genial Holmes and a stalwart Watson. Doyle was always much read throughout the Eastern bloc, with the union-bashing of THE VALLEY OF FEAR perhaps outweighed by the anti-Ku Klux Klan sentiments of “The Five Orange Pips,” and this rare in- stance of Soviet “entertain- ment” television remains hugely popular. Thus far, three out of the five series produced be- tween 1979 and 1986 have ap- peared on region-free Russian DVD, with optional and useful English subtitles. Sometimes, charmingly, the subs are a little saltier than Sir Arthur might have liked: Holmes dismisses a police theory as “absolute crap” and characterizes one villain as “the slimiest bastard in London.” SHERLOCK HOLMES AND DOCTOR WATSON collects the two episodes that served as a pilot; as with all the series, indi- vidual stories are slightly shuffled together to make a satisfying if picaresque overall storyline. “In- troduction” conflates the early chapters of A STUDY IN SCARLET (as Watson meets and moves in with Holmes, then spends time puzzling out what exactly his mysterious flatmate does—con- cluding at first that he must be a criminal!) and “The Speckled Band” (or “The Motley Ribbon” as the subs have it). “A Study in Scarlet” dramatizes the rest of Doyle’s first Holmes novel, as he aids Inspector Lestrade (Borislav Brondukov) in track- ing a sympathetic murderer who is avenging himself against those who wronged his wife. Like Zane Grey in RIDERS OF THE PURPLE SAGE, Doyle made his villains Mormons; most Western adaptations drop that aspect—which is wholeheart- edly embraced here as Holmes characterizes the Church of Lat- ter-Day Saints as “a gang of perverted fanatics.”
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The Mabuse-like Moriarty of the Russian Sherlock Holmes adventure, THE KING OF BLACKMAIL.
THE KING OF BLACKMAIL, a two-disc set, collects the epi- sodes “The King of Blackmail” (“Charles Augustus Milverton”), “Mortal Fight” (“The Final Prob- lem”) and “Tiger Hunt” (“The Empty House”). Here, three sto- ries are strung into a long narra- tive, a few years before Granada wrote Moriarty into their “The Red-Headed League” to the same effect. The case of the blackmailing Milverton is a lead-in to Holmes’ engage- ment with an unblinking, black-gloved Mabuse-look Moriarty, Milverton’s sponsor; a bit from “The Greek Inter- preter” is also yanked in to in- troduce brother Mycroft (Boris Kluyev). There’s splendid use of the Neva to stand in for the Reichenbach Falls, and the busi- ness of Holmes’ fake death is tinkered with so that it makes more narrative sense than in the original!
Though run together as a
feature, THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES was originally another two-parter. It has the length to be the most faithful of all adaptations of this
much-made mystery, and the Russian gloom—which hangs over shadowed Baker Street digs as much as Dartmoor and Bas- kerville Hall—is apt for the tale. This is the only version to make much of Sir Henry Baskerville’s Canadian background, having him show up with an odd blue- grass musical theme, carrying a saddle, sporting a mountain man fur coat (later a plot point, as the convict is found dead wearing it) and impulsively showing emo- tions alien to the affectionately- caricatured Brits. The reduction of this bearish action man to quivering victim is quite an ef- fective thread, demonstrating for once why someone so ostensi- bly heroic needs Holmes. Elements of the series as a whole are surprising: Mrs. Hud- son (Rina Zelanaya) is as indul- gent as ever, but gets a few shrewd deductions of her own (here, she’s the one who explains Holmes’ eyes-in-the-back-of- his-head trick at the beginning of the Baskerville case); per- haps to aid his mastery of make-up disguises, Holmes decorates 221B with framed
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