Holmes Literary Pastiches

HOLMES, IN VARIOUS INCARNATIONS 

Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes

 

By TOM SOTER

from The Columbia Spectator
February 18, 1977

The Adventure of the Peerless Peer, by Philip Jose Farner (Dell, 127 pp, $1.25). Sherlock Holmes in New York, from the TV film by Alvin Sapinsley. adapted by D. R. Bensen (Ballantine, 153 pp, $1.50). The Giant Rat of Sumatra, by Richard L. Boyer (Warner, 223 pp, $1,50).

What is one to make of a Sherlock Holmes who calls his faithful Watson a "blockhead" and a "dunce" and who seems more concerned with a paycheck than with the solution of a crime? Not much, and if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had written about such a character in the late 1880's when the first Holmes story· appeared it is doubtful whether the detective would have had the popularity he does today. That popularity was Doyle's greatest and most restricting success. Considering himself a serious author, Sir.Arthur was peeved that his readers ignored his other works (mostly historical romances) in favor of the Holmes stories. Understandably therefore, he tired of his creation much sooner than did his audience. ("May I marry him?" asked a would-be-Holmes playwright. Doyle's reply: "Marry him or murder him or do anything else you like with him.") He tried killing him off, but the public outcry was so great even after ten years that a rather implausible resurrection had to be staged. After that, there was no stopping him, and Holmes has been around ever since, outliving his creator, his period, but not his profitability.

This latter point can be seen in the series of pastiches that have appeared over the years. The most notable (but hardly the best) recent one is Nicolas Meyer's Seven Per-Cent Solution, a novel done in the style, if not the spirit, of the original tales. Prodded, no doubt, by its success, three more authors have taken Dr. Watson's pen in hand and have attempted, in Edgar Smith's phrase, "the production of a veritable adventure ... "

The first of these is Philip Jose Farmer's The Adventure of the Peerless Peer. Here, the detective meets Tarzan, The Shadow, Doc Savage, and Bulldog Drummond. And that, plus the exposition of a number of theories concerning literary character lineage (the author's hobby; did you know that David Copperfield is related to Dr. Fu Manchu? Did you care?), seems to be about the only point in this boring and tastelessly written book. What is more disturbing, however, is Farmer's apparent ignorance of why the detective and his friend are so popular. Hearing his Watson say things such as “the older the buck stiffer the horn," when referring to a girl and himself, or his Holmes addressing the doctor as an "idiot" is upsetting is upsetting because it, is so unlike both men and does them, and ther reader, a great injustice.

The original tales have a kind of naive charm' about them, rooted as' they are in a simpler period of hansom cabs, dastardly villains, and "Great Scott! That was meant for us!" melodrama. Farmer attempts to satirize this by injecting jarring notes of real world vulgarity and carnp humor into what should really be an agreeable fantasy world; a pleasant pastthat probably never existed but also probably should have. In this light, a horny Watson and a greedy Holmes searching for a stolen formula that could destroy all the sauerkraut in Germany is not funny or even interesting; it. is merely tasteless and selfindulgent, attesting more to the drawing power of Holmes' name than to any talent on the part of the author.  

John Huston, Charlotte Rampling, Patrick Macnee, and Roger Moore in Sherlock Holmes in New York (1976).

In addition, Farmer's detective is overly-emotional and illogical; a flaw that is repeated in D. R. Bensen's Sherlock Holmes in New York. The original character is fascinating because of his contradictions: he wants to be a cold thinking machine, but can't escape his pride and love for the melodramatic. Farmer, however, concentrates on the caustic and downplays the deductive side to the point where the man who once said "I never guess" is reduced to phrases like "I have a hunch."

Benson, on the other hand, ,tries for rather tnore of a Doyle-like Holmes and the flaws can be blamed more on Alvin Sapinsley's TV plot, on which New York is based, than on any real lack of effort. The mystery involves old foe Moriarty and old flame Irene Adler (from Doyle's "A Scandal in Bohemia") in a robbery and kidnapping plot that calls for Holmes to make prescient and long-winded comments on everything but his profession, the science of deduction. Besides that, the problem's solution, usually so ingeniously simple in Conan Doyle, is here unnecessarily complex and implausible, more suited to a James Bond film than anything else. One gets the feeling that Benson is trying too hard to deliver a "spectacular" adventure, and, as a result, the book has the taste of hackwork. It is not as dreadful' as Farmer's piece, but it is not as compellingly bad, either. It is merely indifferent and the great detective has here sadly become a fragment of himself – nothing more than a Grade C hero with a Grade A name.

