Basil Rathbone. For Sherlock Holmes devotees, no one else need apply for the role.
Hey, I know! Let’s make a new Sherlock Holmes movie that’s a shoot-em-up, duke-it-out, blow-it-up, thrust-and-parry, jump-from-buildings, set-it-on-fire, wow-the-audience, special effects-o-rama festival.
Oh please.
What, no car chase scenes? Oh wait. That would be an anachronism. But there is a carriage chase scene.
The latest character to be kidnapped from the pages of old books and canisters of black and white celluloid and remade in a modern movie is Sherlock Holmes. The pipe-smoking, double-billed cap-wearing sleuth who resides at 221B Baker Street in London has been reincarnated as a James Bond-ish super detective in the new movie Sherlock Holmes, slated to hit the theaters Christmas Day.
Playing the part of Holmes is Robert Downey Jr. Other than a similarity in their affection for mind-altering drugs, there is little in common between the character and the actor.
The original series of Sherlock Holmes movies, was made in the 1930s and early 1940s, starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as the affable Dr. Watson. Fans of these movies were drawn in by mystery and skullduggery, rather than fist fights and gunplay, apparently the primary motive behind the new movie.
In the 56 Sherlock Holmes stories penned by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Holmes and Watson had to use their service revolvers a total of seven times, and there was that one sword fight. Violence was not the draw.
The era of the thinking man’s movie is long gone, sadly. Why? Because no one wants to think, anymore. Nope, we’re morons. Give us violence and explosions over substance any day. Oh, and car chases.
Or horse and buggy chases at least.
What next, Perry Mason stopping criminals in a do-or-die slugfest in the men’s room at the county courthouse?
