I have been trying to watch all things
Sherlock Holmes but went into this one with a groan. The Sign of Four has
been done so many times on film and I have seen at least three of them. I
was wondering whether the world really needed another version. The Sign of
Four and The Hound of the Baskervilles have been done to death. And so of
course when Sy Weintraub struck a deal to produce a few Holmes TV movies,
the first two he did were those two, He had planned on making more but he
ran into the Jeremy Brett Sherlock films and had to stop. Too bad at least
by this film. This was excellent - the best version I have seen of the Sign
of Four. It makes a few changes from the book all to the good and is well
shot with a few lovely touches. But most importantly is Holmes as played
by Ian Richardson. With a passing resemblance to Basil Rathbone, Richardson
was a very good actor in all his roles and he nails Holmes down perfectly.
He does throw in an impish sense of humor that is welcome.
The film begins oddly with what I thought was a nod to The Private Life of
Sherlock Holmes (which I just saw or would never have remembered) with a
policeman scampering off the sidewalk as a water cleaning carriage passes
by and then as Watson enters their apartment, Holmes is experimenting on
the ashes of various cigarettes filling the place with smoke. Then he complains
about the poor class of criminal these days. Similar to scenes from Private
Life and apparently the policeman scene was literally taken from Private
Life. But then it veers into the film at hand. A very pretty woman shows
up by the name of Mary Morstan (Cheri Lunghi - Excalibur) asking for help.
Now you may recollect that Watson married a woman named Mary - this is her
- though they do not get married in this film. Thankfully. Watson (David
Healy) is rather rotund, jolly and much too old for her and though he flirts
endlessly with her, she never looks comfortable with it.
She has received a gigantic diamond in the mail from an unknown benefactor
and asked to come see him. She brings Holmes and Watson along and they meet
one of the Sholto brothers. The backstory slowly comes out. His father had
a chest of jewels come by illicitly in India many years before with the assistance
of Mary's father, who has gone missing. After the Sholto father died recently
the two brothers discovered the jewels and this brother believes that Mary
should get her share. Not so the other brother. But there are two other mysterious
figures who feel they too are entitled to the jewels - a peg-legged man and
his assistant a cannibal dwarf from the Andaman Islands with razor sharp
teeth. And he is an expert with a poisonous blowgun.
It may seem a bit ridiculous but a scene of him trying to kill Holmes by
shooting darts at him on a merry-go-round is well done as is his ferocious
fight with Holmes. Some other good scenes in the film as well - such as this
whimsical and imaginative bit of Holmes and Watson using Toby the hound dog
to track the killers and the chase morphs from them walking, then on a carriage,
then on a bicycle and finally on a cart while having one conversation. But
it is Richardson who makes the film and so much so that I may have to watch
yet another version of Hound of the Baskervilles.