The news is, not all bleak, however, In Richard L. Boyer's The Giant Rat of Sumatra, one surprisingly finds a well-crafted mystery-adventure which hits all the'right bases. There is- Victorian melodrama, subtle humor, real deduction for a change, and nice character delineation. Opening at Baker Street with the horrible' death of a hardy seaman, the story twists and turns qwtecleverly until the rather grim confrontation between Holmes and the prime meanie. One should also note that there is more than a casual similarity to The Hound of the Baskervilles, too.) Although there are a few stylistic lapses (the "Dear Reader" technique is overused) and some cliches ("Horror of horrors"), Boyer is to be commended for succeeding where so many others have failed. He has created an entertaining, semi-serious adventure in the spirit, of the originals.

That this seemingly simple task is really so difficult can be seen by the string of pastiches (of which these three are only a small sample) which have fallen flat. Holmes is a more complex man than many realize and to' make him come to life involves more effort than most are willing to take. Or as one reader put it in describing the detective after his return from the dead, "Mr. Holmes may not have been killed, but he was certainly injured, for he was never the same man afterwards." This has been too true; but with The Giant Rat of Sumatra, at least, our hero seems on the road to recovery.

Period Pieces

TWO SHERLOCK PERIOD PIECES AT THE CARNEGIE

The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes

By TOM SOTER

from The Columbia Spectator
March 10, 1977

For a man whom George Bernard Shaw once called "a drug addict without a. single admirable trait," 'Sherlock Holmes has done amazingly well for himself. Besides his many radio, television and stage adventures, he's also appeared in about 130 films. Considering the fact that his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, only wrote sixty Holmes mysteries, with the majority of those being short stories, that's quite a remarkable figure.

What's more remarkable, however, is that of all these movies; Precious few of them have actually hit upon the formula that made Doyle's tales so enduring: that odd mixture ()f believably unusual characters, intriguingly constructed pUzzles, and hansom-c~bbled Victorian melodrama. The silent films made between 1903 and 1928 were more adventure stories than'anything else, while the many talking ones since then have. removed much of the adventure and replaced it with rather far-fetched deduction.

In addition, there has been a noteworthy lack of originality in what the movie producers have chosen to dramatize. The Hound of the Baskervilles, for example, has been done nine times, the first in 1947 and the last in 1972. As Holmes himself once remarked, "Everything comes in circles. The old wheel. turns and the same spoke comes up. It has all been done before and will be again."

This Monday, one can see what he means when the Carnegie Hall Cinema presents one of those many versions of The Hound. This one, starring Basil Rathbone arid Nigel Bruce as Holmes and his friend Dr. 'Watson, was tremendously successful when it was first released in 1939. Seeing it today, however,'one wonders what all the fuss was about. It is a badly done rendition of Sir Arthur's original story which had involved a curse upon the life of young Sir Henry Baskerville whose uncle had been killed by a phantom hound. The tale naturally included foggy moors, threatening letters, and the prescribed red herrings. Unfortunately, the way things are staged in the film, the letters are more ludicrous than menacing, the red herrings obvious as just that, and the moors un·mistakable as studio sets.

The problem, then, is that the believability so necessary for a story like The Hound to work is woefully absent. In the book, fear was created by underplaying the supernatural elements just enough to make them frightening; things were ambiguous without being obscure. In the movie, though, obscurity is/more often than not the rule of thumb. In the climactic scene, f()r instance, when Holmes and Watson race across the moor to save Sir Henry, the fog-shrouded lens and extensive use of long-shots cause more confusion than tension. And the absence of, background music is definitely not a plus.

Even more . disturbing than all this, however, is the abundant critical praise. The Hound garnered during its recent rerelease, with comments ranging from "not bad" to "the definitive version." It's hardly that, and viewers would do better with the underrated Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, not coincidentally also on the Carnegie's doubie bill.

One of the first scenes in that film marvelous1y sets the tone for the rest of the story. "You have a magnificent brain, Moriarty," Sherlock Holmes intones coolly to his old foe, "I admire it. I admire it so much I'd like to present it pickled inalcohol to the London Medical Society."

"It would make an interesting exhibit," replies the Professor. unconcernedly. This kind of stylish hatred is what made Doyle's. stories so fun, and what adds tremendously to one's enjoyment of Adventures: a classy cat-and-mouse game between the detective and his arch-enemy.

