General discussion of the movie.

In regard to the lack of any gunfighting, where exactly would it have been appropriate? If you read the complete Sherlock Holmes series the instances where a gun is even presented, let alone fired, is extremely rare. Gun-crazed criminals who kill as many people as they can when cornered are largely a product of the modern world. Most of Holmes' adversaries very politely give in when discovered, in true victorian fashion :-D.

Without going into great depth at this stage, I'd give it 8/10. That's pretty much on par with the previous Hound of the Baskervilles production, but I might give Brett's Holmes series an 8 1/2 or 9 in some instances (The Last Vampire is actually superior to Doyle's original story in my opinion).

As far as Holmes specifically, I really enjoyed Everett although I think they made too much of his drug use. Then again, considering that this is the first Holmes installment I've seen which isn't based on one of the stories I guess you could view it as a character development of sorts. Physically I think this is the closest casting to the original illustrations to date.

"Tommy Angelo",

You are correct in regards to the lack of gunplay in most of the Sherlock Holmes films. However, one critical problem, in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories involving Holmes and guns, is that Mr. Holmes is sometimes given remarkable abilities to handle firearms. There is the example that he used a pistol to outline the frame of a face by his remarkable marksmanship, and there is the excellent example that he signed his name by shooting the holes that spelled out his name. Alternatively, in another story Doyle had Mr. Holmes say that he was a very poor shot with firearms.


Most observers have noted that Doyle, because of the scheduled publishing requirements, found it necessary to hurriedly write his stories, and as a result he did not always have things operate in exact continunity or precise consistancy from story to story. I might suspect that this is the reason behind the inconstiency evidenced by Mr. Holmes remarkable marksmanship and his supposed stated inability to shoot accurately at all? Alternatively, it might have been the case that he did not want to let others know that he was a good shot (Not a good idea to let one's opponents know of your strengths and weaknesses. Furthermore, this action actually fits in with what we know of Sherlock Holmes in his various conversations about not revealing too much to others.), and as a result, he simply lied that he was a poor shot when he was an expert marksman?

In regards to the reputed "London Fog", I have read too many histories of the late Victorian and early Edwardian eras to actually doubt this circumstance, and as a result of my readings and research, I can confidently attest that this extremely dense thick fog did exist during the era.

As to why Mr. Brett sounded like an "Opera Singer", you are correct. Mr. Brett was a well-trained singer, but I also think he made an excellent "Sherlock Holmes", but I admit that Basil Rathbone was better, even if, outside of "The Hound of the Baskervilles", Mr. Rathbone mainly played in "Updated" Sherlock Holmes films, which had little to do with the actual stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.


Another very famous actor, who protrayed "Sherlock Holmes", was Mr. William Gillette, an American, but he was able to successfully and most skillfully project a very credible and believable English accent. He was a most popular actor on both sides of the Atlantic from Victorian times up to the outbreak of WWII. Also, we find that Mr. Gillette was a most successful Producer, Director, and Writer. He even negotiated an exclusive contract with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle concerning "Sherlock Holmes". After Sir Arthur had "Killed Off" Mr. Holmes when he sent the great detective over the "Falls", we find that Doyle was tired of Mr. Holmes and he actually resented and even hated him because he thought the public's demands were too excessive. As a result, Doyld felt that he had to "Kill" Mr. Holmes in order to have his own life back and have the luxury to move on to other characters and stories.

In the negotiations to sell the intellectual property rights to "Sherlock Holmes", Mr. Doyle reputedly told Mr. Gillette that he was tired of the man (Sherlock Holmes), and he did not care if he married him off or killed him, he (Dolye) did not want to have anything to do with the fellow ever again. However, Doyle was ultimately forced to bring back Sherlock Holmes, and heis hatred of the public increased for forcing him to resurrect "Holmes".

There is an interesting detail involving the initial story for Doyle's "Lost World", in that work we find that Mr. Holmes was one of the characters (He used an alias, and he was reputedly a stupendous marksman with the big-game rifle?), but we find that Mr. Holmes' presence was deleted in the final draft by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It was evidently an attempt by Doyle to somehow explain what Holmes had done after he fell from the Falls, and he had contrived to have the world believe that he was actually dead?

