PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Sherlock Holmes 2013 Russian TV Series

Sherlock Holmes 2013 Russian TV series. Created by Ruben Dishdishyan, written by Andrey Kavun, Leonid Porokhin and Igor Pogodin, directed by Andrey Kavum. A 16 episode series that features 8 stories. I found this Russian TV adaptation on Amazon. The 2 DVD set is a bootleg with four 90 min stories on each disc. The 2 episodes for each story are edited together, a common practice with two part stories.

The first episode is their origin story. Watson had served in the military in Afghanistan, he'd gotten wounded and returned to England to recuperate.  Months later Watson heads to London to start a practice, the day he arrives  he stumbles into a murder investigation where he meets Holmes. He learns of a room available in Mrs Hudson's boarding house on Baker Street. Watson moves in and their partnership develops.

The second story has Holmes and Watson drawn into the murder of an young Indian prince. He was gunned down by some cabbies. Turns out one of the cabbies got wounded and he goes to visit Dr Watson for medical help. He dies shortly after he  gets there. Lestrade shows up, he's been trailing the wounded man. He suspects Holmes and Watson are up to something but he has no proof. It's a complicated story of nationalism and racism. There's a fair bit of violence and some gory bits.

It's well produced, there are great sets and locations. I liked the characters, especially Dr Watson, I was sad to hear actor Andrey Panin passed away before he could even dub the last of his lines. Igor Petrenko plays Holmes, Mikhail Boyarskiy plays inspector Lestrade and Ingeborga Dapkunaite plays Mrs Hudson. That's them in the picture at the top of the post.

Just based on the 2 stories I've watched so far I'd recommend the series. I'm looking forward to the rest of the series.

The Hound Of The Baskervilles 1978

The Hound Of The Baskervilles 1978 Based on the 1928 novel by Arthur Conan Doyle, screenplay by Peter Cook, Dudley Moore & Paul Morrissey, directed by Paul Morrissey. I saw Morrissey just died. The only other films of his I've seen were Flesh For Frankenstein and Blood For Dracula. Both those came out just before this. I've had little interest in seeing his other films.

Peter Cook is Sherlock and Dudley Moore is Dr Watson. They are joined by some good actors: Denholm Elliot, Hugh Griffith, Terry-Thomas, Kenneth Williams, Joan Greenwood, Irene Handl, Penelope Keith, Jessie Matthews, Prunella Scales and Spike Milligan.

Sadly they can't do much with the poor script. The jokes are poor at best, some of them border on offensive, others are just not funny. This is the second time I've seen the movie. The first time was back in 2011, I had forgotten how poor it was, I didn't even bother with a blog post back then. I don't think I'll see it again.

They Might Be Giants 1971

They Might Be Giants 1971 Based on the 1961 play They Might Be Giants by James Goldman, screenplay by James Goldman, directed by Anthony Harvey.

George C Scott plays a businessman who's response to the death of his wife is to retreat into a fantasy world where he's Sherlock Holmes. His brother, played by Lester Rawlins, wants to have him committed so he can take over his brother's fortune. Rue McClanahan is the brother's girlfriend and Joanne Woodward is Dr Watson. She's a psychiatrist at the local mental hospital that the brother wants use to lock Sherlock up. The head of the hospital is a moron who just wants another paying customer. Dr Watson wants to study Sherlock and see what makes him tick.

Sherlock is on the hunt for Moriarty, he believes his nemesis is leaving clues around the city, clues Sherlock hopes will reveal Moriarty's next crime. Dr Watson joins him on his quest.They have some adventures, Sherlock gets shot at one point, and a bit of romance develops.

Holmes and Watson meet all sorts of characters on their trip through New York City. Jack Gilford is Sherlock's friend, he's a librarian. Oliver Clark is a psychiatric patient, Al Lewis plays a guy who wants to get his bill paid, Eugene Roche is a policeman, M Emmet Walsh is a garbageman, Louis Zorich is his co-worker, F Murray Abraham plays Clyde and Paul Benedict is the Chestnut Man.

There's plenty of activity and the movie spends a good bit of time on the streets of New York. On the commentary Anthony Harvey says they just filmed the scenes with local people in the background. It's funny, poignant and clever. I enjoyed it and was glad to have seen it. I would watch it again sometime which is fortuitous as I picked up the Kino Lorber Blu-ray last week. They've got another sale going on.

Sherlock Holmes And The Masks Of Death 1984

Sherlock Holmes And The Masks Of Death 1984 Story by John Elder, screenplay by Anthony Hinds, N J Crisp, directed by Roy Ward Baker.

Peter Cushing is Holmes, John Mills is Watson, and Anne Baxter is Irene Adler.It's Peter Cushing's last turn as Holmes, his ill health kept him from being able to appear in a sequel.

