Sherlock Holmes

[The Grave Maurice]

Hiya Don,

Listen, don't get me wrong. There is much about the Grenada productions that I admire, including the adherence (at least early on) to the original plots, the stage settings, and the photography. It's only Brett I objected to.

The last time I checked, most Sherlockians agreed that the Master was born in 1853, and Watson, probably, in 1851. Again, there is disagreement, but many scholars place A Study in Scarlet in 1881, so yes, they were both quite young men when they first moved into Baker Street.

[Archaic]

I love Jeremy Brett!!!

Maybe it's a girl thing... he's a chick magnet.

Best regards,
Archaic

[The Grave Maurice]

Eduardo's comment about John Wood made me recall that one of the better stage portrayals of Holmes that I ever saw was Fritz Weaver's in the musical Baker Street. He was remarkably good, as were Inga Swenson (Irene Adler) and Martin Gabel (Moriarty). Watson was played by none other than Peter Sallis (Cleggy in Last of the Summer Wine) and he actually sang quite well, as did they all. Somewhere in my house I have the cast album and, tomorrow, I shall go in search of it.

[belinda]

I'm sorry Belinda, you must be wrong, Tom Baker is Dr. Who!

It's true and I can prove it. I have it on tape.It was made after he left Doctor Who about 1984.

It was on Youtube but I have the first bit which I could probably re upload

Archaic I think you're right about it being a girl thing with Jeremy Brett

[Celesta]

Grave One,

I must be the only SH fan around here who absolutely can't stand Brett.

I wouldn't go that far, but I'm nowhere as enamored of Brett's performances as are most. Partly for the reasons you gave, but even more because even when the series started Brett and Burke were rather old for the role.

Don.

Don, The main thing I didn't like about Jeremy was the flamboyance. It took seeing the episodes several times for me to stop complaining about it. I think that, esp. in the later episodes, Brett was trying to provide a bit of humor, knowing that Sherlock fans are well aware of Sherlock's little quirks. The flamboyance may have been one way he tried to express this. The time allotted for some of these episodes was just too brief and the story-lines took rather a hit, especially later on, with only the highlights depicted. I agree that Brett and David Burke were a tad too old. Still, it's now hard for me to visualize Holmes without hearing Brett's excellent voice and seeing his image.

It's not a girl thing for me. Although, I will admit that, after recently seeing some videos of his earlier career, I can see how women would find him attractive. That doesn't come into the Holmes productions for me.

I don't recall who played the PBS Holmes that followed the Brett productions, but I didn't care for him at all. He was like a machine and too somber for my tastes.

[belinda]

Celesta were those the Episodes of Brian Clemens Thriller he was in?

Has anybody else seen or heard of the Tom Baker version? It really was very good.

[Celesta]

I'm not sure, Belinda. It was shown on our Public Broadcasting and he was a young man with a very somber look. I'll find out who he is.

I just found Tom Baker, Belinda. You are quite correct. It was a 1982 BBC production of The Hound of the Baskervilles, and Tom played Holmes.

[belinda]

He played a murderer in one about a haunted car,Jeremy Brett that is

Thriller

http://www.amazon.com/Thriller-Complete-Season-Robert-Powell/dp/B000A0GXN8/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1272289590&sr=1-1

Very Good I love these I have the whole set.Jeremy Brett was in at least two

[Gman992]

Ditto!!


Jeremy Brett was the BEST SH...he played him down to SH's drug use, mood swings, arrogance, and even though, SH was a cerebral character, Brett had just a little bit of an edge who was quite capable of going medievel on someone...

And both David/Edward played great Doctor Watson...even though they were classic, I just cringe ever time I see David Bruce incompent boob performance.


has anyone seen the Ruppert Everett version of Holmes?

How about Michael's Caine performance of a faux Holmes in Without a Clue? Hysterical!

