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Re: Complete Sherlock Holmes

punychicken said:
Just found this little gem and thought it might tickle someones fancy.

It would tickle Shearluck's fancy if he was around.

(No pun intended.. well, not much anyway. ;))
 
New Holmes

This is in honor of the new edition of The Annotated Sherlock Holmes. ( The Baring-Gould classic is out of print, believe it or not.) Is there anyone out there who'd care to share their favorite Holmes story or moment? I always get a chill when the sinister jovial Mr. Rucastle informs the new governess ( The Copper Beeches) that he'll unleash the family mastiff if she wanders through the forbidden part of the house.
 
The moment in Hound of the Baskervilles when they discover the tortured Beryl Stapleton in the locked room. Really gives a chill about the ruthless imorrality of Stapleton. This bit was both a chill and a thrill to the Victorian reader.
 
I read SH over and over as a kid and what struck me was what we'd now call the forensic aspects.

Like the idea that 'a man writes on a wall at the height of his own eyes.'
A few years ago I identified the perpetrator of some school graffiti in just that way. Made me look like a genius. 8)

I said, 'I learned that from Sherlock Holmes!'

I have the autobiography of the model for Holmes, who was his medical school tutor. Fascinating.
 
Dr Bell in Edinburgh.

The series The Murder Room starring Ian Richardson was brilliant!
 
221B Baker St.? Hardly an address that inspires confidence

"The Blue Carbuncle" was the first SH story I ever read, so that will always have a place in my heart.

And God bless that Jeremy Brett. Damn, he was good.
 
The Creeping Professor really scared me. The bit where he's scrambling about in the ivy trying to catch a glimpse of the young lady he is in love with. Eeeek!

I also like the Speckled Band. Baboons in the garden!
 
Re: 221B Baker St.? Hardly an address that inspires confiden

Ogopogo said:
"The Blue Carbuncle" was the first SH story I ever read, so that will always have a place in my heart.

And God bless that Jeremy Brett. Damn, he was good.

The investment in the DVD box set was the best I ever made! Shame he's gone. Did you know he was related to Martin Clunes?
 
Blimey....favourite Sherlock Holmes story.....rather difficult to chose, actually.

I agree, Brett looked the part of Holmes, but he's not my favourite. Christopher Plummer and James Mason were far and away the best Holmes and Watson pairing ever. I'm so very tired of Watson being made to look an idiot when he's clearly not. And I'm so tired of Holmes being an emotionless automaton when he's clearly not. Plummer and Mason are a team, where Plummer is obviously the genius, but Mason can keep up - just. That's what it's all about.

The bumbling idiot of the Rathbone series was ridiculous; and the two Watson's Brett had were, to my mind, little better. I know that the only reason Watson seems a tad dim is because Holmes is so brilliant; but come on - Holmes wouldn't keep a bumbling idiot around! And Watson's a doctor; he's an intelligent man!

So while I concede that Brett is the picture perfect Holmes, and the series itself follows the Strand illustrations remarkably well, I do not believe they are the best Holmes.
 
While I'm a huge fan of Jeremy Brett (his movement is superb) I'm also fond of Peter Cushing and Andre Morell as Holmes and Watson in the Hammer version of 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' - it's a shame that was the only story they filmed.

What are peoples' opinions of the forthcoming Fry and Laurie series..?
 
Whistling Jack said:
What are peoples' opinions of the forthcoming Fry and Laurie series..?

That i didn't know it existed. Details?

They'll have to do well to break out of Jeeves & Wooster.
 
Stephen Fry is not my idea of Holmes. PS I liked Cushing's Holmes as well. The historical prelude at beginning of Hammer's Hound is one of their finest sequences.
 
Oi, I quite liked the old Basil Rathbone B/W fillums, used to watch them. Hound Of The Baskervilles scared the crap out of me and gave me a morbid terror of big black dogs for years, until [oddly enough] I met a Rottweiler ...
 
Re: New Holmes

condreye buch said:
Is there anyone out there who'd care to share their favorite Holmes story or moment?
Jefferson Hope, crawling on his belly. Awesome. The John Ferrier story in A study in Scarlett really was the best in the world, because at this point when I'd started reading holmes on a long coach journey to eastern Europe many summers ago, I recall thinking to myself as I then proceeded to leaf through the many pages to follow, the fun had only just began and that I had a whole summer of Holmesian treasures awaiting me. So taken was I with this body of work (a collection) that I read it three times over that summer.