Inspector MacDonald asks Holmes for help with the three dead bodies in the East End. Before he gets going on that, the Home Secretary shows up with a German diplomat who has lost one of his envoys, a German Prince, who has disappeared right out of his house in Buckinghamshire. Could get serious between England and German if the guy isn't found.

There's a fairly good script that pokes a bit of fun at Sherlock's age. He's not quite as sharp as he used to be, it takes a while for him to get going and figure things out. Not a top notch film but entertaining for the most part. You can see it on YouTube. Link above.

Sherlock Holmes And Doctor Watson 1979

Sherlock Holmes And Doctor Watson 1979 Created by Sheldon Reynolds, he was also the creator of the 1954 American TV show Sherlock Holmes with Ronald Howard and Howard Marion-Crawford. That was a more successful series, I've seen most of those episodes a couple of times and I find the episodes entertaining, it's in the public domain and all the episodes can be found on YouTube or DVD. Worth having a look at for the Sherlock fan.

The copies of Sherlock Holmes And Doctor Watson on YouTube don't look anywhere near as good as the Ronald Howard shows do, one of the reasons I ordered the German DVD set of all 24 episodes. Apparently the show was popular in Germany, they seem to be the only one to produce a real DVD release. The image is fairly good looking and the sound is so much better than the YouTube uploads.

Sheldon Reynolds filmed the series in Poland with British actors in the lead roles. Geoffrey Whitehead plays Holmes, Donald Pickering plays Watson and Patrick Newell plays Lestrade. British guest actors include Bernard Bresslaw, Sue Lloyd, Sally Travers, Julian Fellowes, William Morgan Sheppard, Geoffrey Talbot, Richard Greene, Catherine Schell and Victoria Tennant.

Some of the episodes were adapted from Doyle stories, some were recycled scripts from the 1954 series and some were original stories. Sheldon Reynolds directed a few episodes and the other directors include Roy Stevens, Val Guest, Peter Sasdy, Roy Ward Baker, Aurelio Crugnola and Freddie Francis.

There's decent sets and locations, Poland lends itself to the Sherlock time period quite well. The stories are entertaining and humorous, I usually had a laugh or two out of each one. I'm glad I picked one up.

The Sherlock Holmes Vault Collection

The Sherlock Holmes Vault Collection consists of four restored Sherlock Holmes films from the 1930s. Three of the films star Arthur Wontner and one stars Reginald Owen. The Film Detective put the set out and each film is on it's own Blu-ray with a commentary, an essay in a booklet, a small postcard of the film's poster, and a series of short bits and pieces.

The Wontner films are much better looking than the Owen film. I suspect they might not have had any good film elements to work with as the Wontner films are much sharper and darker. I've seen these films 2 or 3 times already and they're all fairly entertaining. I like Wontner as Sherlock more than Owen.

I wasn't that impressed with the extras. I tried all the commentaries. I bailed on the one by Jennifer Churchill on The Fatal Hour because she wasn't that interesting and giggle too often at her own comments. I quit listing to the Atkins and Breckman on A Study In Scarlet because they had too much uninteresting banter and laughed at their own jokes too much. The Ney commentary on The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes was fairly good but he spent too much time on studio history than the film. The Sutton & Legan commentary on Silver Blaze was mostly worth listening to though it had a bit of time wasting banter. The Sam Sherman featurettes were short and sort of interesting. The short films and other Sherlock items were a mixed bag, mostly public domain material but not the best of that sort of thing.

I'm glad to get the nice versions of the Wontner films and will watch those again sometime. The rest I'd pretty much skip across the board. I got no time for it.

Here's the list of what's on each disc.

Disc 1

• The Fatal Hour (1931) featuring Arthur Wontner
• Essay by Don Stradley
• Commentary Track with Jennifer Churchill
• The Adventures of Sam Sherman: Part One featurette
• Recreated Sherlock Holmes Radio Broadcast
• A Black Sherlock Holmes (1918) cut bonus short
• A Black Sherlock Holmes (1918) uncut bonus short
• Baffled (1900)

Disc 2

• The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935) featuring Arthur Wontner
• Essay by Jason A. Ney
• Commentary Track with Jason A Ney
• The Adventures of Sam Sherman: Part Two featurette
• The Copper Beeches (1912)
• Blind Man's Bluff TV episode (1954)

Disc 3

• Silver Blaze (1937) featuring Arthur Wontner
• Essay by Don Stradley
• Commentary Track with Phoef Sutton & Jordan Legan
• The Adventures of Sam Sherman: Part Three featurette
• Sure Luck Holmes Felix the Cat cartoon
• Cousins of Sherlocko (1913)

Disc 4

• A Study in Scarlet (1933) featuring Reginald Owen
• Essay by C. Courtney Joyner
• Commentary Track with Peter Atkins & David Breckman
• Elementary Cinema an original production by Ballyhoo Motion Pictures
• Slick Sleuths Mutt & Jeff cartoon

Also includes:

• 4 original poster replications in ease disc case

Sherlick Holmes 1975

Sherlick Holmes is a 1975 porn parody of Sherlock Holmes. It's written by Bear Wilson and directed by Tim McCoy (Victor Milt). It's part of a two film set from Vinegar Syndrome's Peekarama DVD series.

