It is no secret that much of the yearly slate of popular cinema is the result of adaptation. Since the silent era, discreet texts in one form—the novel, short story, or play to start, to which the comic book and video game could much later be added—have made for good screen-stories. "Good," of course, understood in a broader sense often more related to monetary returns and less to the transference of the pathos, bathos, and "high art" so often lauded in the written word. Adaptations are contentious, most evidently for fans of a particular book (when fidelity to the original is breached, as in the uproar over Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban's [2004] jettisoning of so much minutia), but also for the custodians of culture, the literary community, that gang who see Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996) as the final nail in The Bard's coffin. These debates, while sometimes belabored, are still necessary and should be welcomed. What can come across as fannish griping, or paternalistic stuffiness, nonetheless form key facets in the multi-tiered discussions surrounding all culture worth mentioning. These pervasive discourses, while sometimes old-hat, nevertheless show that cultural engagement, that communication in general, is alive and well.
Surely, one of the most divisive of such exercises currently on the horizon is Guy Richie's Sherlock Holmes (2009). The paean of late 1990s Britishness meets Victoriana/Edwardiana's most pervasive icon. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's detective has never been outside of the cultural moment for very long. The stories are readily available to all, the fandom rivals Star Trek in commitment and creativity, and the accoutrements, while instantly recognizable, tend to verge on timeless kitsch.
So, despite the periodic revival and re-imagining of Holmes, Richie sets off the alarms. The extreme stylization of Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels (1998) and Snatch (2000) divided the critical ranks as much as anything in Tarantino's oeuvre. Despite an undeniable visual gift, his complicity with "New Lad" culture—and his tendency to sometimes cheery, yet usually brutal, Cockney crime—caused controversy. Richie was a popular filmmaker though, attractive to Lager-swilling football fans, music video aficionados, the "cool kids" of all ages. Still others saw these early films as vapid, idiotic exercises in selfishness. What can't be denied is that Richie became part of the conversation, quotidian table-talk, eventually Madonna's main squeeze. His Madonna-period films confounded. Swept Away (2002) was a project for her. The less said the better. Revolver (2005), on the other hand, mystified fan and foe alike. An occult, kabbalistic crime film starring stalwart Jason Statham and Andre Benjamin amongst others, it bears repeat viewings for its relative impenetrability. Its merits are subjective, but it is a much more mature, difficult film than the auspicious debuts.
Bearing my narrative in mind, the realization of RockNRolla (2008) felt like a return to form. Visual excess, coolness a la mode, and loud-mouth-masculine crime were back. But the capers got social, or, were at least explained to have economic bases. Though its roots are in The Long Good Friday (1979), RockNRolla pairs well with Roll Over (1979—which Kim Newman, after Leonard Maltin, has discussed as "financial science-fiction" ) or The International (2009, a timely thriller of financial crisis). In RockNRolla, the whole batch of dramatic irony gets rolling because of real estate prospects, liquid capital, multinational deals gone awry. London is crumbling after years of Blair and Brown, yet hopes are high. I doubt I'm alone in thinking that this is where Richie's penchant for mixing crime, comedy, and the zeitgeist pay.
Enter Sherlock Holmes. Richie's got the hype. Richie's got the stars (Robert Downey Jr. as Holmes, Jude Law as Dr. Watson, Rachael McAdams as Irene Adler). But dedicated Sherlockians die hard, and Richie's molding of the material—as evidenced by this trailer—will undoubtedly ruffle some feathers. I don't want to establish myself as either a dedicated Holmesian or as a Richie apologist. Rather, I want to briefly explore the historical malleability of Holmes. While he is, in some senses, first-and-foremost a cipher for Arthur Conan Doyle's sensibilities in their historical milieu, Holmes has, in fact, been projected onto some pretty weird situations. These hybrid-Holmeses have allowed the character to thrive. A character and series that would otherwise only cater to obsessive mystery readers has instead been fleshed out into several genres, oftentimes exploring issues far outside of the smaller scope of the core canon. In that spirit, I'd like to examine a few of these strange Holmes films.
