The use of background noise in the street is very effective.
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Having tried to kill off Holmes at The Reichenbach Falls, I wonder what Conan Doyle would make of the resilience of the character after all these years? I first encountered Sherlock Holmes in my teens and now 60 years later, having long ago read all the books, I still watch any examples I can find.
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No love for Michael Caine’s Sherlock?
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first came to Holmes from Brett on PBS’s MYSTERY. shout out to Edward Gorey’s animated introduction and Vincent Price’s live action introduction. Brett was killing it every single episode. before the full run had aired, I had read the complete works, and have revisited it 3 or 4 times (I’m due for a re-read, come to think of it.)
There’s not much more to say that hasn’t been said. he is the canonical film Holmes. of this truth , there can be no debate.
HOWEVER, Soviet television did an excellent version, too. the only impediment to challenging Brett’s pedestal as canon is that it is in Russian, but it has all been subtitled at this point. excellent work by the soviets, and beloved in Russia, there’s even a statue of the actor in Holmes regalia
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Benedict Cumberbatch peeking through the window to try and figure out how Jeremy Brett does it?
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Either that or wholock superfans from tumblr, sensing a disturbance in the force…
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It’s not just the actors. Screenplays tend to diverge from the original Conan Doyle conception of the character. It’s like they feel the urge to “modernise” the character, which feels very jarring.
In general though, I had finished reading most of the series before I actually watched any serious adaptations, and I had this mental image of Holmes. Jeremy Brett’s portrayal is exactly what I had imagined - high energy, very aloof and _very very _ Victorian!
It’s interesting to compare him to Heath Ledger and his version of the Joker. Both iconic portrayals that seem to have drained the actors of energy!
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Sherlock without the cocaine is like a PB&J without the jelly.
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And Leo McKern is to Rumpole.
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Oh my gosh Brett was in Galactica 1980!
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Lucy Worsley’s recent “Killing Sherlock” series is worth watching on this subject. Her conclusion was that he would much rather have been remembered as a serious highbrow author and spiritualist.
There is film of Conan Doyle talking about Sherlock some 25 years after his last published story:
He describes him as a “monstrous growth from a small seed”, and expresses surprise that so many people believe Sherlock to be a real person.
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Holmes was supposedly based partly on a real person, a medical colleague of Conan-Doyle’s.
As well as all the Holmes stories, Conan-Doyle wrote two very amusing mediaeval adventure novels – The White Company and Sir Nigel – and some novels set in the Napoleonic wars.
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I enjoyed reading Doyle’s “Sir Nigel”, and “The White Company”; a couple of historical tales set in the 100-Year War. Also, the Challenger books (despite the horrible Edwardian racism) have some nice ideas.
Also, thanks for the reminder of “Brigadier Etienne Gerard”. Those short stories are a good giggle.
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More than happy to share 'em - they’re summa my fave pics of Mr Brett.
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Cumberbatch, like Brett, wisely decided not to make the character likeable and relatable to the audience. Unlike Brett, though, he chose to do so by pulling Holmes all the way into raging arsehole territory. Perhaps he thought that was more appropriate to the modern setting of Tory Britain, but whatever prompted the choice it lost something from the compelling original conception of the character.
For all his faults, Holmes is at his core fiercely loyal to and truly values both his friends and the cause of justice. Brett finds a way to bring that across in a way that Cumberbatch couldn’t.
One of the reasons that Happy Mutants throughout history have loved Holmes is that, if we don’t recognise some of his maddening and admirable characteristics in ourselves, we definitely know and include individuals like him in our circles.
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That’s in the writing of the show too though.
Mind you, as I got towards the end of the complete works I found the original to be pretty insufferable too.
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Of course, but the main discussion here is about actors and their choices about playing Holmes. Edwardian England was a rough place filled with nasty characters too.*. The more genteel dialogue of the original is often covering (or covering up) the same unpleasant and more unvarnished behaviour and attitudes of the updated versions, whether we’re talking about the 1930s and '40s of Rathbone or the 2010s of Cumberbatch.
My sense is that Brett would have tried to play him the same in any of the adaptations even given the constraints of the scripts and periods, because he has a deep understanding of what makes Holmes so compelling as a character in all his aspects.
[* The gritty period setting – also depicted as unromanticised in the ITV series – is where the Guy Ritchie movies over-corrected, pulling the character and Downey’s portrayal along with it to disastrous action-hero effect. Brett wouldn’t have touched those versions with a ten-foot pole.]
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