Customer Reviews

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Having not yet seen the DVD I have, however, seen the film on its first theatrical release (double billed with MCKenna's Gold). Most folks reviewing the film mention Miklos Rozsa's fine score. Few realize that Billy Wilder based the plot ideas for the film on the Miklos Rozsa Violin Concerto and that Rozsa adapted the Concerto themes to form the basis for the score. Find the 1955 Jascha Heifeitz recording on RCA (available on CD)or look for the 6 minutes adapted Fantasy recorded by Rozsa. If ever there was music to inspire a Sherlock Holmes story this is it.

I saw the full cut of 3 hours in 1970 at the Odeon Carlton Theatre in Toronto along with a few other people.
The full cut was brilliant, one of Wilder's greatest movies.
Central to the movie was the Love Story and the fools at UA saw fit to cut this out, and as a result ruined the film.
This was done against Wilder's wishes, evidenced by the fact that he refuses to speak about it in Cameron Crowes interview book.
It is a tragedy that the cut footage is not to be found.

I am reinterating the Falkirk reviewer's delight in the Deleted Scenes section. Yes, it is mostly text based, but done with great imagination. There is blending of written text, still photographs and music ("Original Prologue" and "The Adventure of the Dumbfounded Detective/Holmes Recounts an Affair of the Past"), still photographs syncronized with the dialog soundtrack ("The Curious Case of the Upside Down Room") and original silent footage with subtitles ("The Dreadful Business of the Naked Honeymooners"). Given the spotty nature of this sort of material, this virtually seamless presentation is a miracle to a fan of this movie such as myself. It is not the same thing as seeing the original cut, but it gives the viewer a very good idea of the sort of movie Wilder was aiming at.

Who said that you have to be British to rnjoy Sherlock Holmes stories. Of course, there is the Union Jack painted all over this one, but it is so internationalb that it appeals to everyone.

The extras are worth buying this one. The interviews, especially the one with Christopher Lee, are fascinating. Everything is so well calibrated in this movie. This kind of stuff can easily become very cliché (Michael Caine's rendition of Holmes is an example), but it did not happen ion this one. The acting crew is so subtle in rendering something that had been done many times before. The text is loaded with one-liners that are a delicate mix of Seinfeld and Shakespeare. The story is full of loops and twists, but it holds the ground of sanity. It is not too far fetched. The action takes place in a very few locations, but then the stellar cast of actors is making the whole thing riveting.

The only con about this one is the not-so-convincing, almost a parody, impersonation of the Queen of England.

Highly recommended for everyone..... over 13.

This film is sometimes described as a comedy, and while it has humourous bits (a more sardonic and biting form of humour most of the time), it has never really felt at home being classified as a comedy, in my estimation. I do like the rapid-fire wit that Holmes seems to have here (a bit more in abundance than in the canonical Conan Doyle stories), but the Holmes presented here is a bit more dark and brooding, more akin to the extra-canonical 'Seven Percent Solution' Holmes in many ways.

Wilder was an extraordinary director and genius who sometimes gets carried away with his subject (in this regard, he is sometimes compared with Stanley Kubrick). His films are often of epic-proportions, even though they are not essentially 'epic' subjects. This film is reputed to have been nearly twice as long as the final cut version, but this may be apocryphal in that much of the raw footage never made it to final print and production. The restoration available on the disc currently available is, in fact, rather minimal - a few scenes and a few extras, but not much more than the original release of the film. This is disappointing to many fans, but in fact is more than most of us have had for a long time, as the somewhat choppy film was often mercilessly cut for television broadcast.

Holmes in this case is played by Robert Stephens, an unlikely Holmes in comparison to standards such as Rathbone, Brett, or Gillette, but still an interesting choice - quintessentially British, reserved but daring, brilliant yet flawed and faltering. Colin Blakely presents a stronger Watson than often portrayed before (this film, being made in 1970, presented this as a newer idea for Watson, one that has been picked up by many subsequent productions). Wilder has the actors play at various issues of Victorian sensibility and morality, including the implication (dismissed in the end) that Holmes might have a sexual identity issue. Christopher Lee, who himself plays Holmes in other productions, plays Holmes' smarter brother Mycroft here, to good effect.

