Young Sherlock Holmes
 
 
Director: Barry Levinson
Year: 1985
Rating: 7.5
Thirty-five years after seeing this last, I still found it delightful. A fanciful and affectionate re-telling of the first meeting between Sherlock Holmes and his faithful scribe Dr. Watson. But in this version they meet at school as teenagers. In the many telling's of that fateful meeting in the books and film they met much later as adults when Watson returned after being wounded in Afghanistan at the battle of Maiwand in 1880. But throw that all aside in this youthful adventure tale that is somewhere between Young Sherlock Holmes and Young Indiana Jones. The pedigree behind the camera could not be much better  - produced by Steven Spielberg, directed by Barry Levinson, written by Chris Columbus and special effects from the George Lucas Industrial Light and Magic group with some help from Pixar.




This is a lovely conceit that works so well because it is clear that they know their Holmes and have fun weaving in many of the later Sherlockian trademarks and sayings. The pipe, the deerstalker cap, the coat, the game is afoot and his seeming indifference to the opposite sex (with the exception of Irene Adler) are all imagined here as to their origins. Some I believe are actually film inventions as opposed to the books but it is our image of Holmes and Watson. Watson is of course always tricky - where on the intelligence scale do you place him - near Nigel Bruce or James Mason (Murder by Decree) or close to the character and narrator of the books. They choose thankfully to edge towards the book and in fact it is Watson as an adult looking back years later on this their first case of murder.




It is mid-term in one of those awful British boarding schools when a short, pudgy bespectacled John Watson joins the school. Shy and awkward but already intent on becoming a doctor some day, he is bedazzled by the smarts of the man whose bed is next to his. Sherlock Holmes, a loner but already brilliant which he displays immediately by guessing certain things about Watson. That old parlor trick. The two hit it off - Holmes likes having a hero-worshipping follower and Watson falls into this role easily. There is a third member of this friendship - the granddaughter of a retired professor who still lives on the grounds. This is Elizabeth, also quite enamored with Holmes - and him to some degree with her. Through the treachery of another student Sherlock is set up and asked to leave the school. His mentor and fencing instructor Professor Rathe (Anthony Higgins) can't save him.




But just as he is leaving a series of strange events occur in which respectable older men go crazy and kill themselves. Sherlock doesn't know it (but we do) but these men have had a drug blow darted into their skins that acts as a hallucinogenic and makes them see horrific things attacking them till they go mad. This is where Lucas comes in. His company creates some wonderful special effects of inanimate objects coming to life and getting vicious. In one occurrence a knight that was in a stained glass window in the church jumps out and chases a priest. The effects bring Goonies, Gremlins and the Crypt Keeper to mind. The murders lead to a conspiracy of an ancient Egyptian sect in the middle of London that is sacrificing young women. And our fellowship of three are hot on their trail while Lestrade as always is a step behind. Good fun, well produced with quality everything. All three of these young actors - Nicholas Rowe as Sherlock, Alan Cox as Watson and Sophie Ward as Elizabeth are still active in the acting profession. Apparently, the film did not do well at the box-office and that was the end of any potential sequels - sadly the same fate as Spielberg's Tin-tin.