Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine #4. Arthur Conan Doyle
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identifying personal details about Dr. Mortimer based on a study of the latter’s forgotten walking-stick.) But perhaps this failing, is not, on reflection, surprising, given the thought needed to simulate the brilliant staccato deductions Doyle managed with apparent ease.
Holmes’s further examination of the medical case finds that it bears the coat of arms of the Osbourne family, and the pair’s visit to the family home yields the revelation that it had been given as a gift by Edward Osbourne, Lord Carfax to his older brother, Michael, who had been studying to become a doctor, over the objections of the Duke of Shires, his father, who considered the pursuit beneath the dignity of the family. The search for the missing eldest son and heir, and the connection between his property and the Whitechapel murders drives the rest of the plot, culminating in a taut and dramatic confrontation between detective and killer.
By seeking to attract the viewer to Holmes based on his amazing brain, rather than some other characteristic, the screenwriters, Donald and Derek Ford, ground the violence of their story firmly in tradition, insuring that it is not the tail wagging the hound. The movie’s subject matter naturally lends itself to the inclusion of action scenes, but they are integral to the plot. After questioning a suspect, Holmes and Watson are set upon by thugs he dispatched out of a concern that they had learned too much about his illegal operations, a scene reminiscent of one in the Downey movie. As the death toll mounts, the pair take to the streets in an effort to find, as Holmes puts it, “the detail that matters,” but are too late to prevent the murder of Mary Jane Kelly. But their proximity to the crime (in the movie’s most serious departure from the historical record—the time between the murder and the Ripper’s flight from Kelly’s room is much too short to allow for the obscene surgery the killer conducted) allows Holmes to almost catch his man in a frantic and gripping sequence. There is also a fight sequence at the movie’s end when he eventually traps his quarry.
Making a mystery more visually engaging on the screen by including such sequences is typical; for example, the Granada adaptation of “Charles Augustus Milverton,” The Master Blackmailer expands on the Canon to include a fistfight between a disguised Holmes and his jealous rival. Rathbone’s Holmes’s first encounter with Moriarty in 1939’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes ended in a wrestling match, obviously paralleling Doyle’s own portrayal of their encounter at the Reichenbach Falls. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with scenes of violent action—stories of armchair deduction such as “The Gloria Scott,” or “The Veiled Lodger,” are not the Canonical norm.
A Study In Terror also stands out with its superior ensemble cast, rivaled only by that of Murder By Decree, with whom it shares two members. Neville, best-known to modern audiences as The Well-Manicured Man of The X-Files, is one of my favorite Holmes—incisive, resourceful, and a sophisticated observer of human nature. His Holmes is capable of outrage and strong emotion, but he is more in control of himself than in Christopher Plummer’s portrayal. He knows how to use his reputation to his benefit; his name alone is enough to intimidate witnesses. Unfortunately, he only played the part again as one of the successors to John Wood in the 1970s revival of the William Gillette play, and in an obscure CBC radio play, The Incredible Murder of Cardinal Tosca, whose script did not match his acting talent. We can only wonder what might have been had Neville not declined to succeed Douglas Wilmer in the 1960s BBC series that was eventually filmed with Peter Cushing in the part.
As noted, Houston continued in the footsteps of Andre Morrell as a serious Watson, foreshadowing similar approaches to the role by Robert Duvall, James Mason, David Burke and Edward Hardwicke. Inspector Lestrade, who in the Rathbone films managed the improbable feat of making Bruce’s Watson look smart in comparison, finally got his due, thanks to Frank Finlay, who reprised the role in Murder By Decree. The movie also featured Dame Judi Dench in one of her first roles, as a young idealist running a mission in the East End, along with her uncle, portrayed by Anthony Quayle. And the movie’s grimness, inherent in its subject-matter—the Ripper’s gory assaults are not for the squeamish, even if the horrific mutilations are only alluded to—and its frank portrayal of mortuaries and the plight of the London underclass, is lightened intermittently by Robert Morley, whose delightful and charming portrayal of Mycroft Holmes was the first in an English-language talking picture.
My regard for the movie is not a blinkered one. The Ripper’s reason for killing is not fully-developed. In contrast to Murder By Decree, Watson is, illogically, relegated to the sidelines for the unmasking of the killer, and the writers place Holmes in a deathtrap that they are not able to write their way out of. The soundtrack, perhaps the first ever released on record from a Holmes film, is uneven and sometimes jarring, and the real victims of the Ripper were not as healthy and well-nourished as portrayed in the movie, which does not concern itself overmuch with historical accuracy. But these are quibbles, at best. Neville and Houston deserved more outings in their roles, and forty-five years later, their performances, both individually and jointly, rank among the best in the history of Holmes on the screen. And the Fords and director Herman Cohen (also responsible for the giant gorilla movie, Konga) proved that an in-period Holmes movie not derived from the Canon could be done well.
By keeping Holmes the man of action in proper proportion to the thinker who could sit for hours, if not days, on end, developing and testing theories, Ritchie and Wigram could go a long way, in their next film, to allaying the qualms of many of their critics. A Study In Terror shows how to do just that.
A closing warning: A Study In Terror was subsequently novelized by Ellery Queen and Paul Fairman; its conceit was having Queen being sent Watson’s manuscript and applying his own detecting gifts to ascertaining whether Holmes correctly identified the Ripper. The sections from Watson’s journal have their moments, but I’d strongly recommend that the novel, which has been periodically reprinted in Ripper anthologies, be read only after seeing the movie.
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Lenny Picker, whose experience of things Sherlockian extends over four decades and three continents, stayed up until 4:00 a.m. while a teenager to catch A Study In Terror on The Late Late Show, in the days before VCRs and DVRs.
He can be reached at <[email protected]>.
ASK MRS HUDSON, by (Mrs) Martha Hudson
Mrs Hudson,
The comings and going of our children at all hours, when they were in college, was exceedingly annoying. How do you deal with the peculiar, middle-of-the-night arrivals of desperate help-seekers wanting assistance from Mr Holmes? Are the renters of 221-A or 221-C upset? Do they protest? Or is that immaterial given the status of your most celebrated tenant?
John Jakes
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Dear Mr Jakes,
First of all, thank you so much for your kind concern and realisation of my delicate and unusual position. A woman such as myself, raised in gentility and comfort, is not by nature accustomed to the odd array of rough trade, ragamuffins and ruffians who appear at our doorway all hours of the day and night.
In fact, I have lost a number of other tenants due to the professional activities of my most famous lodger. A certain Mrs Moynihan in 221-C was most disturbed by the series of random gunshots Mr Holmes was given to discharging whenever he felt like it. Dr Watson mentions this in his stories, but what he fails to mention is that the elderly widow living upstairs, already faint of heart and given to nervous palpitations, was driven to distraction by the unpredictable and unexpected blasts of gun powder from 221-B.
She complained to me, and Mr Holmes was persuaded to curtail his explosive enthusiasms. Dr Watson prescribed her valerian roots to help her sleep, but her nerves were quite frayed by that time, and she could not be persuaded that Mr Holmes had agreed to give up his odd habit. It seems the gunshots brought her unpleasant memories of her days in Ulster, also known as Northern Ireland, after the famine, during the “Troubles.”
Dr Watson was kind enough to help her secure a very satisfactory set of rooms in Kensington, and Mr Holmes insisted on paying her first year’s rent. So in the end, I felt she came away well enough, though I daresay she would have preferred not to move.
Then there was Mr Grieves in 221-A. He was a mild-mannered little man, a bookkeeper