Sherlock Holmes in other media

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The stories of Sherlock Holmes were very popular as adaptations for the stage, and later film, and still later television. The Universal Sherlock Holmes (1995) by Ronald B. DeWaal lists over 25,000 Holmes-related productions and products.

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[edit] Stage

The actor most associated with Holmes on stage was William Gillette, who wrote, directed, and starred in a popular play about Holmes from 1899 (filmed in 1916), while the stories were still being published. His version of Holmes, dressed in deerstalker hat and Inverness cape and smoking a large curved calabash pipe, contributed much to the popular image of the character. There are occasional hints of the deerstalker hat in Paget's original illustrations for The Strand, but it is by no means a regular accoutrement. Doyle's text is even vaguer, referring only to a travelling cap with earflaps in the passages with the relevant illustrations. He is also described as smoking several different types of pipes, varying them with his mood.

The calabash pipe is associated with Sherlock Holmes only because such a large pipe is easy for spectators at a play to see and because it's easy to hold in the mouth while doing other things. The air chamber in the pipe has a cooling and mellowing effect on the smoke. Holmes preferred harsh and strong tobaccos and would therefore eschew such pipes.

A number of plays, a musical and a ballet have been written around Holmes.

[edit] Film

Sherlock Holmes is the single most frequently filmed fictional character with almost 200 film appearances to date. Only Dracula comes close to matching his record.

The first known film featuring Holmes is Sherlock Holmes Baffled, a one-reel film running less than a minute, made by the American Edison company in 1900. Many similar films were made in the early years of the twentieth century, most notably the 13 one- and two-reel films produced by the Danish Nordisk Film Company between 1908 and 1911. In 1911 the American Biograph company produced a series of 11 short comedies based on the Holmes character with Mack Sennett (later of Keystone Cops fame) in the title role.

The next significant cycle of Holmes films were produced by the Stoll Films company in Britain. Between 1921 and 1923 they produced a total of 47 two-reelers, all featuring noted West End actor Eille Norwood in the lead with Hubert Willis as Watson. A later British series produced between 1933 and 1936 starred Arthur Wontner as Holmes.

Many other films have been comedies and parodies which poke fun at Holmes, Watson, their relationship and other characters. These have included Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes with Robert Stephens and Colin Blakely as Holmes and Watson, and Young Sherlock Holmes with Nicholas Rowe and Alan Cox playing the duo as schoolboys (in this film one of Holmes' early mentors becomes an enemy who, in the final credits, hides out in the Swiss Alps and signs his name as Moriarty).

More serious, non-canonical films were A Study in Terror (with John Neville and Donald Houston) and Murder by Decree (with Christopher Plummer and James Mason) both of which involved Holmes and Watson investigating the murders by the Whitechapel serial killer Jack the Ripper.

The 1988 film Without a Clue was a comedic twist on the familiar Holmes legend. Dr. John Watson (Ben Kingsley) is a genius crime fighter and successful author. Fans of his novels clamor to see the real Sherlock Holmes and Watson realizes that his audience simply would not accept the fact that Holmes was a fabrication and to reveal himself as the creator and brains behind him would be tantamount to literary suicide. To solve his dilemmas, Watson hires Reginald Kincaid (Michael Caine), an alcoholic, womanizing, ne'er-do-well actor to impersonate Holmes.

[edit] Basil Rathbone as Holmes

Rathbone's career as Holmes began with The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, both made by 20th Century Fox and released in 1939 – the first Holmes films to be set in Victorian, rather than contemporary, times. These were followed by a series of 12 films (and a cameo appearance in the 1943 comedy Crazy House) produced by Universal from 1942 to 1946, set in the present and frequently pitting Holmes against Nazi agents. Although only the first of Rathbone's films was based directly on material by Conan Doyle, e.g The Spider Woman (1944) was an amalgam of two stories, many fans feel that his portrayal most faithfully captures the Holmes of the original stories, due in part to his resemblance to Sidney Paget's original Strand illustrations. "The Adventures" also gives Rathbone a chance to show his range -- in one scene he plays a disguised music hall actor, doing a very creditable version of "I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside"!

