The only real disappointment is
Nigel Bruce as a bumbling comic Dr. Watson, a role he would continue to play in
subsequent movies. Updating the later
films to a contemporary setting (1940's London) was a bit jarring, as were Nazi
villains and the like, and the results were more pedestrian and formulaic than
with the original two films. A low point
comes with a deformed actor playing the "Hoxton Creeper" in The Pearl of Death.
Still, for several decades up
until the 1980's, Rathbone’s visage was generally what popped into your head at
the mention of Sherlock Holmes. That all
changed in 1984 when Jeremy Brett burst onto the television screen in the
elaborate Granada productions with spectacular location shooting. Brett also seemed born to play the part. With his pomaded black hair swept back and
his long thin frame, he also resembled the Paget Holmes. However, the contrast with Rathbone was
striking.
Rathbone was always calm and
self-possessed, while Brett radiated nervous energy, was slightly manic with a
neurotic edge. You were never certain
what his Holmes might do. His movements
were often explosive: wrenching a glass from his pocket, throwing himself on
the turf to look for footprints, or the like.
He was edgy and unbalanced, not poised and calm like Rathbone. You could well believe his Holmes might have
turned to drugs and that he had some dark depths indeed. This Holmes preferred cigarettes to the pipe,
something the chain-smoking Brett encouraged to allow him to smoke on camera.
Brett’s voice was part of the
difference. Despite some deeper
undertones (perhaps because he smoked so much!), his was a tenor voice. Brett had started out as a singing actor and
had been told that with work, he might become an operatic tenor. When he cries out or exclaims loudly, the
voice has a piercing clarion quality.
The voice with its dramatic shifts in intensity contributes to that
sense that his Holmes is unstable and unpredictable. Unlike with the always affable Rathbone, you
might think twice before inviting Brett’s Holmes to a dinner party!
Sadly, as most of his fans know,
Brett’s health visibly deteriorated over the nearly ten year run of the Granada
series. By the end, the thin elegance
and vitality of his early Holmes had vanished.
Still, he laboured on in very ill health.
Brett was lucky to have two very
good Watsons, David Burke and Edward Hardwicke, both of whom were clearly men
of intelligence and sympathy, far cries from the comic-relief Watson of Nigel
Bruce.
I think there is a rather straight
line from Rathbone, to Brett, to Benedict Cumberbatch. We could never had
arrived at Cumberbatch’s portrayal if Brett hadn’t led the way first. Cumberbatch’s Holmes is also quixotic and
excitable. However, once again we have
Holmes with a commanding baritone voice.
Cumberbatch certainly captures the arrogance of the character and his
unpredictability. And who knew that
Holmes was made for a smart phone!
However, for my taste, all this
strangeness gets carried a bit too far.
Portraying him as a frustrated neurotic virgin in the episode with a
very unusual Irene Adler reduced his character to almost a caricature. Ditto with making him always socially
clueless and awkward. Rathbone’s Holmes
was always polite, and Brett’s Holmes could be charming in his social dealings
when he wished to be. Cumberbatch’s
Holmes is too often simply boorish or rude.
Suggesting that he has Asperger’s or some other mental illness also seem
to diminish the character.
I don’t fault Cumberbatch as an
actor for this. I think he is very
good. It is the scripts that are the
problem. I liked some of the early
episodes in the Sherlock series, but 2016's The
Abominable Bride was, for me, a major disappointment. At first, I loved the traditional Victorian
Holmes and Watson as played by Cumberbatch and Freeman and all the wealth of
Victorian decor and costume, but they lost me when they started flipping back
and forth in time between the 2010's and the Victorian period. The script was too clever by far. Suggesting that certain scenes were simply a
drug hallucination was just lame, as was the feminist cabal behind the murders.
However, the resulting mishmash
did indeed resemble a "bad trip," one you might undergo from taking
hallucinogenic drugs after binge-watching various old and new versions of
Sherlock Holmes on video. I wish they
would give Cumberbatch a chance to play a more straight Victorian Sherlock
Holmes. What we saw of him early on in The Abominable Bride did show that he,
too, was made for the part, and Martin Freeman as Watson was a nice blend of
comedy and compassion.
The Further Adventures of Sherlock
Holmes: The White Worm by Sam Siciliano (Titan Books) £7.99 is out now.
Sherlock Holmes and his cousin, Dr
Henry Vernier, travel to Whitby, to investigate a curious case on behalf of a
client. He has fallen in love, but a mysterious letter has warned him of the
dangers of such a romance. The woman is said to be under a druidic curse,
doomed to take the form of a gigantic snake. Locals speak of a green glow in
the woods at night, and a white apparition amongst the trees. Is there sorcery
at work, or is a human hand behind the terrors of Diana’s Grove?
More information about Sam Sciliano and his books can be found on his website.