The story line does have some inspiration from the canonical stories (the Bruce-Partington Plans, for one), and from Gillette's play (the strange case of Miss Faulkner, introducing an ending that allowed for a love interest for Holmes in the end), but for the most part takes the characters from Conan Doyle and runs far afield. Still, this is must-see film for any fan of Holmes, and any fan of Wilder, who saw this as one of his last great productions.

Wilder spices up the personality of Sherlock Holmes as the master detective enters another remarkable journey into the world of mystery and crime. It all begins with a beautiful lady who appears out of nowhere at Holmes' front door, and it seems as if she suffers from amnesia and a lost husband. However, these mysteries are old news for a genius such as Sherlock Holmes and his companion Dr. Watson. Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is an interesting film, but the overall picture lacks the usual spice that Wilder used to combine into his creations.

First the good news: Billy Wilder's wonderfully comic--and tragic--examination of the romantic life of "the world's greatest consulting detective," Sherlock Holmes, is reproduced beautifully in this terrific and long overdue DVD. Indeed, "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" has never looked better or more complete on the small screen, as it is presented here in a digitally remastered widescreen format that preserves the integrity of director and co-writer Wilder's original vision. As fans of the film know, Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond fill in the blanks regarding the sexual orientation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous literary creation (a hot topic among intellectuals in the late 1960s) with both a sparkling wit and grand sense of respect for the subject matter. In the film, Holmes embarks on his most scandalous case, which includes the search for a missing engineer, the discovery of secrets of state, and his burgeoning love for a mysterious woman who might not be who she claims. With his lisp and penchant for sarcasm, Robert Stephens' Holmes is less the classical hero than in previous screen versions, going so far as to chide Watson (played wonderfully by Colin Blakely) for embellishing both his habits and physical stature in his "Strand Magazine" articles, yet Stephens' Holmes retains the keen mind, loyal affability, and vulnerable spirit we have come to admire. The supporting cast, which includes Christopher Lee as Mycroft Holmes, is excellent, but it is the production, including Miklos Rosza's hauntingly luscious score, that helps propel the film to greatness. Now, the bad news: As most fans know, Wilder wanted this film to be more than three hours long and contain several other adventures that would complete this heretofore unknown set of cases whose "delicate and sometimes scandalous nature" made them unsuitable for print. Unfortunately, the studio forced him to cut much of that footage, only some of which is included here (and without sound; in other cases, stills of filmed scenes are intercut with pages of the script and recorded dialogue). The result is that those of us who have waited for years to see the film as the brilliant Wilder had intended it have to make due with the bits and pieces included here. What a shame that, once again, marketing interfered with the artistic process.

This film is a cult classic and well deserving of that status. It's one of my favourite films and for YEARS we were promised the excised footage would be replaced and we could finally see this marvellous film in the form Billy Wilder meant it to be. Well, I am sure like all fans of the film, we waited with hope that NOW they would include all these scenes. And while the film transfer is great and I was sad to see there is NO footage to speak of to be added. There are snippets of film of other adventures, stills flashed over a poor soundtrack, but according to MGM there is no extra scenes, they have been lost.

WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT!

The film is still a must for Billy Wilder, Robert Stephens, Chris Lee or Sherlock Holmes Fans. But just do not expect all the lost footage to be restored.