As well as his film performances, Rathbone has played Holmes in 219 radio performances, on television and on the stage. One of these, a record of The Red-Headed League, was sampled 19 years after his death to provide the voice of Holmes for the 1986 Disney animated film, The Great Mouse Detective.[1]

Nigel Bruce played Watson to Rathbone's Holmes, playing the man as a bumbler and somewhat foolish, and in some films as retired, which is contrary to Doyle's depiction (although, as supposed chronicler, it is unlikely Watson would have dwelt over-much on his own deficiencies).

[edit] Radio

One famous radio appearance starred Orson Welles as Sherlock Holmes in an adaptation of one of William Gillette's plays. This was broadcast in September of 1938 as part of the "Mercury Theater on the Air" series on CBS Radio.

Throughout the early 1940s on American Radio, Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce performed as Holmes and Watson, respectively, in several series of canonical and original Sherlock Holmes stories on the The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes radio show. These broadcasts were loosely based on Doyle's cases. When Rathbone finally departed the role before the 1947 season, Tom Conway played Sherlock Holmes opposite Nigel Bruce for one season. After a change of networks, there were two more pairings: John Stanley as Holmes and Alfred Shirley as Watson in 1947-1948 and John Stanley and Ian Martin in 1948-1949.

John Gielgud played Holmes for BBC radio in the 1950s, with Ralph Richardson as Watson. Gielgud's brother, Val Gielgud, appeared in one of the episodes, perhaps inevitably, as Mycroft Holmes. As this series was co-produced by the American Broadcasting Company, known American actors also appeared, such as Orson Welles as Professor Moriarty in The Adventure of the Final Problem.

There have been many other radio adaptations (over 750 in English), including a more recent BBC Radio 4 run featuring Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson. Together, the two actors completed radio adaptations of every story in the canon between 1989 and 1998. The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a new series consisting of original stories written exclusively by Bert Coules was then commissioned, but following Williams' death from cancer in 2001, he was replaced by Andrew Sachs. The episodes of The Further Adventures were based on throwaway references in Doyle's short stories and novels. The complete canonical run is available on CD and audio tape. Four of the five original stories transmitted in 2002 are also available on audio cassette and CD, and four of the five original stories transmitted in 2004 are available on CD.

Starting in 1998, U.S. radio producer Jim French was given permission from the Conan Doyle estate to produce new, original Sherlock Holmes stories for radio in North America. These are presented within the Imagination Theater program on radio stations and XM satellite radio. The new stories are also broadcast under the banner The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. John Gilbert played Holmes until 2000, and subsequently by John Patrick Lowrie. Watson is played in all shows by Lawrence Albert. Scripts are by Jim French, M. J. Elliott, Matthew Booth, John Hall, Gareth Tilley, J R Campbell and Lawrence Albert. In 2005, with adaptations written by M. J. Elliott, French and his company began a new series based on Conan Doyle's original tales called "The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes." Many episodes are available on CD as well as downloadable from the Imagination Theater website.

[edit] Comic strip

A short-lived half page Sherlock Holmes comic strip appeared daily and Sunday in the fifties, written by radio scriptwriter Edith Meiser and drawn by Frank Giacoia.

[edit] Comic books

There have been a number of Sherlock Holmes comic books, notably from Dell and DC. Holmes was also featured prominently in issue thirteen of the DC/WildStorm series Planetary. Holmes is shown to be in league with Bram Stoker's Dracula in the story.

[edit] Television

Jeremy Brett in the role of Sherlock Holmes.
Jeremy Brett in the role of Sherlock Holmes.

