# Conan Doyle fans: What is your favorite adaptation of SHERLOCK HOLMES? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 21, 2013, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471 "2013-11-21T20:41:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/21 "2013-11-22T00:06:59Z")
> [@RobDog](#): > > [snip]… there is a faint whiff of ham in the air. > > I await my inevitable beating. Sorry, I won’t be gratifying your desire to be abused. Not into that. But 'splain watcha mean by _ham_. Overacting? You wanted a cooler Holmes? More modest & subdued? Shrinking, perhaps? ETA and seriously: toward the end of the series, Brett was quite ill IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![Simplicio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@Simplicio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Simplicio)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/22 "2013-11-22T00:07:17Z")
I thought Brett was a little too faithful to the originals. It kinda felt like just watching someone read the stories out loud, and I like my adaptations to make some attempt to bring something new to the originals. So it’s Cumberbatch for me to. They’re good at referencing the original stories, but then putting a modern twist on it. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/23 "2013-11-22T00:07:40Z")
> [@TV\_time](#): > > I also like _The Seven Percent Solution_, but I think it was Robert Duval not de Niro, but of course, not by Conan Doyle. I am one that does not like Brett. I much prefer Rathbone. Of his I would have to say “Valley of Fear” even though it had nothing to do with the original story/novella. Oops! Yes, Duval. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Negative](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/typo_negative/32/484_2.png) [@Typo\_Negative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Negative)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/24 "2013-11-22T00:10:47Z")
I like Cumberbatch\Freeman best. I also quite like Lee Mill\Lui in Elementary. Should I see myself out? I did not much like Downey\Law, but more because of the story\director than with their performances. ---
**Author:** ![leftfield6](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leftfield6/32/18780_2.png) [@leftfield6](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leftfield6)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/25 "2013-11-22T00:12:10Z")
Brett, of course. I got nothing else. He is Holmes. When I think of Holmes, he has Brett’s face. ---
**Author:** ![Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/prof.pepperwinkle/32/13627_2.png) [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Prof.Pepperwinkle)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/26 "2013-11-22T00:18:57Z")
> [@Typo\_Negative](#): > > I like Cumberbatch\Freeman best. I also quite like Lee Mill\Lui in Elementary. > > Should I see myself out? > > I did not much like Downey\Law, but more because of the story\director than with their performances. I haven’t seen Elementary yet. As far as Downey/Law, I thought the stories were great, interesting action fun. But it wasn’t Sherlock Holmes, no matter what the label says on the package. ---
**Author:** ![Greg\_Charles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/839c29/32.png) [@Greg\_Charles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Greg_Charles)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/27 "2013-11-22T00:56:04Z")
I hate bandwagons. If I were a dentist, I’d be the one who recommends sugary gum. In this case though, yes, Jeremy Brett was the best. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/28 "2013-11-22T00:58:58Z")
\*Elementary \*is really good. The Holmes / Watson relationship is very different from the books. i.e. An undercurrent of sexual tension. The Holmes character seems pretty accurate considering he’s been brought into the modern world. This season his brother Mycroft has been featured in several episodes. I am more used to Watson being kind of dumb and the comic release. Watson is very smart in Elementary. She’s becoming Holmes’ protege. I haven’t seen Sherlock yet. ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/29 "2013-11-22T01:19:12Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > I missed the Brett, so of those I’ve seen I guess it’s Rathbone. [**Here’s Brett**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shLYcUVOMb4&list=PL2EDFE2AAA10CE5CD). Basil Rathbone was Holmes until Jeremy Brett came along and dethroned him. Everyone else is a poor third. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/30 "2013-11-22T01:27:57Z")
Brett and Cumberbatch are the correct answers, of course. Isn’t it surprising how Spielberg’s **Young Sherlock Holmes** disappeared without a trace? I don’t recall it ever popping up on cable. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/31 "2013-11-22T02:11:39Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > [**Here’s Brett**](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=shLYcUVOMb4&list=PL2EDFE2AAA10CE5CD). > > Basil Rathbone was Holmes until Jeremy Brett came along and dethroned him. Everyone else is a poor third. Awww… thanks for that handy link. Just listening to the theme music took me back. Jeremy Brett was a handsome devil. Anyone remember him as [Freddy Eynsford-Hill](http://31.media.tumblr.com/36de94e5ac1cbbfd66955b5cd3a5ba6a/tumblr_mvovayiP1G1r0t4wwo4_500.gif) in the 1964 movie version of _My Fair Lady_ (the one with Audrey Hepburn as Eliza)? BTW, that was not his voice singing “On the Street Where You Live.” ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/32 "2013-11-22T02:26:49Z")
> [@Horatio\_Hellpop](#): > > Brett and Cumberbatch are the correct answers, of course. Isn’t it surprising how Spielberg’s **Young Sherlock Holmes** disappeared without a trace? I don’t recall it ever popping up on cable. It wasn’t all that bad… (Okay, yeah…) No, really: it had some good bits and some clever bits, and the “Ramitep” chant music was a nice nod to Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana.” It was… Well, it was Spielberg. Sherlock Holmes meets The Goonies. (And if you are sent a dream of me, nuh uh, wasn’t me, I didn’t do it, I was visiting the Bowl Shaped World that whole weekend, that’s my alibi and I’m sticking to it.) ---