It is a very very funny look at Holmes, a more human look perhaps. This is a mirthful look at the adventures of Sherlock Holmes, lovingly portrayed with a twinkle in his eye by the late great Sir Robert Stephens. The adventures are fun (the ones we see) but mainly centre around a woman's missing husband. Toss in several hundred canaries, the Loch Ness Monster, missing midgets - the Tumbling Pickaloes to be precise - the mysterious red runner, Queen Victoria, some Trappist monks, an ageing ballerina that does not 'look 39' - that is because she is 49!! -who wants Holmes to father her child and an amnesiac damsel in distress that temps Holmes, all done with the best British wit and droll sense of humour...and you have a mix that cannot miss.

Incisive writing and direction, this fill pay homage to Holmes and Watson, with tongue firmly planted in cheek...

Even so, the currently version is a true gem, and so overlooked,
all we have left of Billy Wilder genius vision.

And there is. This film is infamous for having much cut from it by Billy Wilder himself. And while I appreciate his choices I am annoyed with the fact that they are not featured as extras on this DVD. I'm not exactly sure what the deleted scenes (or should that be plots) are but I can't shake the feeling that the first 30 minutes are completely redundant in relation to the rest of the movie and perhaps it might not have been if the movie were longer. Cutting a movie down to size is always a very tough thing to do. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes suffers, but still manages to be entertaining.

Complaints aside, I really do enjoy Wilder's bizarre approach to Sherlock Holmes. Robert Stephens plays him with more a touch more humor and pathos than most other actors and comes across as a mix between Alan Rickman and Rick Mayall. It's definitely the most pleasant I've seen Holmes. The mystery he gets involved in may be huge, though it's not exactly exciting. Wilder seems more interested in having every element of the story fall into place than give us something with a sense of urgency. And for a film over 2 hours long (it was meant to be 3) it's not cool to have every scene presented at its own pace. There has to be some compromise.

The photography is excellent. The 2.35:1 widescreen frame is used expertly and one can only imagine the horrors of this film being presented in pan and scan. The anamorphic picture looks fine for a 33 year old film and the Mono sound is completely adeqequate. Extras consist of a trailer, an interview with the editor, deleted sequences (not the all of them) and a photo gallery.

It's a sad commentary on the films featuring Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, that two of my favorites have nothing to do with Doyle at all. The first is They Might Be Giants (with Joanne Woodard a woman named Watson and George C. Scott as a man who believes he is Sherlock Holmes) and Billy Wilder's late period masterpiece. Stuffed with Wilder's characteristic cynical wit, sophisticated dialog and outstanding performances The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes has been out of circulation for too long.

MGM's terrific reissue features a number of extras that make this edition worth waiting for. While it doesn't have the cut scenes reintegrated into the film, it does feature a deleted scenes gallery that suggests how the film might have been had it not been butchered prior to general release. Sadly, there's much missing from this "lost" footage and, as a result, we don't get a restoration as much as a "recreation" with bits and pieces and script segments.

While this isn't the best transfer I've seen, the overall look is still pretty good. Yes, the look of the film is a bit washed out (not sure if that's due to the transfer or film stock but, knowing about the instability of film stock and less than pristine storage conditions many of these films were kept in, I'd vote for negative deterioation)but it is presented in its original aspect ratio. The overall presentation is quite good considering what MGM had to work with and, barring a restoration by someone like Robert Harris, this is probably the best version we'll ever see.

Christopher Lee shines during his brief screen time as Holmes brother. Lee did eventually get to play Holmes as well so it's rather funny to see him playing Holmes brother (after also playing Baskerville in Terry Fisher's Hound of the Baskervilles). Robert Stephens IS Holmes in this film. He lives and breathes the character in ways that Rathbone and others never quite did. I've seen some criticism of Colin Blakely's Watson here but find it to be little more than critcial bluster. Blakely's take on Watson manages to both tip the hat to Nigel Bruce and satirize the way the character was emasculated in most of the film adaptions of Doyle's work.

Oh, I'd like to add The Seven Percent Solution to my list of great Holmes adventures not written by Doyle but, sadly, it isn't available in widescreen(at least I haven't been able to find it) on DVD.