There have been many television adaptations of the better-known Sherlock Holmes tales, notably The Hound of the Baskervilles, over the years. Many aficionados consider the Granada Television adaptations screened from 1984 to 1994, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, with Jeremy Brett as Holmes, as the most faithful depiction of the stories ever produced. Initially with David Burke and subsequently Edward Hardwicke as a capable Watson, all but 19 of the Conan Doyle stories were filmed before the premature death of Jeremy Brett from a heart attack in 1995. Between 1984 and 1994, 36 episodes and five films were produced over six series. Many regard Brett's performance as near-perfect; although his portrayal of Holmes as neurotic and somewhat arrogant, masterly as it is, is seen by many as being at odds with Doyle's descriptions of Holmes as more suave and congenial. Brett and Hardwicke reprised their roles as Holmes and Watson in 1988-89 in a West End stage play, The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, written by Jeremy Paul (the secret being that Holmes had "invented" Moriarty as a challenge to his investigative ability).

One of the earliest televised versions of Holmes and Watson was produced by Sheldon Reynolds in 1954, and starred Ronald Howard as Holmes and Howard Marion-Crawford as Doctor Watson. In the 1960s, there was a BBC TV series with Douglas Wilmer and Nigel Stock. Peter Cushing, who had earlier played the detective in the Hammer version of The Hound of the Baskervilles, later took over from Wilmer in the lead role. The 24 part 1980 series Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson starred Geoffrey Whitehead as Holmes and Donald Pickering as Watson.

Between 1979 and 1986, Soviet television produced a series of five films at the Lenfilm movie studio, split into eleven episodes, starring Vasily Livanov as Holmes and Vitaly Solomin as Watson. Later, a cinematic adaptation was made based on the 1986 episodes. This film was called Sherlock Holmes in the 20th Century. The series ran as follows:

Sherlock Holmes was played by Commander Data (Brent Spiner) on two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Peter Cushing as Holmes with Nigel Stock as Watson in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, a 1968 series made by BBC television.
Peter Cushing as Holmes with Nigel Stock as Watson in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, a 1968 series made by BBC television.

The contemporarily-set 1987 television movie "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" starred Michael Pennington as the detective and Margaret Colin as Dr. Watson's granddaughter who accidentally thaws Holmes who had been cryogenically frozen for 88 years. They become a team -- the essential Victorian gentleman and a post-feminist young woman -- to solve a case that combines elements of "The Sign of the Four" with elements from the celebrated news story of a plane hijacked for ransom by B.D Cooper.

An animated series, Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, brings Holmes into the future through the marvels of science. There is also a Japanese animated series called Sherlock Hound featuring animal characters. Several of its episodes were directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Another Japanese anime program Case Closed features a main character by the name of Conan, and is based on Sherlock Holmes.

The children's TV Series Wishbone featured Holmes and Watson in two episodes: "The Slobbery Hound" (based on The Hound of the Baskervilles) and "A Dogged Exposé" (A Scandal in Bohemia).

In 2000 the telemovie Murder Rooms featured Ian Richardson as Dr. Joseph Bell, who solved (fictional) crimes with the aid of his young pupil Arthur Conan Doyle. Four more telemovies followed in 2001. The series was subtitled "The Dark Origins of Sherlock Holmes" for US syndication.

2002 saw a new version of The Hound of the Baskervilles featuring Richard Roxburgh. Ian Hart played Dr. Watson then and also in the 2004 BBC airing of Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking, alternatively billed as "The Return of Sherlock Holmes". An original screenplay "based on the character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle", this film takes place in 1902, with Dr. Watson "saving a dear friend from narcotics and boredom", this friend being an opium-addicted and increasingly weak Sherlock Holmes. Rupert Everett plays the Great Detective.

[edit] On the World Wide Web

In January 2004, the BBC posted five new Sherlock Holmes short stories on their "Cult" website, along with RealAudio files of the stories, as read by Andrew Sachs and Hannah Gordon. The audio productions were done in association with BBC 7, but are no longer available. The texts of all five short stories are still posted, with accompanying illustrations and illustration galleries, as well as an edited transcript of an interview with Bert Coules. The short story texts can also be downloaded as eBooks in three different formats.

[edit] Video Games

Several adventure games have allowed the player to control Sherlock Holmes in order to solve a mystery. Four such examples include:

[edit] See also

[edit] References

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