Customer Reviews

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Red-Headed League [VHS]

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

 

 

Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Red-Headed League" is adaptly dramatized by John Hawkesworth. Jeremy Brett plays the dramatic Sherlock Holmes and David Burke plays Watson.

Professor Moriarty is at his tricks again and has already been foiled three times by Holmes. There is an ulterior motive for trying to hire red headed men to perform nonsensical work and it has nothing to do with red hair or benefactors. Why is the shop owner lured away by his assistant? What is lurking beneath the surface and how can the shop owner be made aware of his being duped?

It is all pure Holmes and Brett is brilliant in the part. This is a pretty good rendition of the Doyle story and is fairly true to form.

Holmes smokes three pipes in 50 minutes to solve this case (in silence); it is a miracle with all of that smoke he did not asphyxiate himself or Watson who was sleeping in the room.

Pure entertainment.

This is 1984 vintage so do not expect to much in the way of filming; not bad for a made for television film.

Bentley/2008
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Vol. 5 (The Resident Patient / The Red-Headed League / The Final Problem)The Red-headed LeagueThe Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - The Red-Headed League

THE REDHEADED LEAGUE shows Arthur Conan Doyle's superb sense of comedy. Portions of this story play like a Monty Python sketch, and the clever adaptors at Granada know not to take any of this too seriously. John Woodnutt is hilarious as the self-pitying Jabez Wilson, and everyone else in the cast is similarly superb. There is a startling touch in this episode--I may never read of Holmes 'springing up from the sofa' again without seeing Jeremy Brett's acrobatic take on that particular phrase. It's outrageous, but it works, and he manages to do it it in a very elegant fashion. Brett also manages to make a drab Victorian frock coat appear to be the most graceful and fashionable of garments. I consider this one of my top five favorites, though there is a lot of competition.

+++++

This movie is based on the story "The Red-headed League" (1892) written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859 to 1930).

In this story, a mysterious newspaper ad calls for all redheaded men to join a league that will pay good money for rather easy work. A newly hired assistant Vincent Spaulding (Tim McInnerny) brings this ad to his redheaded employer Jabez Wilson (contrary to the editorial review above, the actor who plays Wilson is Roger Hammond), who owns a pawn broking business. Wilson applies for the position and gets hired. His job is to copy out an encyclopedia starting with everything under "A." To Wilson's surprise, a few months later, the league mysteriously dissolves.

Sherlock (Jeremy Brett) and Dr. Watson (David Burke) break out laughing when Wilson finishes his story. However, Sherlock agrees to take on the case.

As Sherlock investigates, this case turns more serious and seems to involve his archenemy Professor Moriarty.

This movie is worth viewing just to see Sherlock and Watson crack up laughing.

Brett (as usual) does a good job in capturing the essence of the famous gumshoe in his performance. Hammond as pawnbroker Jabez Wilson also gives a good comical performance.

Finally, the props, costumes, background music, and cinematography are quite well done.

In conclusion, this is a good movie to watch even if you have read the story it's based on!!

(1984; 50 min; British drama; made for TV; full screen)

+++++

For being a low budget film, Sherlock Holmes and the Red Headed League was not bad. Jeremy Brett played Sherlock Holmes wonderfully. Unlike some Holmes actors, Brett actually had a decent British accent and coal black hair.
The vidoes story line is very similar to the regular stories, and is a good alternative if you do not desire to read the the short story.
The only thing not great about the video is the fact that the cassette is not top quality. The tape has a much greater probability to become messed up, then one from the Walt Disney Company or Warner Brothers.
However, if you want to see the tape, you are almost compelled to buy it, because the library systems to not carry the tapes, and if they happened to have one or two, they are usually messed up. Blockbuster also rarely carried the tapes. So if seeing Jeremy Brett perform as Sherlock Holmes is worth twenty dollars then go for it.

The company that did this Sherlock Holmes series did a wonderful job with it. This is one of the more popular stories involving Holmes, and they adapted it very well. Listing to Jabez recount all the topics under the letter "A" that he copied out of the encyclopedia is very entertaining. Another nice thing about the episode was the appearance of Tim McInnerny (Percy/Darling from the classic Black Adder series or, for people not familiar with it, the bumbling henchman for Cruella DeVil from 102 Dalmations). This is the only role I have ever seen him do where he didn't play a total idiot. He should try doing it more often, because he did a wonderful job. The casting was well done, everyone looked the way that I pictured them in my head while I was reading the story. Wonderful!