WGN here in Chicago used to show the Rathbone movies late Sunday mornings in the 60s (They would also show Charlie Chan). I liked Rathbone, but Jeremy Brett is the best. OTOH, I think the best HOTB is the Rathbone version. The Brett version seemed to drag in the part where Holmes is not present (as Holmes, anyway). Accurate as the story goes, but it didn’t work on screen. The Rathbone version trimmed that a lot, IIRC.
The Jeremy Brett series was more faithful to the original stories than any other production I’ve seen. Including costume – Holmes was properly dressed as a Londoner, as per the Strand magazine illustrations, instead of wearing a ridiculous deerstalker cap. (I think that cap comes from the Gillette stage play.)
Ha! I’m the first to mention the 1965 movie A Study in Terror (Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper). It starred John Neville, who later starred in The Adventures of Baron Munschausen. Quite good.
I believe Tom Baker played Holmes in a BBC production.
I seem to remember an A&E tribute to Jeremy Brett in which they interviewed Conan Doyle’s daughter–or maybe it was his granddaughter. At any rate, she said that Brett’s portrayal of Holmes was exactly the way Conan Doyle himself envisioned Holmes.
Not that we needed to be told that. Brett is brilliant as Holmes.
I was just about to mention Tom Baker. He did The Hound of the Baskervilles, He gets my nomination for the most amusing & likable Holmes.
Jeremy Brett was the best Holmes ever.
(I remember after first seeing them when I was about 11 or 12, I confused Jeremy Brett with Jeremy Irons.)
Not too many months ago I heard a radio production of a Holmes story, though I can’t recall which one. I also thought they said that Edward Hardwicke played one of the voices (possibly Holmes(?) or Lestrade)
I have that on tape! Taped it off A&E, lo, these many years ago. I agree, Tom was better than I would have expected, and his Hound was surprisingly faithful. Awful Watson in that adaptation, though. That’s one thing I love about the Brett adaptations: forget about redeeming Holmes, the one they really redeemed was Watson!
I tend to agree with CalMeacham, in that I don’t like the later Brett episodes nearly so much as the early ones. You could see that Brett was getting tired. Compare the energetic Holmes in “The Sign of Four” to the lethargic one in “The Last Vampyre,” and you’ll see what I mean.
Interestly, one thing I don’t like about the Brett adaptations is that they push the cocaine a little too much. They do portray Holmes as an addict (which it’s become fashionable to do since the publication of “The Seven Per Cent Solution”). As Larry Mudd suggests, I think people sometimes overestimate the significance of Holmes’s cocaine use. It really doesn’t figure much into the original stories, apart from the occasional mention. And given that cocaine was legal in Britain at the time, Doyle probably didn’t intend it to be anything more than an interesting character trait.
Interestly, one thing I don’t like about the Brett adaptations is that they push the cocaine a little too much.
Make sure you don’t watch the recent Hound of the Baskervilles with Richard Roxborough and Ian Hart then… they show him tying off and shooting up twice… in the middle of a case! I’ve watch movies about heroin addicts that were less graphic.
I don’t think the Brett stories portray Holmes as more of an addict than he is in the original stories. Other than that episode where at Brett’s suggestion they show him deciding to kick the habit. Usually all you see is a drawer closing with a needle in it, or a couple scenes where Holmes is obviously high and Watson is disapproving.
Doyle obviously meant something by it, since at the time Doctors generally didn’t discourage its use, yet Watson does… because he is worried it will damage Holmes’s unique abilities.
-fh
Brett is my favorite Holmes. I miss the days when A&E played episodes of the Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in the evenings.
Do any channels in the US still play episodes of the series?
Another vote for Brett as the best Holmes ever. His is the only portrayal that accurately captured the true nerdiness and geekiness of the good detective.
By the by, I remember seeing no less of a personage that Leonard Nimoy himself play Holmes on stage (around 1976, I think) in the William Gillette play. He played the role way too smug and smarmy for my taste. Side note: that play is where the phrase “elementary, my dear Watson” first appeared…Timmy
p.s. - I, too, used to confuse Jeremy Brett and Jeremy Irons. Now, with one being dead and all, they are easier to tell apart. Can’t you just see Brett doing a remake of “Dead Ringers”?