In fact, we find that Mr. Gillette added much to what we think we know about Mr. Holmes. The distinctive pipe and deer-stalker hat, were actually touches added by Mr. Gillette. The phrase: "Elementry, my dear Watson." is actually from Mr. Gillette's pen, not Sir Arthur Conan Doyles. And Mr. Gillette's versions of Sherlock Holmes was, in its day, probably more familiar to most people than the actual writings by Doyle? Gillette did dramatically colour the public's later opinions of Mr. Holmes, and it is rather a shame that Mr. Gillette's additions have been so completely neglected in our study of Homes.


Additionally, before I leave my discussion of Mr. William Gillette, we should observe that Mr. Gillette died in 1939, and he even played Mr. Holmes on stage and on the radio until just weeks before his death, and we should conveniently observe that he looked very much like Mr. Basil Rathbone (especially, the distinctive nose, the facial outline, and the considerable height as well as the overall slender appearance.), and it is even said that the primary reason why Mr. Rathbone received the offer to play Sherlock Holmes was because of his remarkable resemblance to Mr William Gillette.


As to my opinion of "The Case of the Silk Stocking", I am an American, and I have not seen the production as of yet, but it is scheduled to be on TV this October 23--see my post regrding the matter.

"Tommy Angelo",

I felt that before I leave this thread I should ideally comment in a bit more detail about your astute observation where you had noted the intresting truism that Mr. Holmes seldom utilized a firearm in the various "Sherlock Holmes" films. Yes, this is a valid observation, but in many ways it is critically representative of the differences between American and British literary "Heroes". British literary heroes typically do not resort to "Brute Force" in which they garner their success or accompish their mission. They tend to utilize systematic subtility and subterfuge in which they accomplish their ultimate goals. While we find that the classic American Hero, alternatively adopts the opposite strategy to initiate direct and forceful action against their foes in order to defeat them as quickly and as efficently as possible.

Compare "The Scarlet Pimpernel", the classic British or English Swashbuckling Hero, to "Zorro", the archetypical American swashbuckler. "The Scarlet Pimpernel" most typically employs disguise and trickery to accomplish his goals, but Zorro, while doning a distinguishing disguise, sees his strategy as one where he must directly confront the evil in his midst. We see that Zorro is more of the actual swashbuckler, and that "The Scarlet Pimpernel" does actually very little sword fighting or shooting. On the other hand, we find that Zorro's adventures are literally filled with numerous dramatic sword fights and escapes while racing about on horseback all in an effort to overcome the evil that has pervaded his community. Zorro's costume does hide his actual identity, but it also operates as an iconographic display that he is an unremitant and implacable foe of the evil, corrupt Alcalde. While, "The Scarlet Pinpernel" also wears "disguises", we, in contrast, see that these costumes do not in any way directly identify him as an opponent of the French, but they merely permit him to move about unhindered and totally unsuspected by the French authorities as he operates in their midst. Thus, his technique or stretegy to overcome the French is to fool them through trickery and accomplish his ultimate goals in that indirect manner.

The seemingly differences in national character traits are also evidenced by the British way of waging war. The British usually attack by an indirect approach. They seldom directly or quickly attack the main power centres of their opponents, but we classically find that they, instead, more frequently attack the weak outer periphery of their foes territories. While this strategy can be effective, it necessitates persistance and a willingness to fight for extended periods of time in order to eventually weaken their opponents by the perverbal death-of-a-thousand-cuts. The British tend to believe that such strategies will tend to reduce casualities and lessen the total price in money and materials, but some historians disagree and some mathmetical strategical modeling also tends to diverge from objectively supporting this typically British approach.

The American way of war is classically that you seek to destroy your enemy as quickly as you can. The Americn perspective is that overall losses from combat can be minimized the quicker the enemy is defeated. This strategy necessitates that one quickly overwhelm the main centres of your enemies sources of power. Thus, we see that the Americans advocated a quick invasion of Nazi occupied Europe in WWII, but the British sought to wait and merely attack the outer territories of the Germans.


