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(More customer reviews)"Yes, the setting is a worthy one. If the devil did desire to have a hand in the affairs of men ..."
With these words, Sherlock Holmes comments on the mystery presented to him in "The Hound of the Baskervilles." And the "if" is a big one indeed, as he immediately makes clear: Asked by Dr. Watson whether he is inclined to place belief into the supernatural explanation of the phenomenon haunting the Baskerville family, Holmes points out that the devil's agents may well be of flesh and blood, thus instantly discounting the idea of the supernatural, and explains that there are two questions only to be resolved in this matter - whether any crime has been committed at all, and if so, what that crime is and how it was committed. Similarly, in "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire," Holmes dismisses all allegations of the work of bloodsucking fiends as "rubbish" and proceeds to prove in his seemingly effortless and strictly logical manner the perfectly natural solution to the events recounted to him by his client.
And herein lies the distinction between the movies contained in this collection and Arthur Conan Doyle's literary originals; and at the same time, the movies' overriding common element. For what is presented here is not necessarily, as in the shorter episodes of the TV series starring Jeremy Brett, a faithful rendition of Conan Doyle's originals, but rather, a set of five more or less classic gothic tales which happen to feature the famous detective from Baker Street and his companion Dr. Watson (Edward Hardwicke, who took over from David Burke after the TV series's first season).
"The Last Vampyre," based on the aforementioned Sussex Vampire short story, is in a way the most obviously problematic of these dramatizations, in that it departs from Holmes's (and Conan Doyle's) perspective on the supernatural by turning the tale into essentially an average horror story. Moreover, contrarily to the remaining feature films and the shorter episodes, the setting here is researched less faithfully and with less care for detail; and it shows. However, the movie is saved by the as always outstanding performance of Jeremy Brett, the *only* actor who ever managed to perfectly portray Holmes's imperiousness, bitingly ironic sense of humor and apparently indestructible self-control without at the same time neglecting his friendship towards Dr. Watson and the weaknesses hidden below a surface dominated by his overarching intellectual powers. And nowhere is that dichotomy clearer than in "The Last Vampyre," where Brett, himself already afflicted by the illness which would eventually kill him, reached new and never before explored depths in Holmes's soul. Although perhaps the gravest departure from Conan Doyle's literary original, noteworthy is also the performance of Roy Marsden as St. Claire Stockton, the village community's chief suspect of the alleged vampirism; a role demanding just the right degree of ambiguity in order not to lose credibility, and surely in the hands of a lesser actor the one role which would have brought the movie below the point where even Brett would no longer have been able to save it.
Conceptually equally problematic in my view is "The Eligible Bachelor," which turns a fairly simple and (as Sherlock Holmes stories go) straightforward tale of a bride disappearing on her wedding day into a confusing labyrinth of nightmares, doomed heiresses, madness and family curses; trying hard, but alas, unsuccessfully, to look like a cross between Hitchcock's "Rebecca" and an adaptation of the Brontes' "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights." Approach-wise, this is almost unpardonable, because unlike "The Adventure of the Sussex Vampyre" - which is contained in the last Holmes collection, 1927's "Casebook," and at least thematically fits in with the darker mood of those stories, driven by the psychological devastation brought about by World War I - this particular story's original version, "The Noble Bachelor," is part of 1892's "Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," and thus one of the earliest adventures which open only rare glimpses onto Holmes's personal ghosts.
"The Master Blackmailer" is based on the "Return of Sherlock Holmes" (1905) story "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" and, while containing some narrative padding, one of the more faithful realizations here. Outstanding in particular is the performance of Robert Hardy, who has Holmes's antagonist Milverton - the master criminal specializing in blackmailing women of society with letters he has secretly obtained - down to the story's last detail, complete with his insincere, "perpetual frozen" smile and "the hard glitter of [his] restless and penetrating eyes." In the tiniest departure from Conan Doyle, Brett's Holmes displays genuine sympathy for the housemaid with whom he fakes an engagement to obtain information about Milverton's household. The story's somber climax, however, is taken directly from its literary original.
More faithful to Conan Doyle's works, finally, are also the realizations of the two novels "The Sign of the Four" (1890) and "The Hound of the Baskervilles" (1901) (with the notable exception of the first novel's end, which would have been irreconcilable with the series's premise of a shared tenancy at 221B Baker Street - a fact no longer true even at the beginning of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes"). Both novels contain allusions to the supernatural, juxtaposed with Holmes's detached, logical analysis; and relieved of the need to add flesh to the narrative bones of the shorter tales, the movies stay the course very well and bring to life in all their horror the events unraveled by Holmes over the course of his investigations.
If I am able to enjoy even those movies which significantly depart from Conan Doyle's originals, it is because I have, over time, come to see them as entirely new entries into the Sherlock Holmes canon - validated almost singlehandedly by the stellar performance of Jeremy Brett, as well as that of Edward Hardwicke as a refreshingly unbumbling Dr. Watson; and the two unequal heroes' relationship, which Loren Estleman in his foreword to Bantam's "Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Novels and Stories" rightfully called literature's warmest and most symbiotic and timeless ever.
Also recommended:
Complete Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Granada Television Series (12 DVD)
Sherlock Holmes: A Baker Street Dozen
Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street
Bending the Willow: Jeremy Brett As Sherlock Holmes
Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle - The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes
Murder Rooms - The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes
The Life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Conan Doyle, Detective: The True Crimes Investigated by the Creator of Sherlock Holmes
Arthur and George
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