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

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FairlyUninformedGraduate

Gone Fishin'
What about a late fifties, sixties cold war era Holmes? He could be a former Bletchley type whizz, Watson a former medic who worked with the SOE. Bonus points if he meets James Bond.

Moriarty could be exploiting post war rebuilding and cold war tensions to build a pan European criminal network. Mycroft is a shadowy cross between Sir Humphrey and M. Irene Adler is a former British agent who infiltrated nazi high command in the war, and now uses her skills and contacts to fund a comfortable life for herself through mild blackmail and seduction. Lestrade is a tough ex military policeman with a German bullet lodged in his hip, excellent at policing but unsubtle in his methodology (why use one fist when two will do?).

Thoughts? Ideas on cast? It needn't be filmed in that period.
 
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WhovianHolmesianChap

WhovianHolmesianChap

FairlyUninformedGraduate said:
What about a late fifties, sixties cold war era Holmes? He could be a former Bletchley type whizz, Watson a former medic who worked with the SOE. Bonus points if he meets James Bond.

Moriarty could be exploiting post war rebuilding and cold war tensions to build a pan European criminal network. Mycroft is a shadowy cross between Sir Humphrey and M. Irene Adler is a former British agent who infiltrated nazi high command in the war, and now uses her skills and contacts to fund a comfortable life for herself through mild blackmail and seduction. Lestrade is a tough ex military policeman with a German bullet lodged in his hip, excellent at policing but unsubtle in his methodology (why use one fist when two will do?).

Thoughts? Ideas on cast? It needn't be filmed in that period.
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Sounds interesting. As to cast:
David Niven/Ray Milland as Holmes
John Mills as Watson
Honor Blackman as Irene Adler
Herbert Lom as Professor Moriarty
Maurice Denham as Lestrade
 
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unclepatrick

unclepatrick

FairlyUninformedGraduate said:
What about a late fifties, sixties cold war era Holmes? He could be a former Bletchley type whizz, Watson a former medic who worked with the SOE. Bonus points if he meets James Bond.

Moriarty could be exploiting post war rebuilding and cold war tensions to build a pan European criminal network. Mycroft is a shadowy cross between Sir Humphrey and M. Irene Adler is a former British agent who infiltrated nazi high command in the war, and now uses her skills and contacts to fund a comfortable life for herself through mild blackmail and seduction. Lestrade is a tough ex military policeman with a German bullet lodged in his hip, excellent at policing but unsubtle in his methodology (why use one fist when two will do?).

Thoughts? Ideas on cast? It needn't be filmed in that period.
Click to expand...
I kind of surprised that some film director did not try something like this in the 60. I could see Brian Clement of the Avengers fame writing the script (Steed and Mrs Peel Avengers , not Iron Man and Thor Avengers)
We saw the character Bulldog Drummond moved from the 20 and 30 to the 60's in two movies staring Richard Johnson . (Johnson be a good choice to play Holmes)

In the US, there were two cases of Fictional characters being up graded to Spy Dramas.
The First was the detective Nick Carter who became a successful Spy in a long running series of Books.
The other was the pulp character "The Shadow" who became a Secrets Agent in the Paperback "The Shadow Returns " and continue in nine paperbacks written in the 60.

So the idea not as unlikely as it sounds .
 

FairlyUninformedGraduate

Gone Fishin'
WhovianHolmesianChap said:
Sounds interesting. As to cast:
David Niven/Ray Milland as Holmes
John Mills as Watson
Honor Blackman as Irene Adler
Herbert Lom as Professor Moriarty
Maurice Denham as Lestrade
Click to expand...
Love that cast. Niven has the detachment, cold intelligence and is enough of an action man for the role. John mills could definitely do the smart everyman war hero. Herbert lom is inspired!
 

FairlyUninformedGraduate

Gone Fishin'
How about as another idea- Lestrade, the TV series. A gritty police procedural drama, where we see the Inspector from a different angle; grounded, competent, not prone to flights of fancy, cracking criminal gangs, rooting out murderers in filthy doss houses, and navigating the politics of Scotland yard; where a crime comes from somewhere else, a society drawing room or is outside his scope, he's not too proud to seek expert help. It would run alongside a Holmes series and would intersect, with elements of each series appearing in the other. 80s, 90s?
 