Thus, in strange regards to "Sherlock Holmes", we find that a case can be made that the reason why Sherlock Holmes did not resort to firearms in most of the original stories is that this would have been too direct of a confrontation with the evil masterminds with whom he was contesting. To faithfully represent the British ideal, he had to utilize his primarily wits (Disguises and information) to solve the mystery and ultimately devise a clever trick in which to capture his opponent in a trap, and when his foe was effectively trapped, it was done in so clever a manner that resistance or escape on the villain's part was usually rendered to be simply impossible. Thus, Sherlock Holmes' brilliance was best illustrated by his almost uncanny ability to so masterfully maneuver his opponent into such a position that resorting to violence was seldom, if ever, needed.

The classic American literary hero approach operates on a much more direct manner. The American assumption is that as soon as the evil is identified, if you wait to maneuver him/her into a untenable position where his/her surrender is obvious, even to the villain, then you will by defination leave this source of evil free to operate and cause even more pain and suffering in the interim. No, the American ideal is to immediately confront the evil and render it inoperative by totally subjugating it by any and all means available. Then everyone can go home and not have to worry about this evil again.

What may be ironically so surprising, about my little sojourn or travail into the intricacies of British vs. American national character in regards to their "Literary Heroes", is that "Sherlock Holmes" is often said to be more popular in America than in Britain. More Americans write to "Mr. Holmes" than any other nationality--including the British. Opinon surveys in America and Britain indicate that Americans have a higher opinion of him than we find in Britain. So, there may be less to the National Character of our "Literary Heroes" than we might conclude from historical evidence?

This movie was an abomination, a stain on the Holmes canon.

An excellent production with some excellent visuals. Finally an actor i.e Everett perfectly personifes Holmes from the pages of Doyles novels. I think Everetts accent perfetly refelects holmes's intellectulism.The main drawback of this production however was the case not being cryptic enough to get Holmes and the viewer really thinking. I think they should produce another story along the lines of hound of the baskervilles and make it really dark and scary. So far there hasnt been a production of holmes thats actually hit the big screen so it would be really good if hollywood would make a big budget holmes movie casting everett as holmes and ian hart as watson. I hope they do several more of these but it would be better if its an orginal story rather than the one from dolyles novels simply because if they are orginal then the final outcome of case is unknown and thus makes viewing more throughly enjoyable and secondly many of these stories have been televised so many times so you just dont want to have to watch another remake.

The film was okay I guess. Everett was a decent, if unexciting, choice for Holmes. Certainly he was more suited for the role than that other guy who played Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles version.

My problem is after watching Jeremy Brett's interpretation as the great detective, it's so darn difficult to see other interpretations...but I try.

My biggest problem is Hart as Watson. It's not that he's bad. He just has, in my opinion, no screen presence whatsoever. He barely makes any kind of impression at all. These films seem to be choosing various actors to play Holmes (which is kinda cool, in a way). I wish they would choose a different actor to play Watson next time.

Dickens devotes the entirety of the opening to Bleak House to the fog, where it travels, what the consistency was...

LONDON. Michaelmas Term lately over, and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln’s Inn Hall. Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill. Smoke lowering down from chimney-pots, making a soft black drizzle, with flakes of soot in it as big as full-grown snow-flakes — gone into mourning, one might imagine, for the death of the sun. Dogs, undistinguishable in mire. Horses, scarcely better; splashed to their very blinkers. Foot passengers, jostling one another’s umbrellas in a general infection of ill-temper, and losing their foot-hold at street-corners, where tens of thousands of other foot passengers have been slipping and sliding since the day broke (if the day ever broke), adding new deposits to the crust upon crust of mud, sticking at those points tenaciously to the pavement, and accumulating at compound interest.

Fog everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping and the waterside pollutions of a great (and dirty) city. Fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights. Fog creeping into the cabooses of collier-brigs; fog lying out on the yards, and hovering in the rigging of great ships; fog drooping on the gunwales of barges and small boats. Fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners, wheezing by the firesides of their wards; fog in the stem and bowl of the afternoon pipe of the wrathful skipper, down in his close cabin; fog cruelly pinching the toes and fingers of his shivering little ’prentice boy on deck. Chance people on the bridges peeping over the parapets into a nether sky of fog, with fog all round them, as if they were up in a balloon, and hanging in the misty clouds.

(plus 4 more paragraphs about fog)
http://www.bibliomania.com/0/0/19/34/frameset.html