Sherlock Holmes stories - Search/Destroy

SH totally humiliates and bullies Watson throughout! eg sends him on an errand then sneers at the results, doesn't let him in on the pretence re his fatal illness bcz he says he's such a crap actor, then finally, when the villain arrives to gloat, her makes watson crouch down hidden squished behind the bedhead, and when he's unamsked the villain and hands him over to the police, he forgets watson's even there

(It's the one I've reread the most as well. I admit I'd rather watch the Jeremy Brett adaptations more these days.)

My favourite is Hound too. Although I like 'em all.

Did anyone see the new Hound adaptation a few months ago? The one with Richard Roxburgh? They passed over Richard E. Grant because, the producers said, he was 'too obvious'... they had him playing Stapleton instead. MADNESS! R.E. Grant would be the BEST HOLMES EVER. Period. *sigh*

A Study In Scarlet is a great story too. And Rener speaks very highly of The Valley Of Fear.

The Wordworth Classics editions of the SH stories are, eh, classic. some of the pages feature original advertisements from The Strand magazine, including that for The Strand War Game (recommended by "A Colonel").

i love all the coy stuff abt cases he's solved for the govt or the crowned heads of europe

"the world is not ready for the abominable tale of the giant rat of sumatra"

The Jeremy Brett ones were well made, but they didn't click for me. Nowhere near on par with the Poirot stuff, for instance. Basil Rathbone was a better Holmes -- almost perfect, really -- but unfortunately saddled with a rubbish Watson (Nigel Bruce) and abysmal scripts.

"I deprecate, however, in the strongest way the attempts which have been made lately to get at and to destroy these papers. The source of these outrages is known, and if they are repeated I have Mr. Holmes's authority for saying that the whole story concerning the politician, the lighthouse, and the trained cormorant will be given to the public. There is at least one reader who will understand."

--Watson, in The Adventure of the Veiled Lodger

i would love to know what that story was all about.

http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/fairies/fairies.jpg

haha he also wrote a story abt a murderer being electrocuted, and the american city in question wanted it to be the biggest event ever, so they used 100 x the usual current, and when this went through the prisoner he gave a great yell and all his hair sprang out and he burst all the straps holding him in place on the chair — but he was totally ok, except when the doctor examined him, he said, he's 54 but he has the body and physique now of an 18 yr old and will live for another 80 years at least

My favourite film is the one with the spooky Argie gaucho dudes throwing their baubley things at statues.

actually, looking at a Sherlock Holmes collection reminds me that my actual favourite SH story is "The Adventure of the Yellow Face".

haha i got into a long discussion w.dr vick abt whether you could "prove" that holmes (and/or conan doyle) wz jack the ripper based on clues/coded admissions in the text

reason SH has legs = the detective IS the monster (cf also CSI)

what happens to watson's wife?

Is the Speckled Band the one about the P*** *dd** ?

What are the clues that SH = the Ripper?

John Holmes too, presumably.

I revived this thread to point to this sad story

"Mr Lancelyn Green was found in his bed, surrounded by cuddly toys and a bottle, after a wooden spoon was used to tighten the shoelace around his neck."

Poor guy.

I only read Hound for the first time earlier this year. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it, and was impressed by how Doyle used some quite experimental forms of storytelling to help sustain the narrative's incredible speed of movement/action/event. I found it comforting too, because so many of the classic Holmesian signifiers - the pipe, the cocaine, the arrogance, Dr. Watson, Insp. Lestrade etc. etc. - come directly from the book, and so even if you haven't read ACD before, the whole millieu is already familiar and unthreatening (I think I knew already that it wasn't REALLY a hell hound on Sherlock's trail...)

Best movie: 'Murder by Decree', w/ Christopher Plummer and James Mason as H+W, investigating masonry-inspired ripper murders. Directed by Bob Clark of 'Porkys' and 'Deranged' fame. I also like 'Without A Clue', where Holmes (Michael Caine) is a drunken actor and Watson (Ben Kingsley) is the real sleuthing genius. V. corny, but charming too.

Holmes is such an unlikeable character. I noticed a real flaw in Study in Scarlet too - the baddies know the address in Baker Street after Holmes' advertsment. So why does the 'cabbie' not recognise it at the end?

I just bought both volumes of the "Complete Sherlock Holmes" at B&N last night and read through my first ever Holmes story before going to bed (after years of digging the Jeremy Brett TV series). How could I have passed this great shit up for so long?!?

OTM, amazing movie, essentially the same story as FROM HELL, but better, tho I'll have to watch 'em back to back sometime.

Jeremy Brett IS the character as written, but Basil Rathbone/Nigel Bruce are absolutely incomparable as a double act, somehow the more so the cheesier the movies got.

Revive because among my Xmas gifts were the DVD sets of the first two Jeremy Brett series (Adventures and Return), which wisely featured the best stories for the most part. For me seeing them again is inextricably bound up with watching them on American rebroadcast on PBS via Mystery! with Vincent Price introducing each one (and brilliantly at that, what a great gig for him).

The adaptations are slower than I remember them, not a criticism per se but dramatically as filmed they often take their time -- I think part of it had to be a certain sense that the appeal of the stories lies so obviously in their sense of nostalgia, though they weren't written as such. (And thus indeed my seeing these versions again after two decades has its own nostalgic appeal, etc.) So the camera wants to linger on the details, the appearance of the sitting room in 221B, the various tics and affectations Brett brought (so wonderfully) to the role.

I do like all the votes for the Speckled Band, but of the short stories...hm, what would I pick? I always have a soft spot for the League of Red-Headed Men...

Yes to all that. By focusing in on the character's own prelidiction for the dramatic, Brett captures a part of him that can't be fully sensed on the page except in side mention and description. Quite a feat.

http://lareviewofbooks.org/review/on-looking-into-sherlock-holmes

personal favorites: anything where they go to a tyrannical patriarch's country house (speckled band, copper beeches). anything where holmes sides with the criminal (devil's foot). anything with lestrade (partic norwood builder: "you are aware no two fingerprints are alike?") prefer the novels where holmes doesn't ditch you a third in for 200 pages of reactionary pulp but i also like the ones where he does.

least favorites: the one where the professor is a monkey, the one where the murderer is a jellyfish, anything where someone tells holmes a story, gets some advice, leaves, and comes back the next day like hey i solved the mystery! (engineer's thumb), his last bow obv. (the holmes boys are such satisfied tools of empire. a hawk and a spider. watson, late of the shit, has some hidden decency.)

(hound > sign > holmes in valley > holmes in study > mormons > pinkertons.)

anything where holmes sides with the criminal (devil's foot).

while searching unsuccessfully in my complete for lol-material for the gawker thread i realized another one that fits here is charles augustus milverton.

i forgot there was a pinkerton section in valley

the union miners are cartoonishly sadistic in it, beating scabs' wives to death etc. was bored-then-horrified by the section back in the day.

woahh!! i totally do not remember this at all. do you think dashiell hammett had an opinion on it

mickey spillane might have

the pinkerton has to take part see or he'll blow his cover. wrenching.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_snakebite_murder

Just learned that Satyajit Ray made a Sherlock knock off. Wrote stories and filmed on the back of it.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feluda