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Patty
Immortal
May 5 2007, 1:24am
Post #1 of 20
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Any Sherlock Holmes fans here?
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If you are one who prefers Basil Rathbone's interpretation of Holmes I don't mean to badmouth you but I just saw Dressed to Kill this morning and I couldn't believe how bad it was. Holmes was playing the violin and only moving his bow arm! And isn't this supposed to take place in Victorian times? I would swear all the lamps were electric, and they used a very late period phone. I'm not usually one who balks at these things (for example, I don't mind that the Bennett girls wear the wrong period costumes in Greer Garson's Pride and Predjuice), but the sets and set decoration looked all wrong. Give me the Jeremy Brett series every time.
Any Sherlockians have aught to say?
At home, amongst the Mallorn trees.
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diedye
Grey Havens
May 5 2007, 2:48am
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Ooh, I loved the Jeremy Brett interpretations...
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I wish they would start re-broadcasting them.
But I have to say that the Basil Rathbone ones are not the worst... the worst ones, IMO, are the latest with Matt Frewer. Ugh. Just... UGH. Max Headroom with an English accent... that is just.... soooooooooooooo wrong! 
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Aerin
Grey Havens
May 5 2007, 3:05am
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I love the Jeremy Brett version, too.
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But I also love Max Headroom (the original version, not the dumbed-down and ruined version they made it into after it was picked up as a series, which was then canceled). I keep checking to see if it will come out on DVD!
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diedye
Grey Havens
May 5 2007, 3:57am
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... and was not happy when it was cancelled. I don't, however, like Matt Frewer as Sherlock Holmes. He wasn't so bad in The Stand.
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Silverlode
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
May 5 2007, 4:07am
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I've loved the Holmes stories since I discovered them sometime about 5th grade, I think.
While I like the idea of Rathbone as Holmes, the execution generally damps my enthusiasm. They mangled the plots - that is, when they didn't just make them up entirely, and as you said, they didn't seem to bother much with the details of authenticity. And if there's one thing that will put me off a Holmes interpretation faster than anything, it's a stupid Watson. I loathe the bumbling-idiot-sidekick stereotype anyway, and I'm particularly indignant when it happens to Watson, who doesn't deserve such treatment in the least.
But the Brett versions I love. They got the period and the details right, they did (mostly) faithful adaptations of the stories, they had two excellent Watsons, and I think Jeremy Brett did the best job of tackling Holmes of all the actors I've seen. He's the only one who really captured both extremes of the character: one minute completely swamped in ennui, the next taut as a wire and full of energy to get on with the case. I've sometimes wondered if it was really coincidence that a bipolar actor made the best Holmes (much as I lament the struggles Brett had with that condition and his early passing). His Holmes was a lot more "real" to me than most.
Silverlode
Between the acting of a dreadful thing
And the first motion, all the interim is
Like a phantasma, or a hideous dream:
The genius and the plan thus inspired
Depart me and I, entering a room,
Find myself on the threshold, stand still
And wonder what I came to do there.
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Alcarcalime
Tol Eressea
May 5 2007, 10:15am
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The Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes series of movies was made either in the run-up to or during WWII. They are very late 30s early 40s movies. The main purpose of the movies seemed to be anti-Nazi. Since these are the first Sherlock Holmes movies I saw (I saw them on television in the 50s), they do hold a special place in my memory. That being said, I do love Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes. We have the whole set of DVD's and watch them at least once a year.
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dernwyn
Forum Admin
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May 5 2007, 2:17pm
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And, sadly, I think you're right: his own condition may have been the reason he seemed to understand Holmes so well.
The producers of that series did indeed do a fine job with the two Dr. Watsons, the younger and older, for the two segments of the Holmes saga (I understand there was a huge outcry, when Conan Doyle first "killed off" Holmes, forcing him to "revive" him). They meshed perfectly with Brett!
I wonder if anyone ever thought to film William Gillette portraying Holmes on the stage. It would be interesting to compare his version with Rathbone's and Brett's.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"And when Sam heard that he laughed aloud for sheer delight, and he stood up and cried: 'O great glory and splendour! And all my wishes have come true!'"
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Idril Celebrindal
Tol Eressea
May 5 2007, 2:27pm
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Jeremy Brett's Holmes is my favorite, too
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I too like how he captured Holmes' swings between frantic activity and lethargy, not to mention his drug dependence. What I liked most about this series was how it portrayed Watson as a handsome man who, while he wasn't in Holmes' intellectual league (being more of conventional thinker), was no dummy. I never liked the bumbling Watsons, mainly because Holmes would never have put up with thisw sort of behavior.
Another good Holmes series features Ronald Howard as Holmes. He does Holmes' intensity well, too.
With caffeine, all things are possible.
The pity of Bilbo will screw up the fate of many.
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RosieLass
Valinor
May 5 2007, 2:47pm
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I don't know that I've seen an entire Rathbone SH.
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And the little bits I have seen were so many years ago that I remember nothing about them. It was certainly before I'd read the books, I wouldn't know how they compare.
The Jeremy Brett portrayal is superlative, however.
