book that Mrs Vandeleur recommends to
Holmes.
The performances are uniformly good, led by a suitably pallid
and languid (though slightly too young-looking) Rupert Everett.
The music, by Adrian Johnston, is excellent and the production
values high. Only a very unconvincing disguise donned by Holmes
undermines the story to any serious degree.
Unlike
the Cushing episodes, this disc includes a special feature.
It's only an audio commentary - provided by the director and
the producer, Elinor Day - but no more than that should be
expected in a box set with such a bargain price. Jones and
Day reveal how they achieved the effect of Holmes pulling
a long silk stocking from a murder victim's throat. The producer
has a rather annoying habit of saying how lucky she thought
they were: there are several instances of "We were lucky to
get this actor" and "We were fortunate with this location",
etc.
Whether
by luck or, more likely, by judgement, this is a very enjoyable
production.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Everybody knows the name. Everybody
knows Sherlock Holmes - or thinks they do. However, few know
the true story of Conan Doyle's remarkable life, and fewer
still the extent to which Doyle suppressed and sanitised the
pain of Holmes' birth, or what drove him to murder his famous
detective...
Set
between 1892 and the early 1900s, the feature-length drama
The Strange Case Of Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle
starts off like Picard's dream-like experience in the Nexus
in Star
Trek: Generations, with a 33-year-old Doyle
(convincingly played by Douglas Henshall) enjoying a Victorian
family Christmas. However, things soon take a turn for the
worse, when Doyle's wife Louise (Saskia Reeves) contracts
tuberculosis, and then his father tragically dies in an insane
asylum. These events drive Doyle to kill off Sherlock Holmes,
much to the surprise and disapproval of the great detective's
many fans.
This
is a speculative piece rather than a pure biographical drama.
Writer David Pirie fills in some of the gaps between real-life
events to explore theories and questions such as: Was Doyle,
like his father, afflicted by mental illness? What inspired
the often gruesome and scandalous cases that Holmes was called
upon to solve?
It's
an intriguing work, though we never truly get into the head
of the troubled writer. Instead, we see a sequence of events
that might be hard for less initiated viewers to follow and/or
sympathise with. For instance, Doyle laments his wife's illness,
the early stages of which he, as a doctor, failed to notice;
yet within minutes of screen time he has embarked upon an
affair (albeit a platonic one) with Jean Leckie (Emily Blunt).
The
drama is at its most compelling when it goes into "detective
mode", when the characters of Doyle's mentor Dr Joseph Bell
(Brian Cox) and biographer Selden (Tim McInnerny) begin to
piece together evidence Holmes-style. David Pirie previously
wrote about Bell and Doyle in Murder Rooms: The Dark Beginnings
of Sherlock Holmes. Both Cox and McInnerny are captivating
as their respective Holmes substitutes (though rather chunkier
than traditional depictions of the character).
This
disc contains no special features, which is a pity, because
an audio or text commentary would have been useful for filling
in biographical details and explaining what the writer used
as evidence. Nevertheless, this is an interesting companion
piece to the Holmes dramas.
All in all, this box set makes a very interesting case.
Of
course, the BBC has produced more television Sherlock Holmes
than this, including the highly regarded Douglas Wilmer series,
though none of those episodes have yet made it on to DVD.
Let's hope the Beeb releases them before too long. At the
risk of sounding like Fred Flintstone, let's all cry out for
Wilmer!
Richard
McGinlay
Buy
this item online
We
compare prices online so you get the cheapest
deal!
Click on the logo of the desired store below
to purchase this item.
|
|
|
£29.99
(Amazon.co.uk) |
| |
|
|
|
£28.99
(Blahdvd.com) |
| |
|
|
|
£33.89
(Thehut.com) |
| |
|
|
|
£35.99
(Moviemail-online.co.uk) |
All prices correct at time of going to press.
|
|