I managed to find a book store in Warsaw that sold russian editions of english language books and aquired The Lost World & Other Stories, much to my delight. In later years a copy of "Sir Nigel" and "The White Company" (THESE are sheer excellence) surfaced along with The complete Brigadier Gerard and Tales of Unease.

Though Holmes may not have been Doyle's favourite character, I shall never forget the impact the tales of Alkali Plains had on me that summer.

With regard to adaptations to screen, the most amusing and well worth the price of admission is the charming "Private life of Sherlock holmes" (you can get it on DVD). Great stuff. Not 100% the source naturally, but as spoof's go, sheer excellence.

Also worth seeking out, and I really do think it is no matter how many purists baulk, was "Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear". Now known as Young Sherlock Holmes, and it's out on DVD. Silly Amblin rip roaring stuff, but it does no harm.

Murder by Decree, something about Plummer and Mason together works, petty it was in THIS film and this film only, but non the less, good fun.

Jeremey Brett is perhaps regarded as the quinitsential holmes. He certainly suites the version illustrated in the Strand. Along side that as his battman I'd have Ian Hart as Watson, who played him in the baskerville adaptation, which wasn't the best adaptation to date, but none the less, his performance as Watson was a refreshing revision of the character, who for years has had a smatter of the nigel bruce about him, but thanks to Ian Hart, that's been ironed out with the creases. Now if only he and Brett had performed together. Alas. But this xmas Rupert Evert will be smoking the pipe and playing the violin rather badly alongside Hart in a new BBC adaptation which I'm sure has been mentioned before.
 
The Yithian said:
Whistling Jack said:
What are peoples' opinions of the forthcoming Fry and Laurie series..?

That i didn't know it existed. Details?

They'll have to do well to break out of Jeeves & Wooster.

Sorry about the dealy, Google just bunged-up my browser: -

Fry and Laurie set for Sherlock

Comedy duo Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie are set to reunite to play Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson in a one-off drama for ITV1.

The pair met at Cambridge University in the 1980s and have co-starred in TV shows including Jeeves and Wooster and A Bit of Fry and Laurie.

Fry, who is known to be a keen Sherlock fan, will play the Victorian detective, with Laurie as his loyal sidekick.

ITV has yet to confirm the project but the duo are believed to be on board.

"Stephen is absolutely passionate about Sherlock Holmes and Hugh will make a superb Watson," ITV1's Nick Elliott told The Daily Mirror.

The channel hopes to screen the £2m film in 2005, but has yet to finalise contractual details.

Literary hero

Actors who have recently played Sherlock Holmes include Richard Roxburgh in BBC One's film adaptation of the Hound of the Baskervilles, and Jeremy Brett, who starred in ITV's The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.

Brett's interpretation of Holmes proved popular with the British public and he returned to the role through the 1980s. He last played Conan Doyle's literary hero in 1994's The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

Fry, who hosted the Bafta film awards in February, made his directorial debut last year with Bright Young Things - an adaptation of the Evelyn Waugh novel, Vile Bodies.

His recent acting work includes the BBC Two series Absolute Power and the forthcoming film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, starring Geoffrey Rush.

Laurie has made a successful transition to Hollywood with the Stuart Little films - but failed to impress in last year's ITV drama Fortysomething.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/film/3583165.stm

Published: 2004/03/30 15:40:35 GMT
 
I loved the Basil Rathbone films myself. Mind you, it's hard not to like Basil Rathbone.

"You've come to Nottingham once too often....!"

:D
 
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainmen ... 469415.stm

Thursday, 2 August, 2001, 01:26 GMT 02:26 UK
Conan Doyle 'stole Sherlock story'
Basil Rathbone playing Sherlock Holmes
The Sherlock Holmes story led to a knighthood
by West of England correspondent Jane O'Brien

When it was first serialised 100 years ago in Strand Magazine, the Hound of the Baskervilles caused an absolute sensation.

Arthur Conan Doyle had bowed to public pressure (and hefty cash incentives from his publisher) to produce a new Sherlock Holmes story.

At the time of that first publication Conan Doyle acknowledged the debt he owed to his friend Bertram Fletcher Robinson.

The latter had shown him around Dartmoor, from where inspiration for the story about the deadly beast is understood to have come.

