BACK BY [a completely untested assumption of] POPULAR DEMAND
The self-guided version of my site-specific Sherlock Holmes audio play is available TODAY! This is my last blog post about what I watched before and during the writing process. I can feel you losing steam on this series, dear reader (or maybe I’m just projecting), so I’ll get right to it.
“Sherlock", BBC (on Netflix, also on DVD at the MCPL)
My favorite adaptation, I got through all four series while working on my script outline. Overall quite excellent. Great casting, and quite good writing. The Holmes/Watson relationship is a rock-solid core of the series, as well it should be (though in the pilot I could have done with fewer moments of other characters mistaking them for a gay couple). It’s also the cleverest of the adaptations I saw in terms of deductions and plot twists, and had the best visual representation of how Sherlock’s mind works.
Though sometimes they took that cleverness a bit far. I rolled my eyes a little at most of Mary Watson’s backstory, and I found the end of Season 4 (“The Final Problem”) a bit OTT as the Brits say (Over The Top). But I’m pleased that there are rumors about a fifth series.
As any good adaptation should be, this is very entertaining even if you haven’t read any of the original stories. But there’s an extra layer of fun for those who have read their Conan Doyle, which I found very instructive. Some episodes stick to a modern treatment of a particular story or novel. But others were original plots that borrowed or “remixed” details from the canon. A single plot point or detail is lifted from a story and used in a completely different way, or a character appears in a very different form. I took inspiration from this as I "remixed” details in my own mostly-original script.
[Fans of the series who want to dip into the stories can also check out the MCPL’s copy of “Sherlock: the essential Arthur Conan Doyle Adventures”, a selection of short stories curated by the show’s creators, including little blurbs about what makes it one of their favorites.]
“Elementary”, 2012-2019 CBS (currently on Hulu, also on DVD at MCPL)
I only watched the first three episodes (out of 154 total, less than 2% of the series), so take all this with a large grain of salt. To me it felt like a pretty straightforward police procedural with a Sherlock-in-America twist. Lucy Liu plays American ex-doctor Joan Watson, assigned as a kind of “sobriety coach” to recovering addict Holmes, played by Jonny Lee Miller.
The pilot leans very heavily on the trope that geniuses, especially men, get to be rude to everyone around them (sometimes it even feels that writers use this behavior to signal “genius” to the audience, like it’s a requirement). This made Miller’s performance a little annoying to watch (though I’ve watched all of “House, MD” so I guess I lack consistency here). Holmes was a little less obnoxious in the second and third episodes. I also take points off for Watson noticing a huge clue towards the end of the pilot. I’d argue that their first case together is way too early for Watson to be absorbing Holmes’ methods and using them with such success. Perhaps the goal of the series is to show them more as equals, which is a fine goal, but gets us further from Conan Doyle than felt useful to me as a writer.
“Mr. Holmes”, starring Ian McKellen and Laura Linney (Kanopy, can also be found elsewhere)
“Enola Holmes” (Netflix)
Two movies, both based on pastiche novels, both quite fun, neither particularly useful as research for one's own adaptation.
I could watch McKellen or Linney do almost anything, but I watched "Mr. Holmes” well before Cardinal contacted me, so I can’t really count it as research. As the son of a hobbyist beekeeper, I enjoyed that element of the story, and seeing one of the great minds of literature struggle with an aging memory tugs at one’s heartstrings.
“Enola Holmes” is also based on a novel, and also quite enjoyable to watch, though the tone is much more adventurous. “Mr. Holmes” has a much slower pace, which makes sense considering the “Enola Holmes” book series is YA fiction. I was going to skip “Enola” but one of my best friends urged me to make time for it. I hadn’t watched “Stranger Things” so this was my first introduction to the child actor/phenomenon that is Millie Bobby Brown. She’s got pluck and charisma for days, which helped me forgive the large amount of direct address by Enola (here it mostly feels like lazy screenwriting, though if the novels are written in the first person, I’m sure it’s a temptation for any adapter).
“Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror”, 1942
“Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon”, 1943
“The Woman in Green”, 1945
“Dressed to Kill”, 1946
Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce played Holmes and Watson, respectively, in 14 films from 1939-46. After the first two, they were all set in the modern era.