Rathbone and Bruce

Rathbone's Holmes has never been better: impatient, incisive, and insolently friendly in the best Conan Doyle tradition ("Watson," he says kindly, "you really are the most incorrigible burglar."). The good doctor, too, is not as imbecilic as he was later to. become, and does have some nice comic turns. And in George Zucco's Moriarty we have a superb rendition of an often badly overplayed villain: controlled, coolly menacing. and, wholly believable; a man who operates on a completely different moral system and who is all the more threatening because of that ("You have murdered a flower," he says angrily to a negligent servant, "to think, !that for merely murdering a man I was incarcerated for six whole weeks ... But for this ... ") Outside of the performance, the story's pace is exhilarating, especially when compared to the leaden Hound .. And the climax is superb: melodramatic, exciting and great fun ("Quick, Watson!" cries Holmes in sudden alarm, "we're wasting time! ").

Why, then, is Adventures so often ignored today, while The Hound gets most of the praise? My guess is that childhood memories being what they are, and the rest of the Rathbone series being what it was· (a deteriorating set of B-movies involving Holmes in WWII) , most critics like to remember the first film more fondly than it deserves. Which is too bad, since contrary to the much-stated rule, the sequel is, in this case, better than the original.

Book Reviews

HOLMES IS WHERE THE ART IS

By TOM SOTER

from COLUMBIA DAILY SPECTATOR, 1978

Basil Rathbone as Holmes

My Life With Sherlock Holmes: Conversations in Baker Street, by John H. Watson, M.D.,' edited by" J.R. Hamilton (Hawthorne, 105 pp., $2.50).
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, by Vincent Starrett (Pinnacle, 208 pp., $1.95).
The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes, by Adrian Conan Doyle and John Dickson Carr (Pocket, 260 pp., $1.95).
Sherlock Holmes: Ten Literary Studies, by Trevor Hall (St. Martin's; 157 pp., $2.95).

The continuing popularity of the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes (created by unsuccessful doctor Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887 While waiting for patients who never carne) has been a phenomenon that has been constantly put publisher ingenuity to the test.

Passing up such cheap shots as The Sherlock Holmes Cookbook and Sherlock Holmes' How to Win at Bridge Book, the latest entry is My Life with Sherlock Holmes, by John H. Watson, and edited by J.R. Hamilton, which was published in Britain in 1968, but not released here until very recently. This book's gimmick is to take all Watson-DoYle's peripheral remarks about Holmes' habits, comments and off-hand deductions and present them by category (i.e. "His Interests and Tastes," "On Human Nature"). The effect is slightly disjointed, but the collection is an entertaining one, spruced up by the detective's endearing eccentricities ("I am not a whole-souled admirer of womankind," or "Love is an emotional thing' and whatever is emotional is opposed to that true, cold reason that I place above all things. I should never marry myself, lest I bias my judgement" and "I have frequently gained my first real insight into the character of parents by studying their children"). Editor Hamilton has done a good collating job and has put together a kind of Bartlett's book of Holmes quotations.

The same can also be said of Trevor Hall's study, which is representative of the great amount of scholarly work that has gone into the fictional detective's life to answer a number of questions that have baffled Holmes fans (if no one else) everywhere, and on some (such as "The Love Life of Sherlock Holmes," cribbed by Nicholas Meyer in The Seven Percent Solution) he is amusingly successful. It's also a fun book but more for the scholar than the casual fan.

Basil Rathbone (left) as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson

An earlier work of this type is Vincent Starrett's Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. first published in the '30s, revised in the '60s and reprinted now to cash in on the latest Holmes boom. According to Jacques Barzun and Wendell Taylor, this new edition "is diffuse and over-quotatious and suffers from a regrettable self-consciousness, as if burlesque did not depend on straight-faced attention to the business in hand." Nonetheless, it's a standard "Baker Street Irregular" handbook, and an inferior version is better than none at all.

The same cannot be said of Adrian Conan Doyle's unfortunate attempt to follow in his father's footsteps. The Exploits of Sherlock Holmes was a collaboration between the younger Doyle and popular mystery writer John Dickson Carr, first published in 1954 and reprinted in paperback this year. According to Barzun and Taylor again, "The trouble here is not that the detective ideas lack ingenuity but the atmosphere of the period is largely missed ox: unconsciously burlesqued, and the effect is that of "daubing good stonework with weak whitewash."