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phx1138

Driftless said:
I could see Auberjonois as Watson more so. In his comedic roles, he was a master of the subtle "what the hell just happened here look", which could be useful in a Watson portrayal.
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I wouldn't argue against it. He did the aloof as Odo so well. Either way, I'd love to have seen it.
Driftless said:
How about the late Michael Williams? I've only seen him in an old Britcom with his wife Judi Dench, but he had that rumpled dignity and that lumpy everyman face.
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I don't know him, so I can't comment.
Driftless said:
Good mysteries and also enjoyable from the unfamiliar history and culture(to me anyway). Van Gulik was a Dutch foreign service officer with a long and useful career in Asia. He was something of a Chinese scholar and got into writing the Judge Dee stories via that route.
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I've seen a bit of his background, so he clearly knew his stuff. I had a Chinese history prof (of Chinese history, who also happened to be Chinese, so... ;) ) once point out the "judge system" wasn't actually accurate for the era (can't recall if earlier or later), but it doesn't make them bad. AFAIK, all the rest of the detail is accurate.

I would love to see a Hollywood film series on Judge Dee. Or a TV series. Asian actors in NAm get really short shrift.
 
WhovianHolmesianChap

WhovianHolmesianChap

unclepatrick said:
I kind of surprised that some film director did not try something like this in the 60. I could see Brian Clement of the Avengers fame writing the script (Steed and Mrs Peel Avengers , not Iron Man and Thor Avengers)
We saw the character Bulldog Drummond moved from the 20 and 30 to the 60's in two movies staring Richard Johnson . (Johnson be a good choice to play Holmes)

In the US, there were two cases of Fictional characters being up graded to Spy Dramas.
The First was the detective Nick Carter who became a successful Spy in a long running series of Books.
The other was the pulp character "The Shadow" who became a Secrets Agent in the Paperback "The Shadow Returns " and continue in nine paperbacks written in the 60.

So the idea not as unlikely as it sounds .
Click to expand...
Brian Clemens did write a Holmes stage play: Holmes and the Ripper. I saw an amateur production in Sydney last year, and I've heard the Big Finish adaptation. It's quite good.
 
unclepatrick

unclepatrick

WhovianHolmesianChap said:
Brian Clemens did write a Holmes stage play: Holmes and the Ripper. I saw an amateur production in Sydney last year, and I've heard the Big Finish adaptation. It's quite good.
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I heard that on Spotify . I agree it was good.
I still think that The Whitechapel Horror by Edward Nana and Dust and Shadow by Lindsey Faye are both the best "Sherlock vs Jack " stories .
 
unclepatrick

unclepatrick

phx1138 said:
Whoever stars, you really do want a rewrite so it's not "The Adventure of Sigmund Freud featuring Holmes & Watson". (That may have been a product of casting Alan Arkin as Freud, & making it in Hollywood.)
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Some of that is from the Original Novel.
But yes it should have featured more of Holmes . It was really the first time we saw Holmes as the Action Hero after he recovers.
 

phx1138

unclepatrick said:
Some of that is from the Original Novel.
But yes it should have featured more of Holmes . It was really the first time we saw Holmes as the Action Hero after he recovers.
Click to expand...
I didn't notice it so much in the book. As said, I have a feeling casting choices (& producers) made a difference. Had it been shot in Britain, or financed there, Freud would have had a smaller role: still pivotal, even still for a lot of the film, but much less prominent.
 
WhovianHolmesianChap

WhovianHolmesianChap

Niven & Mills.png

David Niven and John Mills as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in "The Men from Baker Street" (1960)
 

UCB79

FairlyUninformedGraduate said:
What about a late fifties, sixties cold war era Holmes? He could be a former Bletchley type whizz, Watson a former medic who worked with the SOE. Bonus points if he meets James Bond.

Moriarty could be exploiting post war rebuilding and cold war tensions to build a pan European criminal network. Mycroft is a shadowy cross between Sir Humphrey and M. Irene Adler is a former British agent who infiltrated nazi high command in the war, and now uses her skills and contacts to fund a comfortable life for herself through mild blackmail and seduction. Lestrade is a tough ex military policeman with a German bullet lodged in his hip, excellent at policing but unsubtle in his methodology (why use one fist when two will do?).

Thoughts? Ideas on cast? It needn't be filmed in that period.
Click to expand...

If we were actually filming in the late 50s/early 60's:

HOLMES- Kenneth More
IRENE ADLER- Joan Collins OR Dana Wynter
MORIARTY- Trevor Howard OR if you wanted someone younger, Laurence Harvey.
I see Mycroft as maybe being a guest star who steps in every couple of episodes to explain certain things
that have been going on. Thus he could be played by James Mason or even- drool- Lawrence Olivier(hey,
if he did THE BETSY later in his career, of course Sir Larry could have seen his way clear to doing TV!)
 
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