The One Fixed Point in a Changing Age: Alternate Sherlock Holmes filmographies!

The discussion of Solar Pons and Cadfael has made me think. I'm considering creating a thread similar to this one where you and I can display ideas for projects featuring other fictional detectives. What do you say?
 
The discussion of Solar Pons and Cadfael has made me think. I'm considering creating a thread similar to this one where you and I can display ideas for projects featuring other fictional detectives. What do you say?
Sounds fun. I'd love to see a modern, faithful prestige production series of Philip Marlowe stories for instance.

And as it's in the works, do Terry Prattchett's watch novels count as detective fiction?
 

Driftless

Donor
The discussion of Solar Pons and Cadfael has made me think. I'm considering creating a thread similar to this one where you and I can display ideas for projects featuring other fictional detectives. What do you say?

Absolutely! This thread has been very enjoyable. There' been a number of interesting ideas put forth.
 

Driftless

Donor
There's a ton of fertile ground to cover:
  • old school detectives like Nero Wolfe, Phillip Marlowe, Lord Peter Wimsey, Maigret, Sam Spade, Easy Rawlins, Amanda Peadbody etc
  • modern detectives(my age will show here....) John Shaft, V I Warshawski, Wallander, etc
  • historical detectives like Cadfael, Brother William of Baskerville, Didius Falco,
  • future detectives ......(not my area, but they're out there.)
I'm just plucking names from memory. There's a bazillion possibilities out there.
 
There's a ton of fertile ground to cover:
  • old school detectives like Nero Wolfe, Phillip Marlowe, Lord Peter Wimsey, Maigret, Sam Spade, Easy Rawlins, Amanda Peadbody etc
  • modern detectives(my age will show here....) John Shaft, V I Warshawski, Wallander, etc
  • historical detectives like Cadfael, Brother William of Baskerville, Didius Falco,
  • future detectives ......(not my area, but they're out there.)
I'm just plucking names from memory. There's a bazillion possibilities out there.
I'd love a proper Falco series. I'm rather attached to the BBC radio adaptations with Anton Lesser. One of the few instances, with their Helena Justina, where the actor sounds like the voice I read the character in before hearing it.
 
There's a ton of fertile ground to cover:
  • old school detectives like Nero Wolfe, Phillip Marlowe, Lord Peter Wimsey, Maigret, Sam Spade, Easy Rawlins, Amanda Peadbody etc
  • modern detectives(my age will show here....) John Shaft, V I Warshawski, Wallander, etc
  • historical detectives like Cadfael, Brother William of Baskerville, Didius Falco,
  • future detectives ......(not my area, but they're out there.)
I'm just plucking names from memory. There's a bazillion possibilities out there.

Not to mention other fictional ideas such as Dick Tracy and Batman if Batman ever fell into the public domain.
 
Who is every one Favorite Actors as Holmes ?
Who is every one least favorite actors as Holmes ?

My Favorites are
1 Jeremy Brett
2 Peter Cushing
3 Frank Langella (I saw him do Holmes on Stage in the late 70's. That what got me to read the Holmes stories)

My least favorites
1 Will Ferrell
2 Peter Cook
3 Reginald Owen.
Honorable mentions Stewart Granger was just too old to play Holmes. If you ask me another day, I might switch with Granger with Owen .
And just because I listing these as my least favorite Holmes , does not mean I think any of them are bad actors , they just were bad Sherlock Holmes.
 

Driftless

Donor
My favorite Holmes':
  1. Jeremy Brett
  2. Basil Rathbone
Honorable mentions: Christopher Plummer, Johnny Lee Miller


Favorite Watsons':
  1. Martin Freeman
  2. Edward Hardwicke
Honorable mention: Lucy Liu, David Burke

Nigel Bruce's Watson is too much of the bumbler to be credible for me. Miller and Liu stories only loosely use the characters and only wave at the Doyle canon, but they are well done all the same
 
My favorite Holmes':
  1. Jeremy Brett
  2. Basil Rathbone
Honorable mentions: Christopher Plummer, Johnny Lee Miller


Favorite Watsons':
  1. Martin Freeman
  2. Edward Hardwicke
Honorable mention: Lucy Liu, David Burke

Nigel Bruce's Watson is too much of the bumbler to be credible for me. Miller and Liu stories only loosely use the characters and only wave at the Doyle canon, but they are well done all the same
Favorite Watsons
1, Jude Law
2 Martin Freeeman
3 Ben Kingsley

Honorable Mentions Gareth David Lloyd from the Asylum "Sherlock Holmes". His Watson was the best thing in a other wise bad movie and I would like to see him in a movie with a far better script .

Least favorite Nigel Bruce , but I still hold by my statement that Bruce was better as Watson on the OTR show . Since he was the Narrator , he came off as far more intelligent then he did in the movies.
2 Dudley Moore,
3 Robert Duvall
And as with the Holmes choices, I not saying any of these are bad actors ,just bad as Dr Watson.
The jokes don't work in the Cook/Moore version of Hounds and There something about Duvall that does not work in Seven Per Cent Solution .
Also I don't hate any of the actors who played Watson , in the same way that I dislike some that have played Holmes.

You mentioned Johnny Lee Miller , I like the show Elementary and I enjoy the character he was playing but there were times, that I did not think of that character as Holmes. You could have named the Character some thing else and the show would not have lost anything.
That partially due to the scripts .
How ever the show had one of the best supporting cast of any show I seen in recent years . You could have and I think they did remove Miller's Holmes for some episodes and the stories still worked .
 
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A few other bad Sherlock Holmes included
Patrick Macnee. He was good as Watson and I love him as Steed in the classic show "The Avengers " but he does not work as Holmes in the Hounds of London. To be fair , he is humbled by a bad script and he does the best he can with it, but he just not a good Holmes.

Matt Frewer . Another actor I really like. He was great in Max Headroom and no body can play a quirky kind of character as well as he can . But Holmes is more then just a Quirky character and it seem that he overacting in the TV films he did.

Ben Syder, I mentioned I like Gareth David Lloyd as Watson in the Asylum "Sherlock Holmes". But Ben Syder was not very good as Holmes. It not his fault completely as it was Syder first major film role. He too young for Holmes compare to the other cast members and He does not look at all like what we expect Holmes to look like.
(The same can be said about Robert Downey Jr but Downey acts like Holmes)
The first scene were we see Holmes and Watson is really good in the movie as Watson is about to do a autopsy and Holmes comes in and deduct the cause of Death in just a couple of minutes. If the rest of the film was as well done as that first scene , it would be far better .
Syder Holmes is cruel to Watson at times. He does not seem to respect Watson. How much of this is the bad script verses Syder inexperience as a Actor , I do not know.
Still I would have rather seen Dominic Keating from Star Trek: Enterprise as Holmes instead of the Role , he played in the movie. I think Keating would have done a far better job as Holmes
 
Holmes and Watson (2019)
Holmes and Watson (2019)
An ITV film adapted from the stage play by Jeffrey Hatcher. Set post Reichenbach, the plot follows Dr. Watson (Matt Berry) travelling to a mental institution to meet with three patients (Michael Sheen, Alan Cumming, Robson Green) who each claim to be Sherlock Holmes.
 
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