[Tom_Wescott]

I recently purchased a Sherlock Holmes collection that was very cheap and consisted of two long movies from 1991 starring Christopher Lee as Holmes and Patrick Macnee as Watson. As much as I admire Lee, he's no Holmes, and the films were quite boring. However, there's a bonus disc in the collection that is the 1888 Secret Identity of Jack the Ripper, with Peter Ustinov, so the collection might be worth some of you getting it just for this.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott

P.S. I love early Brett as Holmes, but the final series was almost unbearable to watch, and all but one of the movies were horrible.

[Gman992]

It's true and I can prove it. I have it on tape.It was made after he left Doctor Who about 1984.

It was on Youtube but I have the first bit which I could probably re upload

Archaic I think you're right about it being a girl thing with Jeremy Brett

Yep! I saw this version of "Hound." It was a British production, meaning much of the indoors screen was filmed on video...before they finally went to film on all of their production.

I also seem to recall the Jeremy played on extra dancer in "My Fair Lady," and for your ladies out there, he played "Dracula" on the West Coast "broadway" play.

[Kaspar]

Brett was the definative Holmes! He nailed the character from the first episode and the latter episodes lacked when his health started to deterioate.
The set pieces the casting and honorable adherence to Conan Doyle's original works means that this series about Holmes will never be surpassed.

[Graham]

Here's an ongoing mystery regarding The Hound Of The Baskervilles:

Holmes showed that Stapleton of Merripit House was actually one Rodger Baskerville, who had lived in South America but who had returned to England to claim the Baskerville fortune by resurrecting the old family legend and putting the wind up Sir Charles Bakserville with a real hound all decked out with phosphorus, etc. The real hound did what it was obtained to do, and Sir Charles duly pegged it in mysterious circumstances. But his fortune went to Sir Henry Baskerville, his nephew, who'd spent most of his life in Canada. Curses - foiled again! So Stapleton/Rodger had to buy another tin of Pal for his mutt and do the old family legend bit all over again. But he reckoned without Holmes, etc., etc., and Sir Henry survived.

Now then - what if Stapleton had succeeded in frightening Sir Henry to death? How on earth could he have claimed the family fortune as successor to Sir Charles? How could he claim the estate without arousing suspicion? Would he just say, "Hey, I ain't Stapleton after all, I'm Rodger Baskerville so give me the £750000 and Baskerville Hall right now!" If he did, he'd have probably ended up in the nearest loony-bin.

I'd have thought that Stapleton/Rodger's best course of action would have been through the courts, but of course (a) he was already wanted under the name of Vandeleur for nasty goings-on at a private school he owned; and (b) there wouldn't have been the basis for this wonderful story.

If anyone can come up with a plausible solution to this, I'm listening!

Graham

[Supe]

Graham,

Seems to me we discussed this several years ago, but in any case it was examined in depth, by Benjamin Clark, as long ago as 1948 in The Baker Street Journal (Vol. III, No. 3, July 1948).

Clark suggested three possibilities, none very good:
1) Claim the inheritance in an elaborate disguise;
2) Hire a stand-in to claim it with Baskerville's documents;
3) Return to South America and claim the inheritance there through the British legation. This might be difficult, though, since Baskerville had fled South America after he had "purloined a considerable sum of public money,' likely under the name Baskerville. That effort, though, might just have been worth a try somewhere like Australia.

Withal, my advice is simply kick-back, enjoy and practice a certain amount of suspension of disbelief.

Don.

[Tom_Wescott]

The TRUE Baskerville mystery must be what really did rip out Sir Hugo Baskerville's throat in 1647 if not a giant dog?

I just watched the Sherlock Holmes Archive Collection, which had some decent stuff, but most of it is shorts. It's always good seeing Boris Karloff and Evelyn Ankers, though.

I also watched the Matt Frewer Hound of the Baskervilles. Why the hell did they cast him?

Last night I watched Peter Cushing's 'Hound' from the BBC series of the 1960's and it was very good. As you can tell I've purchased a LOT of Holmes DVD's lately.

Yours truly,

Tom Wescott