Harry Reems plays Sherlick and Zebedy Colt plays Watson. The movie starts with Sherlick and Watson banging some lady. Holmes has invented a time travel machine. Watson accidentally sends them to New York in the 1970s. They meet up with pimp Bobby Astyr and he lends them some of his spare pimp outfits. The time machine disappears and Sherlick and Watson noodle around sticking their plonkers into any available lady they come across. Eventually Sherlick finds the time machine and they get back home and start banging again. It's kind of funny, more for the film making than the jokes, and part of that fun was watching Harry and Zebedy running about the streets of New York in those pimp outfits. I wouldn't have picked it up, other than for the Sherlock connection. I might watch it again someday but who knows. So many other better films to watch again.

Hands Of A Murderer 1990

Hands Of A Murderer is a 1990 British TV movie that was written by Charles Edward Pogue and directed by Stuart Orme. Pogue had previously written 2 British TV movies with Ian Richardson playing Sherlock Homes. They came out in 1983 and HOAM would have been part of that series, under the title The Prince Of Crime, but it didn't get produced because the Granada Sherlock series started in 1984. Producer Sy Weintraub took Granada to court and won 2 million pounds. Edward Woodward plays Sherlock Holmes and John Hillerman plays Dr Watson. Anthony Andrews plays Professor Moriarty and Peter Jeffrey plays Mycroft Holmes. Moriarty is about to be hung but he manages to escape while his head is in the noose. He had some help, a pretty redhead played by Kim Thomson and his own henchmen. Holmes is furious with Lestrade, played by Terence Lodge, and he plans to go after Moriarty. Mycroft asks Sherlock to help him with a leak in his office but Sherlock is focused on Moriarty. That scumbag has a plan going to steal the code to secret documents that Mycroft receives. Moriarty kidnaps Mycroft to get the code from him and Sherlock is on his trail. It wasn't too bad a story, there's action and the story moves along fairly well. Locations, sets and props are all good. I got used to Woodward and Hillerman as Holmes and Watson but they aren't ever going to be my favs. Moriarty was a more interesting character. It's an interesting addition to the Holmes collection and I'd still watch it again someday.

Sherlock Holmes Against Conan Doyle

Sherlock Holmes Against Conan Doyle is a documentary about Doyle and the effect his creation had on him. It's directed by Emmanuelle Nobecourt and it aired 2-18-18 on French TV. It seems to have been made in English, somewhat logical as most of the people interviewed were English. There's not much info about it on the IMDb or the Internet in general.

I'd read before that Doyle came to hate being tied to Sherlock and that's why he killed him off. The documentary gives a fair overview of Doyle's life and writing. It's only 53 minutes, there isn't room to get really detailed. It's nice that the documentary doesn't get overly dramatic about the battle between Doyle and his creator. Doyle was an interesting guy with some ups and downs in his life. Holmes was the elephant in his room and it was an issue for him.  Still, he put a lot of work into the stories and their quality has stood the test of time. Sherlock is one of the most adapted characters in media and still highly beloved. I enjoyed the documentary and would recommend it to the Homes fan.

Young Sherlock: Mystery At The Manor House Granada Television 1982

Young Sherlock: The Mystery Of The Manor House is an 8 part Granada Television production from 1982. The episodes were written by Gerald Frow and directed by Nicholas Ferguson. For some unknown reason the first episode is double the length of the all the others. It's like there are 9 episodes, time wise. Sherlock is played by Guy Henry and he's 17 at the time. He's returned home from school to find that his parents have moved out of the manor house and gone to France. They'd suffered financial ruin and Sherlock must board with the Turnbull family. A right horrible bunch they are, let me tell you.

A different family of a horrible nature has moved into the manor house and their actions rouse Sherlock's suspicions. There's a good bit of sleuthing and a good bit of family drama. Sherlock finds friendship in the housekeeper, Mrs Cunliffe, and Doctor Sowerbutts and family. At the end of the series Mrs Cunliffe gets married to a man named Hudson and moves to 221B Baker's Street. Sherlock eventually uncovers a devious plot and works to foil it. He gets some help from the Doctor and family and a young woodsman called Newbugs.

The story is OK, the details a bit sloggy. The bit with Mrs Cunliffe/Hudson is weak but other bits are better. I was glad to see it but doubt I would shell out some cold hard cash for a set of the DVD. It's out of print but you can still get a set for $20-30, depending on the disc quality. You can see the lot on YouTube by clicking these links. Episodes 1-5 6 7 8