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
Sure, in some ways this is cheating, but it is worth speaking about this re-imagined Holmes vehicle first since it tends toward the ever-present "quality literary adaptation" impulse that is ubiquitous in British cinema. Along with the Basil Rathbone Holmes films—earnest visions of Holmes and his mysteries, highly regarded by the sort of cinema-goer who is likely to spurn the films I'm about to discuss—this Hound of the Baskervilles is a landmark, a litmus test against which other uses of the property are to be judged. Here, the cult of Holmes meets the cult of Peter Cushing, who hits a steady groove with his portrayal of the famed detective. Fidelity issues aside (let's just say that the film's story is a bit "different"), a satisfying balance is struck between Holmes' sleuthing and the semi-lurid dictates of the box office. This is, after all, a Hammer film, directed by stalwart Terence Fisher, featuring the lush cinematography, exaggerated-yet-recognizable period detail, and Cushing foil Christopher Lee. Though the Hammer touches signal something new—the 1960s were to be the decade in which they ascended as a capstone to a thriving British film industry—this version of The Hound of the Baskervilles feels very much like a 1950s melodrama-mystery. This is not to say that it is not of interest, but rather, when placed next to the films below, it simply isn't interesting enough.
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)
Billy Wilder, somewhat restrained auteur, beloved for Some Like it Hot (1959) and The Apartment (1960), does Holmes to very interesting effects. The film is part imagined biopic, part Holmesian mystery. Though originally conceived as longer, more epic, probably even more "private," what was eventually released shows Holmes (Robert Stephens) in conflicted mode, caught between his demons and his talents. Rather than shy away from the contentious bits of Holmes lore, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes revels in them. Watson (Colin Blakely) regards Holmes as an unstready drug addict, a man who takes his "seven percent solution" of diluted cocaine out of habit, sometimes to the detriment of his work. In an ambiguous episode at the beginning of the film, Holmes avoids having sex with a cold, though famous, Russian ballerina by claiming to be homosexual. Later, when Watson (a documented womanizer) questions Holmes, the truth remains unsaid, further confounded by the fact that Holmes is later set against spy Gabrielle Valladon (Genevieve Page), with whom there appears to be some attraction. The main plot, which feeds the audiences bits and pieces of this "private life," is principally concerned with the strange sighting of the Loch Ness Monster in Scotland. Holmes and Watson are dispatched North after consulting with Holmes' infinitely connected brother Mycroft (Christopher Lee, in another peripheral role in a Holmes film: though, he did play the detective himself, on occasion). Like some of the other films under consideration, these later-generation Holmes stories place the famous detective into other event-streams of the time. Without giving too much away, the plot up North is exposed to threaten the very safety of the Empire. No less a figurehead than Queen Victoria makes a cameo.
They Might Be Giants (1971)
Yes, this remarkable film in part inspired the so-titled band. The late 1960s and early 1970s were a time when mental illness, schizophrenia, and the outer-reaches of the mind became of acute public interest. From the theories of R.D. Laing in Britain, to the American vogues for transcendental meditation and psychedelic drugs (nipped, of course, from other parts of the world), insanity was more than a problem to be pitied, it was fashion. Having recently proven his talents beyond question in Petulia (1968) and Patton (1970), George C. Scott continued his streak of tone-perfect, wholly unique projects with They Might be Giants. The wealthy New Yorker Justin Playfair (Scott) essentially goes into shock upon the death of his wife. He sheds the hurtful remains of his real-life and instead re-imagines himself as Sherlock Holmes. The film—based on a play, and respectfully directed by stage-to-screen pro Anthony Harvey—begins as Playfair's brother is about to take him to be psychiatrically evaluated. Playfair has been living as Holmes for sometime, and the attempt at having him committed backfires, as Playfair is utterly convinced that he is Holmes. The skeptical Dr. Watson (Joanne Woodward) wants to cure Playfair, but she eventually succumbs to his charms. As Holmes and Watson, they work to unravel a crazy, paranoid plot, driven by coincidence. Romance soon follows. Though Playfair/Holmes eventually sees his delusion, he learns that some amount of lunacy is good. In the end, in a sequence worthy of Marat/Sade (1967), he proverbially leads the inmates as they make a bid for running the asylum (the setting: a supermarket). The film is hard to see, but worth it for Scott's exposé on the performative allure of being Holmes.