In the end, the Holmes fan would probably be safest picking up the various new editions of the original canon. Ballantine's set of six Holmes books has interesting introductions by personalities from the mystery field (Ellery Queen, Nicholas Meyer, et al.). Finally, there is a $5.95 hardcover called The Complete Illustrated Sherlock Holmes, which isn't that but is still a nice reprint of four Holmes books in their original magazine format (with all the old Sidney Paget illustrations) .

Holmes Cinema

Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes

HOLMES CINEMA

By TOM SOTER

from COLUMBIA DAILY SPECTATOR
April 1978

There are bad Holmes double-bills and good ones, and considering the number of Homes movies around that 'snot surprising. In 1903, a short silent film was released, Sherlock Holmes Baffled, which marked the first in a line of 130 Sherlock Holmes movies produced by German, French, American and British studios. The most recent incarnations were the fine The Seven Percent Solution, and the rather less fine The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother.

Holmes did have a brother, Mycroft, but whether he was smarter or not is open to question. As for the sleuth himself, it is doubtful that his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle realized what he was beginning when he sat dqwn, in 1887, and wrote the first Holmes adventure, A Study in Scarlet. At the time, he was still hoping to become a successful doctor; instead, he became one of the most popular authors of his day. and by (he time he killed off his creation (from boredom) in 1894, Sherlock was internationally known and publishers were offering up to a thousand pounds for new adventures.

Doyle was forced to revive the sleuth in 1904, and did so through a "previously untold" adventure. It took place before the detective's death. That tale was The Hound of the Baskervilles –one of the most effective of the novels, and also one of the most durable.

Hound has been filmed nine times, the first in 1917 and the last in 1972. The most famous version (though certainly not the. best) starred Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce, and will be on view April 14th and 15th at the Thalia Theater along with another Holmes adventure, The Woman in Green, in an example of a bad Holmes double-bill. '

Rathbone and Bruce's Hound – their first appearance together – was tremendously successful when it was first released in 1939, and the duo went on to make 13 other films, and 273 radio appearances. Rathbone had ·been a successful character actor before Hound (specializing in villains) and to many, was an ideal Holmes.

Unfortunately, although he's good, the first adventure he was involved in isn't. It is a badly done rendition of Sir Arthur's original story which had involved a curse of the life of young Sir Henry Baskerville whose uncle had been killed by a phantom hound. The tale naturally included foggy moors, threatening ietters, and the prescribed red herrings. The way things are put forth in the film, however, the letters are more ludicrous than menacing, the red herring obvious as just that, and the moors unmistakable as studio sets. The believability is so necessary for a horror story like Hound to work is glaringly absent.

One can't find anything better to say about The Woman in Green, either. This one was, made six years later and involves a World War II Holmes with a band of hypnotists. After Hound's success, its producer. 20th Century Fox, made one more Holmes film and then bowed out. In 1942, Universal Pictures reaclivated the series with Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror, and although it was fastly paced, it was set in contemporary times (for budget reasons) and was the first in an uneven and ever-deteriorating line of B-films.

Woman in Green was Number 11. 1t co-stars Henry Daniell as Holmes' old foe Professor Moriarty and is only notable for depicting – very faithfully – the first meeting between the two adversaries recorded in Doyle's "The Final Problem. "Besides that. however, there's little of interest in this second-rate programmer. Rathbone's performance leans toward the hammy side and Nigel Bruce is downright cretonic as Watson. If the Thalia must revive these things why don't they pick up The Scarlet Claw or The House of Fear? Both have more merit than these two.

The viewer would do better with lhe good Holmes double bill at the Carnegie Hall Cinema on May 12th. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, the second and best of the Rathbone-Bruce pairings, and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Billy Wilder's rarely screened tribute (of sorts) to the detective.

Basil Rathbone (right) and Nigel Bruce

Adventures is greal fun and shows wha: Holmes on screen is capablle of if put in the right screenwriter-director's hands. "You have a magnificent brain, Moriarty," the detective intones cooly to his old foe at one point, "I admire it. I admire it so much I'd like to present it pickled in alcohol to the London Medical Society.'"

"It would make an interesting exhibit," replies the Professor with unconcern. This kind of stylish hatred is what made Dolyle
so fun. and is what adds tremendously to one's enjoyment of Adventures: a classy cat-and-mouse game between the detective and his arch-enemy. Rathbone's Holmes has never been better – impatient and incisive – and Moriarty is superbly rendered by George Zucco as a man who operates on a completely different moral system and who is all the more threatening because of that.

The climax is especially fun: melodramatic and exciting in the best Holmes tradition ( "Quick, Watson!" cries Holmes in sudden alarm, "we're wasting time!").