Have to set you straight old spoon, the Deerstalker cap and cape appears in more than one original illustration by Sidney Paget from the pages of the Strand, here’s one from “The Adventure of Silver Blaze”. Far from being ridiculous it’s the perfect coat and hat to wear on a trek through the cold, foggy, wooded glens of the isles (I speak from experience). However, it was Hollywood that turned it into the only thing Holmes ever wore, how foolish.
It was the Meerschaum Calabash Pipe that owes it’s Holme’s association to the Gillette play. William Gillette himself thought that it worked best because he could smoke it without the audience’s view of his face being obscurred.
Exactly right- a deerstalker was a hat to be worn out in the country. And while I don’t THINK Arthur Conan Doyle ever mentioned Holmes wearing one, it would be an appropriate hat in a rustic setting.
But, of course, a gentleman would have looked like a twit if he wore one in the middle of London. That’s why Holmes is almost always shown wearing a standard top hat, in urban settings.
Another one coming in on Brett’s side. I used to watch the A&E presentations religiously - to the point where I could play the first few bars of the theme song on the violin. Much geeky fun!
My creative writing teacher senior year of high school and I used to get into debates - he said Brett’s performances made his teeth itch, while I couldn’t see anyone but Brett in the role, especially after reading the original novels and stories in the collected Bantam edition. And I agree on Hardwicke’s and Burke’s Watson - a thoroughly competent doctor, and very intelligent; thoroughly in tune with Doyle’s characterization.
compared to rathbone, brett is a pud. don’t argue. take it like a man. if basil hadn’t been around, brett may have scored. kinda like that beatle song “had you come some other day…it might not have been like this…but you see now…i’m too much in love”. not love, of course…“i’d sooner die than have sex with a man”…but you get the idea.
Bloody hell! And now that I’ve looked at the link, I recognize the illustrations. Well, that’ll teach me. What I meant was that in pop culture, that’s become Holmes’s iconic outfit, as if he were a pantomime figure with only one costume. And, of course, the big meerschaum pipe, when as I recall Holmes smoked a cherrywood or a clay pipe usually.
And of course, the production that showed him shooting up while on a case was dead wrong; he only used the ol’ needle when he was bored because of the lack of imagination shown by the criminal class…
I wish I could have seen Basil Rathbone in better-written, more faithful Holmes adaptations, with a better Watson. How about George Sanders?
I read on the IMDB that they addressed the cocaine issue because a lot of kids were sending fan letters to Brett telling him that Sherlock Holmes was now their hero, so he didn’t want kids to look at cocaine use as harmless. Or something.
This is a hijack, but since Holmes is being discussed by true fans here, I thought I might mention a short story I once read.
It was titled “The Return” and the author was science-fiction writer H.Beam Piper. The story appears in the book Empire. It takes place a couple hundred years after an apocalyptic war Two scientists from a community in Arizona are making a mapping survey of parts of what was once the USA and they come upon a community of people who…well, why spoil the suprise? I first read this story before I had ever read any SH stories. Then, when I read it again, I wondered how I had missed all the clues. But just one paragraph, from when the two explorers have met the new folks.
“And we are waiting here, for the Slain and Risen One,” Tenant Jones added, looking at Altamont intently. “It is impossible that He will not, sooner or later, deduce the existence of this community. If he has not done so already.”
Well, it’s an interesting story anyway. And I will add my vote for Brett being the best Holmes.
Please remember that both Brett and Rathbone were actors, not producers. It’s sometimes fun to yell out which one is the better Holmes like frat boys watching a football game but to say one of them “sucks” and the other “rules” misses the point.
The production values and the writing of the various movies and tv shows were quite different. Rathbone worked within the resrictions of the WW2 studio system, I’m sure he had very little imput on his portrayal until the camera started rolling. With that in mind he did a phenominal job of getting the charactor across. If Sherlocke Holmes were to have actually fought Nazi spies I’m hoping he would aquit himself as well. I wonder how well Brett would have come across as Holmes had he been around in 1939. Both series were the right actor in the right place at the right time.