**Author:** ![Kansas\_Beekeeper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/c37758/32.png) [@Kansas\_Beekeeper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kansas_Beekeeper)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/33 "2013-11-22T02:33:37Z")
Jeremy Brett. I’ve seen the entire series several times. I got to see Brett and one of the Watsons on stage in London in Holmes play in about 1989 or 1990. I can’t watch any other Holmes adaptations other than Brett. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/34 "2013-11-22T02:56:13Z")
And another vote for Brett. He is the ultimate “traditional” Holmes–and yes, I do mean the very last. It is difficult to imagine anyone else doing the character better. For non-traditional interpretations, I’m quite fond of Cumberbatch and Downey both–they both hit different aspects of the spirit of the character without being slaves to the letter. ---
**Author:** ![urban1a](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e47c2d/32.png) [@urban1a](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/urban1a)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/35 "2013-11-22T02:56:35Z")
As others have said Jeremy Brett was very true to the original stories. Edward Hardwicke (and there was another as Watson in the beginning of the series) were very good too. I haven’t seen either the new, updated series on either the BBC or American TV (Elementary) simply because the stories just can’t be translated into the 21st century. I did not like the Rathbone Sherlock series and they made Nigel Bruce as Watson look like a buffon instead of a competent sidekick. I really did, however, enjoy the Robert Downey/Jude Law movies. They at least kept the stories in the same period and added some good humor. Bob Also, IMHO, I believe that only Joan Hickson can play Jane Marple and only David Suchet can play Poirot (although I really don’t like either person a whole lot). ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/36 "2013-11-22T03:18:13Z")
> [@urban1a](#): > > Also, IMHO, I believe that only Joan Hickson can play Jane Marple and only David Suchet can play Poirot (although I really don’t like either person a whole lot). Agree. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/37 "2013-11-22T03:27:36Z")
As so many others have said, Jeremy Brett. It certainly helped that the Hawkesworth series was also well-written and the production design was perfect, but Brett was the perfect Holmes. The series was great until they started doing padded, bloated adaptations near the end. Brett’s illness was a big contributor, of course, but that still doesn’t excuse the abominable adaptation they did of _The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire_. I actually preferred David Burke, the first Watson to Brett’s Holmes, but only because he appeared to be younger. Hardwicke was an excellent Watson, but his gray hair made him look too old. Brett, by the way, apparently had played Watson to Charlton Heston’s Sherlock Holmes onstage in _Crucifer of Blood_. I’ved seen a filmed performance of Heston as Holmes, and he doesn’t appeal to me. I have a hard time imagining Brett as Watson, these days. (Brett had also played _Dracula_ on the West Coast in the 1970s re-staging, according to my playbill. I’d love to have seen that). Hard to watch Brett as Freddy in _My Fair Lady_ anymore, too. Aside from Brett, Basil Rathbone _looked_ the part, as if he’d stepped from the original illustrations. And the first two Rathbone films, _Hound of the Baskervilles_ and _The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes_, were done as period pieces, not set in then-contemporary England fighting Nazis and the like. And Nigel Bruce’s Watson wasn’t quite so bumbling. John Wood played an excellent Holmes onstage on Broadway in a 1970s revival of the Gillette/Doyle play. I’ve seen other Holmes adaptations onstage, buit the Holmes actors generally don’t stick in my mind. In general, “young” Holmeses don’t work for me. I’ve seen several of them, and they don’t capture the proper “feel” at all. Nor do “old” Holmses. George C. Scott didn’t work for me in _They Might be Giants_, and the pictures I’ve senm of Peter Cushing in the BBC series didn’t look right to me. I’m not that fond of Nicol Williamson in _Seven per Cent Solution_, much as I like him in other things. ---
**Author:** ![ShallowEnd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@ShallowEnd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShallowEnd)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/38 "2013-11-22T04:30:09Z")
I’ve watched everything. Jeremy Brett is the best Sherlock. Martin Freeman is the best Watson. Charles Gray is the best Mycroft. Sean Pertwee is the best Lestrade. Now all I need is to see this in one actual episode. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 5:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/39 "2013-11-22T05:11:06Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > Basil Rathbone was Holmes until Jeremy Brett came along and dethroned him. Everyone else is a poor third. Agreed, except the recent “updatings” are at the very bottom. If you want a modern British detective, there are lots of good originals to choose from. Using the name “Sherlock” is just a cheap, lazy gimmick to get attention. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2013, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471/40 "2013-11-22T07:39:54Z")
> [@urban1a](#): > > only David Suchet can play Poirot I really loved Ustinov’s version. > [@aceplace57](#): > > The Holmes / Watson relationship is very different from the books. i.e. An undercurrent of sexual tension. Really don’t see this, which is why I like _Elementary_. I’d stop watching if I perceived they were going this route, I think. Me, I like RDJ’s Sherlock for “traditional” and while I love the BBC modernisation, I prefer Elementary _as a show_ - for instance, greatly preferred its takes on Adler and Moriarty. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/conan-doyle-fans-what-is-your-favorite-adaptation-of-sherlock-holmes/674471.md?page=3)