The only one that disappointed me was the one about Charles Augustus Milverton, because there was a suggestion that Holmes really did have some kind of romantic feeling toward the maid he was pretending to be engaged to. That is completely antithetical to everything Holmes is.
And I think they messed up the ending a little bit, but I don't really remember.
This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it.
--Eeyore
http://mallika.vox.com/
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Morwen
Rohan
May 5 2007, 8:32pm
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I feel the same way about the Rathbone version of Holmes as I do about Bakshi's LOTR. There's definitely a lot not to like, but at the time it was, as far as I know, all we had. I remember watching them years ago as a teenager, when the books were still fresh in my mind and Holmes was one of my heroes. The technological anachronisms and the bumbling Watson seemed exasperating on one hand and humorous and even a little bit endearing on the other.
Agree with everybody else about the excellent Jeremy Brett series. The stories held true to the originals and the characters and sets were much as I had always imagined them.
I wish you could have been there
When she opened up the door
And looked me in the face
Like she never did before
I felt about as welcome
As a Wal-Mart Superstore--John Prine
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Patty
Immortal
May 5 2007, 8:51pm
Post #12 of 20
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I never looked at them that way before, although now that you point it out the anti Nazi and the war propaganda are pretty obvious. And many of the villains are sinister in the same stylized Germanic way.
I also hate the Nigel Bruce Watson. Too bad he was given such a ridiculous role, cause he really was a good actor in other things, as was Basil Rathbone (although always somewhat over the top).
But the Jeremy Brett versions are the best. I haven't looked at the recent ones on PBS starring Rupert someone or other.
At home, amongst the Mallorn trees.
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Alcarcalime
Tol Eressea
May 6 2007, 12:04am
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It was pretty appalling.
I don't think they wanted anyone to outshine Basil Rathbone's character. None of the actors seemed very outstanding.
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Mar
Gondor
May 6 2007, 1:26am
Post #14 of 20
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I have also been pining for Max Headroom for years.....
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So excellent and such a long while back.....
Amazing I can still even remember.
Guess cuz it was that good.
Worrying does not empty tomorrow of its troubles,
it empties today of its strength.
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RosieLass
Valinor
May 6 2007, 4:55am
Post #15 of 20
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This writing business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me. Silly stuff. Nothing in it.
--Eeyore
http://mallika.vox.com/
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entmaiden
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
May 6 2007, 12:53pm
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Not only was the acting superb and true to the literary characters, the plots were recognizable. Jeremy Brett also shared many of Holmes' physical characteristics.
I was first introduced to Sherlock Holmes through the books, and only saw a couple of the Basil Rathbone movies after I had read and re-read Conan Doyle. I never liked the Rathbone movies, but I watched them because I was starved for any version of Holmes I could find. I hated seeing Holmes in a car, or in the US. It seemed to me that the movies changed Holmes too much. The bumbling Dr. Watson also irritated me.
Each cloak was fastened about the neck with a brooch like a green leaf veined with silver.
`Are these magic cloaks?' asked Pippin, looking at them with wonder.
`I do not know what you mean by that,' answered the leader of the Elves.
NARF since 1974.
Balin Bows
(This post was edited by entmaiden on May 6 2007, 12:58pm)
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Darkstone
Immortal
May 6 2007, 8:25pm
Post #17 of 20
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IMHO, is the best Holmes.
Actually the first two Rathbone Holmes movies, Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Hound of the Baskervilles (made under 20th Century Fox with big budgets), are both very good. But when Universal took over the series Holmes was modernized to fight Nazis. Those films were little more than potboilers and went downhill from there. Though Sherlock Holmes and The Spider Woman stands out from the pack.
Nigel Bruce is a pain. André Morell in Hammer's The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959) was the first actor to play Watson correctly.
All is not gold that glitters,
All is not pure that shines.
Follow your mother's teachings
And happiness will be thine!
-Bugs Bunny, "Bowery Bugs", 1949.
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Patty
Immortal
May 6 2007, 8:46pm
Post #18 of 20
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I haven't seen any Peter Cushing Holmes...
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I'll be on the lookout for them.
So Darkstone, what do you think of the Brett ones?
At home, amongst the Mallorn trees.
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Darkstone
Immortal
May 7 2007, 8:13pm
Post #19 of 20
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I found it rather uneven. Some episodes are very good, others are not so good. It's like sometimes they play Holmes as a dark character, which he is not. I do like the way the understated affection between Holmes and Watson plays out at times.
All is not gold that glitters,
All is not pure that shines.
Follow your mother's teachings
And happiness will be thine!
-Bugs Bunny, "Bowery Bugs", 1949.
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Patty
Immortal
May 8 2007, 4:21pm
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I think he is dark sometimes though, don't you?
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Particularly when he is suffering through the lethargy caused by lack of a "problem to solve." Like most of us, he has his up times (as in The Brett "Musgrave Ritual") he was brimming over with laughter at Musgrave, and his down times. But, perhaps that's not what you meant?
Must away to see if any of the Cushing Holmes are on DVD. I'm thinking TCM's only Holmes movies are the Rathbone ones. My husband prefers him, but that's because he's not hampered by ever actually having read any of it!
At home, amongst the Mallorn trees.
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