I love them both, both have faults and both have strengths.
Even Nigel Bruce, who takes a drubbing these days from the fans, did a very entertaining job. He was a damn good charactor actor who turned out one of the most memorable and recognizable performances in movie history. His Watson is a bufoon, but quite lovable. Mr. Bruce was acting as he was directed and doing it well. To criticise him for being untrue to the book is like criticising David Burke for not proposing to Mary Morstan in the Granada production of “The Sign of the Four”.
One of my favorite unsung Watsons has always been Robert Duvall from “The Seven Percent Solution”. I loved his loyalty and steadfast devotion to Holmes. His sense of fair-play really comes across.
So much derision flung at BASIL, I wish to say that for me { IMHO }, Basil and Nigel are the quintessential Holmes and Watson; as much as I thoroughly enjoy Jeremy and Edward’s portrayals, they had some uninhibiting factors in their favour.
First, you must remember that in 1939 when the two ’ FOX ’ Masterpieces: " HOUND " and " ADVENTURES OF S.H. " were filmed–we weren’t at ese; I whole–heartedly and firmly believe that 20th Century Fox would have continued with DOYLE’S Canon of Adventures. Especially with the fabulous success of the two Awesome ones already.
Jeremy and Edward didn’t have to compete with a ’ World War ', and by the time Universal picked up Sherlock Holmes–we were truly entrenched in War. . .and so was every Movie Studio, Universal included. Thankfully not all of the remaining films were Nazi related.
I’ll bet too, that much of the scripts were such that Nigel’s portrayal of Dr. Watson was not as true to Doyal’s Canon.
Anyway, as I really like Jeremy and Edward–I’ll Forever Love Basil and Nigel. By the by, there are quite a few who consider Russian actor ’ Vasili Livanov ’ as Holmes { can’t remember the actor portraying Dr. Watson }, in a series of Holmes Adventures, to even ’ eclipse ’ those of Jeremy and Edwards portrayals; so, different strokes. . .
So much derision flung at BASIL, I wish to say that for me { IMHO }, Basil and Nigel are the quintessential Holmes and Watson; as much as I thoroughly enjoy Jeremy and Edward’s portrayals, they had some uninhibiting factors in their favour.
First, you must remember that in 1939 when the two ’ FOX ’ Masterpieces: " HOUND " and " ADVENTURES OF S.H. " were filmed–we weren’t at War; I whole–heartedly and firmly believe that 20th Century Fox would have continued with DOYLE’S Canon of Adventures. Especially with the fabulous success of the two Awesome ones already.
Jeremy and Edward didn’t have to compete with a ’ World War ', and by the time Universal picked up Sherlock Holmes–we were truly entrenched in War. . .and so was every Movie Studio, Universal included. Thankfully not all of the remaining films were Nazi related.
I’ll bet too, that much of the scripts were such that Nigel’s portrayal of Dr. Watson was not as true to Doyal’s Canon.
Anyway, as I really like Jeremy and Edward–I’ll Forever Love Basil and Nigel. By the by, there are quite a few who consider Russian actor ’ Vasili Livanov ’ as Holmes { can’t remember the actor portraying Dr. Watson }, in a series of Holmes Adventures, to even ’ eclipse ’ those of Jeremy and Edwards portrayals; so, different strokes. . .
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I read that the scene in The Devil’s Foot where Holmes disposes of his syringe (by burying it on the beach —yikes!) came about because Brett insisted that Holmes be depicted conquering his drug problem. That’s a bit surprising inasmuch as Brett was probably the biggest stickler for canonicity on that production: he would argue scripts with the writers if they strayed too far from the intent of the stories. (Well, at least in the early days he did. I doubt he put up much of a fight after he got sick.) Brett is said to have kept a heavily annotated edition of the Canon with him, wherein he added all his notes for the backstory he devised for Holmes. It’ll never happen, but man, I wish they would publish that in a facsimile edition someday.