I was pretty much done writing by the time I watched these four (all under 70 minutes each), so it didn’t impact my script very much. But it’s rather delightful to watch Holmes fight Nazis and hypnotists (in addition to Professor Moriarty). “Dressed to Kill”, the last of the series, is hilariously mis-titled: it concerns a coded message smuggled out of prison in a trio of music boxes that play false notes. One of the villains is a woman, but it’s a stretch to call her a femme fatale. I guess Universal figured that “Dressed to Kill” would sell more tickets than “The Adventure of the Three Music Boxes” (can you blame them?).
Rathbone is neck-and-neck with Cumberbatch in terms of his portrayal of Holmes. Both are splendid actors, and I think Conan Doyle would be very pleased with both. Nigel Bruce’s genial, bumbling Watson is fun for Holmes to play off of, but has little to do with the brave sounding board that Conan Doyle wrote. The Rathbone-Bruce character relationship works for these movies, but I don’t need my Watson to be two steps behind the audience for Holmes to look smart.
But in terms of plotting, “Sherlock” has more frequent deductions that are more impressive. The Rathbone films give you just enough deduction to recognize the character, and not much more.
I watched these on the Roku channel (which you can access without a Roku, for free I believe), but four of the films slipped into the public domain in the 1970s (including three that I watched) and are widely available, including on Kanopy.
I did try to steal this quote from “…the Voice of Terror”, but I couldn’t quite fit it my script:
Watson: “But Holmes, that’s impossible!”
Holmes: “Anything is possible until proven otherwise.”
Saving the worst for last...
“Sherlock Holmes” (2009, directed by Guy Ritchie)
I’d heard enough about this version that I wasn’t going to bother, but it popped up on Netflix so I felt I didn’t have an excuse to avoid it it.
PROS:
1. One of the cast members of my adaptation said in rehearsal that watching this movie inspired them to read the original stories. This may be the only positive outcome I can think of from this movie.
2. Jude Law is... adequate? I guess?
CONS:
1. Robert Downey Jr.’s British accent was so bad I had to put on subtitles:
2. Rachel McAdams is terribly mis-cast as Irene Adler. She’s pretty, but has NONE of the magnetism and charisma that the character needs for Holmes’ fascination to make sense (watch Lara Pulver in Season 2, Episode 1 of the BBC “Sherlock” for a fantastic example).
3. Sherlock Holmes is not an action hero.
4. SHERLOCK HOLMES IS NOT AN ACTION HERO.
Yes, okay, the original character is an accomplished boxer and practices baritsu (almost certainly a misspelling of the hodgepodge martial art of bartitsu), but rarely uses it. He’s on record as caring about his body only as a container for his brain. Guy Ritchie, however, dedicates a large amount of Homes’ deductive reasoning to slow-motion planning of spectacular Kung Fu moves (IMDB tells me that was to align with Downey Jr.’s practice of Wing-Chun Kung Fu).
5. My final complaint requires a spoiler: the plot revolves around the leader of a group of power-hungry occultists. Now there are a handful of Conan Doyle stories that initially imply a supernatural explanation. Holmes always dismisses the supernatural option early in the story, and diligently finds the non-supernatural explanation. The Guy Ritchie movie works too hard to make the audience believe in the supernatural explanation for far too long. It feels very un-Sherlockian to me.
I’d like to give the last word to David Schmid from the University at Buffalo, who taught the “Great Courses” series on mystery fiction (on Kanopy) that I reviewed in my last post. He’s comparing the Guy Ritchie film to both BBC’s “Sherlock” and the Basil Rathbone series:
“Although the film has a period Victorian setting that gives it a surface resemblance to the original, in my view it is by far the least faithful version of Holmes of the three we’re considering. And that’s why I absolutely hated it.
OK. I’ll be honest. I also hated it because I hate Robert Downey Jr. Don’t ask me why. I just do. In fact, whenever I discuss Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes in class, I write Robert Downey Jr. on the board and then I cross it out as a reminder to my students never to mention that name in the same breath as Sherlock Holmes.” ~Episode 35, “Adapting the Multimedia Mystery”