Your Favorite Sherlock Holmes Movie?

[MissGoddess]

Feo, can you write out the word how it sounds? I am unsure of the right pronunciation.

[feaito]

It's pronounced sɐ.uˈdaðɨ or sawˈdaðɨ, according to an English site....I'd say sau-da-yi or saw-da-yi...but I'm not an expert in Portuguese pronunciation

[MissGoddess]

I was certainly way off in how I thought it was pronounced! I like it even better now.

Thank you!

[JackFavell]

It's beautiful, so descriptive of a certain way down deep feeling.

[feaito]

Welcome Avril

[feaito]

Well April, watched "The Scarlet Claw" (1944) and had a great time, because I did not guess who the killer was until almost the end...and it has unexpected twists, deaths and it misled my conclusions in a way. So in terms of suspense and mystery, I found it better than "The Spider Woman", because in that film at the very beginning one knew who the killer was and her motives....but as far as dialogue and interplay between Holmes and the villainess, and their battle of wits, and its offbeat quality -Scarlet Claw is a more conventional whodunit- I rate higher Spider Woman.

[MissGoddess]

I quite agree with your feelings...character interaction is always number one with me, so I prefer movies that feature this. But, as you say the plot of The Scarlet Claw was very well conceived.

[Rita Hayworth]

feaito - Your quick write up of both Claw and Spider Woman is excellent indeed. These two are among my favorites ... and by the way thanks for sharing it :!:

[feaito]

Thanks Avril & Kingme....these short films have been ideal for my evenings.....I'll check if I have more entries of the series (not sure).

[JackFavell]

MissG, I hope you don't mind if I write a little about the BBC series, instead of the movies here. With the death of Edward Hardwicke, and you thread going like a house afire, I felt I had to go revisit these episodes. If you haven't seen the series, I think you would fall in love with Holmes all over again watching Jeremy Brett play him. There is such depth and romance in his characterization.

I watched The first in the series The Return of Sherlock Holmes (which is available from Netflix for streaming), with Brett and the recently departed Edward Hardwicke. This episode called The Empty House, was a joy to watch. I remembered thinking Brett was good when the series were shown over here in the U.S., but giving it time, my estimation of the series has gone up even more.

Brett is really superb, exciting in his delivery and surprising in his movements. He's a spellbinder, deeply flawed and Byronic, I totally believe him as Holmes - he inhabits Holmes in a way that only Basil Rathbone was able to do before him. Hardwicke is as I remember him: kind, foolishly passionate and good natured, warm and a good fellow all around. I'll reprint this from the Hardwicke obituary that Moira posted in another thread:

"The superbly handsome Jeremy Brett, the regularity of his features made dramatic by a broken nose, the mellifluousness of his voice made arresting by a slight vocal impediment, presented a ravaged and romantic Holmes ... [whose] relationship with Edward Hardwicke's transparently decent Watson was that of a drowning man clinging to a raft," declared the actor Simon Callow.

And it is all about that relationship in this series. It is essentially a love story, one that surprisingly had me close to tears as the story of Holmes disappearance played out. This is the reason to watch the series. One would have thought that Brett and Hardwicke had been working together for years and years, so companionable and comfortable were they in each other's presence. Hard to believe that this was their first episode together.

At one hour or less, these are great fun to watch, and the attention to detail and period is sumptuous.

[MissGoddess]

Any and all Holmes movie/TV adaptations are welcome, thank you for your post, Wendy.

When you say the series was romantic, did they actually give Sherlock a girlfriend in one of the episodes?? I'd love to see that.

[JackFavell]

I think they stuck with the Holmes stories very specifically so I don't think they gave him a girlfriend per se... I haven't seen the series in years and probably never saw all of the episodes, though. I meant romantic in a more general 19th century sense.

I think you'd find Brett's Holmes quite attractive. There's something dark and very exciting lurking beneath the brilliant controlled exterior. Callow really had it right. Something is crying out from inside this Holmes, who can't help being exceptional....you definitely see the cursed side of the character here, more in keeping with the original stories.

[knitwit45]

I remember as the series went on, Brett's movements became more and more frenetic. The local PBS station was airing the series up thru last winter. Truth be told, Edward Hardwicke was my favorite Watson.

Have you seen the new PBS Holmes, set in current times? The young man playing Holmes, Benedict Cumberbatch, is channeling Brett for sure. Martin Freeman, as Watson, is very interesting. He brings a darkness to the part not seen previously. (Mr. Freeman has been cast as Bilbo Baggins in the 2 part The Hobbit)

[JackFavell]

I haven't seen it at all - I used to watch all the series on PBS, and Masterpiece Theatre but in the last few years, I've lost track of any good programs on our stations. Used to be, if you missed an episode, they would replay it later, but not any more.

[knitwit45]

They're re-playing the Downton Abbey series right now!

back to Mr.Holmes (sorry, April )