you to reference books if you want to identify guest cast or director. Holmesians might find the show retains a certain charm.
The contents: “The Case of the Eiffel Tower,” “The Case of the Jolly Hangman,” “The Case of the Cunningham Heritage” (though placed in the middle, this was the series opener—reprising the Holmes and Watson meet- ing from A STUDY IN SCARLET, though their first case comes from Reynolds’ whole cloth), “The Case of the Diamond Tooth,” “The Case of the Neu- rotic Detective,” “The Case of the Red-Headed League” (a rare epi- sode directly dramatizing a Doyle story), “The Case of the Vanished Detective,” “The Case of the Night Train Riddle,” “The Case of the Pennsylvania Gun” (a slimmed-down VALLEY OF FEAR) and “The Case of the Baker Street Bachelors.”
Despite one episode title, this series actually presents the least neurotic take on the characters, who settle into an almost sitcom relationship. The use of non- Doyle stories means there isn’t the sense of familiarity which sets in on most Holmes TV series and it even occasionally gets into pre- AVENGERS eccentricity, as when a judge marked for death com- municates with Holmes through a puppet theater. The only extra is that non-specific Christopher Lee introduction-to-Holmes found on dodgy issues of the Rathbone films you’ve by now replaced with MPI’s sparkling new sets.
THE SIGN OF FOUR
1983, ILC Prime, DD-2.0, £9.99, 92m 45s, PAL DVD-2 By Kim Newman
In the early 1980s, Charles Edward Pogue (who wrote the early, mostly junked drafts of Cronenberg’s THE FLY) essayed three scripts of an intended
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Ian Richardson had the first of his two turns as Sherlock Holmes in the British TV movie THE SIGN OF FOUR.
six-film television series made in Britain, with Ian Richardson— later the Holmesian Dr. Bell of David Pirie’s TV series MURDER ROOMS: THE DARK BEGINNINGS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES—aptly cast as a long-nosed, slick-haired detective. Desmond Davis’ THE SIGN OF FOUR, partnering Richardson with David Healy’s jolly Watson, was followed by Douglas Hickox’s mediocre THE HOUND OF THE BASKER- VILLES (also available), with Donald Churchill replacing Healy. The series was discontin- ued, but Pogue’s remaining script (THE NAPOLEON OF CRIME) turned up in 1990 as Stuart Orme’s weak TV-movie HANDS OF A MURDERER, with a portly Edward Woodward as Holmes. SIGN is pick of the slim lit- ter, though it feels too much like a default Holmes for those who don’t want to pay too much at- tention but still follow the story. Dressed to match the STRAND
magazine illustrations, Richard- son’s smiling sleuth rattles through deductions made redun- dant by an adaptation that lets us in on the mystery well before Holmes gets to the case. A great deal of fog dresses the locations for the period, though (as usual) white mist substitutes for the proper greenish-yellow London pea-souper, and some macabre touches evoke Universal’s series: Tonga the pygmy is a fanged cannibal who chews on very red meat and capers nimbly across rooftops. Oddly, the cast in- cludes two previous Watsons— Thorley Walters (SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE DEADLY NECKLACE) and Terence Rigby (the Tom Baker HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES) and a notable future Holmes, Clive Merrison (one of the few actors to appear in all the canonical stories, on BBC radio). The best work comes from Cheri Lunghi as a prettily Victorian heroine and Joe
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