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978)
This farcical send-up to Holmes—directed by a post-Warhol Paul Morrissey and starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (as Holmes and Watson, respectively)—is wildly uneven, but in some ways the perfect companion to the Hammer version of the "same" story. A combination of Conan Doyle's Holmes story and several excuses for Cook/Moore gags (some new, some recycled), the film features a bit of wit, plenty of broad humor (manically, thanks to Hugh Griffith, or gratingly, thanks to Kenneth Williams), and lots of studio sets. Much more than They Might be Giants, which is based on a play and was made by a director who often transferred plays to film, this Hound of the Baskervilles feels stage-bound. The camera angles are often un-inventive, merely serviceable. Despite being short (less than 90 minutes), many of the gags feel tacked-on, to pad the uninvolving narrative. Better yet, the NARRATIVE feels tacked-on, as a grudging concession to the gags. What makes the film essential within the canon of Holmes films, however, is that it disarms the central axis of most of the Holmes stories. In the literature, Holmes is calm, logical, procedural. He deduces from evidence, is attune to fact. He does not miss a thing. By contrast, this Hound of the Baskervilles replaces logic with its opposite. Connections are arbitrary, mystery is certainly not solved through deduction, but rather something like blind chance, fate. Cook and Moore are lunatics. Their absurdities force a reconsideration of the whole Holmes enterprise. It is a shame that the film isn't all that great.
Murder by Decree (1982)
As with The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (and the novel/film of The Seven Percent Solution [1976], in which Freud and Holmes meet), Murder by Decree projects Holmes into a prominent situation of the times. Though A Study in Terror (1965) had gotten there first, though in a slightly different way, Murder by Decree pits Holmes against Jack the Ripper. This tests the limits of Holmesian effectiveness, since on the one hand there are Holmes/Watson—the duo who ALWAYS solve the case—and on the other is the whole discourse surrounding Jack the Ripper, the ultimate in open-ended mysteries, the famous case that has NEVER definitively been solved. In the typical fashion of film serendipity, this case does eventually get solved. I won't say how. But along the way, director Bob Clark effectively taps into the heritage milieu, showing a sinister, foggy East End (slightly more Hammer than From Hell [2001] ) that serves as prominent backdrop to the Ripper affair. Christopher Plummer is yet another suave Holmes (though, as a Canadian, a bit closer to Scott's American Holmes than Stephens' British one), and James Mason is especially stand-out as Watson.
Without a Clue (1988)
Though They Might be Giants showed a man deluded into thinking that he was Holmes, Without a Clue delves differently into the notion of Holmes as a construct. An infinitely clever, though rather unpopular and boring Dr. Watson (Ben Kingsley), known in canonical Holmes literature as Holmes' chronicler as well as assistant, is here shown to be the real mastermind behind the famous detective. Watson invented Holmes, his public face, in order to aid in solving cases. In Without a Clue, Watson writes the famous stories of Holmes and sends them to Strand magazine, but in order to make the fiction real, he hires a cockney actor (Michael Caine) to be his figurehead. So, while Michael Caine is Sherlock Holmes, Without a Clue imagines Holmes lore was if Watson was the main attraction, as if some otherwise unremarkable actor called Sherlock Holmes were hired as a PR campaign. The film balances the inevitable comedy that results from their constant keeping up of appearances with a conspiracy-mystery. Michael Caine's grifter of an actor is a great foil to Kingsley's more streamlined Watson (typical traits of the two are reversed).
There are other interesting Holmes films out there, but this brief selection is mainly intended to help cool-down the anxieties over Richie's Holmes. Given what we know about the director, and given that Holmes has been exhibited in so many ways, audiences can at least expect something interesting.