The second film on the program was made over thirty years later. It is charming-and though not much of a mystery story-it has clever dialogue and an engaging performance by Robert Stephens as the detective. It was supposed to be a send-up of Conan Doyle, but became an affectionate tribute to him instead. Wilder once remarked that he wanted to depict Homes the man, not Holmes the thinking machine. If so, he succeeded. and Private Life is certainly worth investigating. It has good performances by Christopher Lee as Mycroft, Colin Blakely as Watson and Genevieve Page as the lady in distress-one of the few women able to outwit the detective. The story involves the Scottish Highlands, Trappist Monks, the Loch Ness Monster, and a top secret weapon. One could do worse during exam week, and certainly no better as far as Sherlock Holmes double-features go.

Holmes Video

By TOM SOTER
from VIDEO, July 1984

For a man whom George Bernard Shaw once called "a drug addict without, a single admirable trait," Sherlock Holmes has done amazingly well himself. Besides, his many radio, television, and stage adventures, he's also appeared in over 130 films. Considering that his creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, only wrote 60 Holmes mysteries, most of them short stories, that's a remarkable figure.

Just as remarkable is the range of his fans and followers, from A. A. Milne, O. Henry, and Agatha Christie to J,M. Barrie, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Mark Twain. There are Holmes societies dedicated to studies of the "Sacred Writings" as far away as Denmark and Tokyo. And now, the great detective has appeared on videotape too.

Sherlock in Bronze
"Let us be done with all this talk of. . . whatever we may happen to dislike in the daily headlines, " wrote Vincent Starrett in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. "Let us speak rather of those things that are permanent and secure, of high matters about which there can be no gibbering division of opinion. Let us speak of the realities that do not change, of that higher realism which is the only true romance. Let us speak, and speak again, of Sherlock Holmes."

Holmes-infallible, virtuous, eccentric -is a fixed point in a changing age. He is in Starrett's words a "more commanding figure" because he makes sense of the nonsensical ("My name is Sherlock Holmes. My business is to know what other people don't know"), brings order where there was chaos, and overcomes problems instead of letting them overcome him.

But Basil Rathbone, one of the finest actors to portray the sleuth, felt that "there was nothing lovable about Holmes. He himself seemed capable of transcending the weakness of mere mortals such as myself. . . understanding us perhaps, accepting us and even pitying us, but only purely and objectively. It would be impossible for such a man to know loneliness or love or sorrow because he was completely sufficient unto himself.

Yet part of the fascination with the 19th century private detective is that he is not infa:lible. Some inner force drives him to seek out truth, distrust women, take for drugs, blame himself for his mistakes and his failures. Doyle never fully explained his creation, and the blanks are constantly being filled in by curious writers, essayists, and filmmakers..

1976 A.D. (After Doyle)
One of these, Nicholas Meyer, did a good job. His book and film The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976) examines Holmes' drug addiction, among other problems, and involves him in a clever mystery. A brilliant expansion of Doyle's writings, ably directed by Herbert Ross, the movie takes advantage of our own fascination with the sleuth and offers plausible answers based on the facts.

In the story, Holmes' (Nicol Williamson) dependence on cocaine is finally destroying him. Watson (Robert Duvall) tricks him into visiting Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin) in Vienna, who cures him. And in the course of that cure we learn a great deal about the detective's life. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution is a romantic adventure of the best sort which humanizes the great detective without depriving him of the qualities we most admire: perception, determination, and a passion for truth.

These 'features are poorly parodied in another film from the same period, The Adventure of Sherlock of Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975), which supposedly chronicles the case of Sigerson Holmes. Written and· directed by, Gene Wilder, the movie just uses the Holmes canon as a starting point for a broad farce which has little to do with the sleuth, and rnore to do with Mel Brooks-style cornedy.

Nonetheless, when Smarter Brother succeeds, it does so by acknowledging Sherlock's powers of observation Sigerson wants to be like Sherlock but can't, which touches us all because we too want to emulate the great We want to be able to analyze as selflessly as he does because knowledge is power. We also identify with his insatiable curiosity, with a nervous ferret-like energyt that seeks out and tries to understand everything."Holmes is like a spoiled boy who picks watches to pieces but loses interest in one toy as soon as he's given another," observes the detective's foe, Moriarty, in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939). "He is perpetually restless, constantly struggling to escape 'boredom."

Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in Pursuit to Algiers (1945)

Unfortunately, this is rarely seen in cinematic Holmeses. One of those available on tape, 1935's The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes, a British film starring Arthur Wontner, demonstrates the hardships of the role. Wontner looks remarkably like the detective as depicted by illustrator Sidney Paget-yet his interpretation has none of the energy, dramatic flair, or power that makes Holmes fascinating. Wontner's performance is too studied, while the script for this movie is slow-paced and dull. It's a good mystery, but handled without excitement or intrigue. Triumph, one of five movies with Wontner, is a stilted antique.

Sweet Basil
The viewer would do better with Basil Rathbone, who brilliantly captured the best of Holmes in 14 films and 273 radio adventures. The actor came to the part after a career on stage and in films, mostly playing villains either coldly calculating (David Copperfield) or viciously swashbuckling (The Adventures of Robin Hood). Both these qualities were used to good advantage when Rathbone took over the Holmes part in 1939's The Hound of the Baskervilles. That was a huge success and a sequel, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, was soon released. The latter is probably the best Holmes movie ever made: a classy cat-and-mouse game between the sleuth and Professor Moriarty. One of the first scenes in that film (criminally cut from the tape I viewed) marvelously sets the tone for the rest of the story.

"You have a magnificent brain, Moriarty," Sherlock Holmes intones cooly. "I admire it. I admire it so much I'd like to present it pickled in alcohol to the London Medical Society."

"It would make an interesting exhibit," replies the professor calmly.

The story-involving murder, theft, and countless red herrings-is well-handled by director Alfred Werker, who keeps things moving at a remarkable pace, employing evocative music, haunting, fog-filled streets, and wonderful camera angles and lighting to capture the flavor of the period. In Adventureshe world can be a frightening, unnerving place.

"Am I in danger?" asks the heroine (Ida Lupino).

"There's no doubt of it," notes the detective. "But I won't be far."

Basil Rathbone (right) and Nigel Bruce in The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)

Werker captures the fear, Rathbone's Holmes gives the reassurance. All this is helped by skillful performances. Nigel Bruce's Watson is not as cretonic as he was to become in later installments, and he has a genuine, warm rapport with the sleuth ("Watson," says Holmes kindly, "you really are the most incorrigible bungler"). George Zucco's Moriarty is a superb interpretation of an often badly overplayed villain: controlled, menacing, and wholly believable, a man who operates on a completely different moral system and is all the more threatening because of that ("You have murdered a flower," he says angrily to a negligent servant. "To think that for merely murdering a man I was incarcerated for six whole weeks").

When Holmes and Moriarty square off it is just as satisfying as the climax of The Seven Per-Cent Solution: melodramatic, nervewracking, and fun. The irony is that for all Holmes' brilliance as a detective, the movie ends not with a mental battle but a furious fistfight. It is fitting, however, as the cat and mouse struggle of the brains becomes a literal one: Holmes stalking Moriarty on the ramparts of Tower of London as Holmes' thoughts become action.

Although Rathbone went through more adventures, none were as rewarding as this one, which so beautifully captures the spirit of Sherlock Holmes. Or, as Vincent Starrett put it in his poem, "221-B":

Here dwell together still two men of note
Who never lived and so can never die;
How very near they seem, yet how remote
That age before the world went all awry.
But still the game's afoot for those with ears
Attuned to catch the distant view-halloo:
England is England yet,for all our fears
Only those things the heart believes are true.
A yellow fog swirls past the window-pane
As night descends upon this fabled street;
A lonely hansom sPlashes through the rain,
The ghostly gas lamps fail at 20 feet.
Here, though the world explode, these two
survive,
And it is always eighteen ninety-five. ~

Baker Street Bargain

from V, JUNE/JULY 1988

BAKER STREET BARGAIN

Basil Rathbone (far right) as Sherlock Holmes in Pursuit to Algiers (1945)

IN A belated tribute to the centenary of Sherlock Holmes (he's 101 this year), Key Video is releasing all 14 films featuring Basil Rathbone as 221B Baker Street's most famous denizen. Although there have been 186 Holmes films since 1902 and 67 actors in the role of the pipe-smoking sleuth – including John Barrymore, Roger Moore and Larry "J.R." Hagman – Rathbone's portrayal is perhaps the best loved. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) was his debut, but the fast-paced Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) and atmospheric The Scarlet Claw (1944) are more entertaining. Best villain: The Creeper (Pearl of Death, 1944). Best line: "Great Scott! That was meant for us!" (The House of Fear, 1945). Best price: $19.98 each. It's elementary. – Tom Soter