But now historian Rodger Garrick-Steele is claiming that it was in fact Fletcher Robinson who wrote the original book.

And he says Conan Doyle, to avoid being exposed as a fraud, persuaded Robinson's wife, with whom he was having an affair, to poison him.

Mr Garrick-Steele told the BBC that Conan Doyle poisoned his former friend with laudanum.

And he claims that it was at this stage that the now Sir Arthur Conan Doyle realised he must kill his former friend rather than let his plagiarism be discovered.

"Conan Doyle was in an impossible situation, having been rewarded in the most public way possible for an act of plagiarism.

"The price of discovery for that fraud would be disgrace - if his affair with his friend's wife was discovered as well, it would have meant ruin.

"Doyle was an intelligent and determined man, he saw the obvious solution and used his medical training to convince Fletcher Robinson's wife to murder him, thereby solving two problems at once."

Evil squire

Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts and other literary scholars have dismissed the theory, but they admit that Fletcher Robinson's full role in creating the novel has been underplayed.

It was Fletcher Robinson who enthralled Conan Doyle with the story of the evil squire Sir Richard Cabell who sold his soul to Satan and was dragged to hell by a pack of gigantic hounds.

To this day the squire's grave in Buckfast churchyard is surrounded by a mausoleum and iron railings, in order to keep the squire from riding out with his hounds.

It is also generally agreed that Fletcher Robinson and Doyle had indeed planned to jointly write a story about the Squire Cabell legend on Dartmoor.

Why the novel eventually emerged as a new Sherlock Holmes story with Fletcher Robinson reduced to a brief line of thanks on the title page shall remain a mystery, worthy of the great sleuth himself.
 
I consider Fry and Laurie to have been perfectly cast in Jeeves & Wooster (I've got that set too!) so it'll be interesting to see how they take to Holmes.

Worst portrayal? Charlton Heston in "The Cricefer of Fear" Utter dross! The Rathbone/Bruce series was produced as a wartime British moral booster! Bruce was the ideal bumbling fool! A spoiled chance was Christopher Lee in the two "The Golden Years" productions.

The Brett/Hardwicke team was perfect in The Sign of Four (with the wonderful John Thaw) and, in my opinion disporves the "Watson the Twit" attitude. When they break into the murder room, Holmes automatically leaves the examination of the corpse to Watson (obviously happy with his expertise) while he examined the surroundings. Magic!
 
Fry and Laurie for Holmes and Watson?
Ohhh, interesting...
A related side snippet- One of Fry's best known non-comedy roles was Oscar Wilde in the 1997 biopic. It is thought that Doyle based Holmes brother, Mycroft, on Wilde himself, as he found him a rather fascinating characture and they met more than once.
 
Lady Stella said:
Fry and Laurie for Holmes and Watson?
Ohhh, interesting...
A related side snippet- One of Fry's best known non-comedy roles was Oscar Wilde in the 1997 biopic. It is thought that Doyle based Holmes brother, Mycroft, on Wilde himself, as he found him a rather fascinating characture and they met more than once.
Wonderful film that. the only bit of decent acting from young Jude Law to be committed to celuloid.

Love in the face of adversity. Wonderful stuff.
 
Oh, it makes me cry every time I watch it. Terribly sad. The Ellman biog on which it's based is even sadder. Oscar and Bosie has to be one of the all-time tragic love stories, and the fact that it's all true makes it even more painful.
:cry:
 
IIRC Doyle and Wilde shared the same US publisher, who suggested that each write a supernatural or horrific novel. Doyle produced The Sign of Four and Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Although a traditionalist Doyle seems to have been free of many of the prejudices of his time. His story The Yellow Face is an early appearance of the biracial marriage theme in crime fiction. Then of course there's The Five Orange Pips...
 
condreye buch said:
IIRC Doyle and Wilde shared the same US publisher, who suggested that each write a supernatural or horrific novel. Doyle produced The Sign of Four...

As a pure curiosity i've a copy of this:

Edit: updated link.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/thebad...-four-advanced-pitmans-shorthand-edition/amp/

Slim little pale blue hard back. I say curiosity as, of course, I can't actually decipher it. Nice little book though. :)

Shorthand was extensively used in the business world during Conan Doyle's career. The two leading (and competing) systems, that of Sir Isaac Pitman, and Gregg Shorthand, both issued The Sign of Four as written utilizing their system, among other popular novels presented in shorthand.
 
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