Customer Reviews

The New Adventures Sherlock Holmes Gift Set

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Nigel Bruce's Watson is a loveable bumbler--quite a contrast to Conan Doyle's capable but unimaginative Watson. The stories tend to be somewhat contrived and suffer in comparison to the BBC productions of original Doyle stories in which Clive Merrison starred as Holmes. The organ music gets monotonous, and if I weren't already a teetotaler, the wine commercials would make me take the temperance pledge. Despite all that, the productions are wonderful. The chemistry between Bruce and Rathbone is perfect, and the simple stories move swiftly to their satisfying (if sometimes obvious) conclusions. Although Holmes purists tend to hate Nigel Bruce's Watson, I found him to be irresistably likeable. I'd want Doyle's Watson guarding my back in a tight spot, but I'd rather sit by the fireplace and swap stories with Bruce's Watson. I particularly liked the host's introductory visits with Watson in which Watson sets the stage for the mysteries.

Simon & Schuster originally published these plays as single cassettes. Later they collected the plays into six "gift sets" containing four cassettes and eight plays each. This collection contains all the stories from the first three volumes of the "gift sets" and the first two stories from the fourth volume.

So the potential purchaser won't fall into the mistake of buying duplicate stories, here is a list of all the stories along with my individual ratings: ("Conanical" stories are based on actual Conan Doyle plots. Apocryphal stories give the details of mysteries only alluded to in the "Conanical" stories)

"The Unfortunate Tobacconist" *****; Very well plotted.
"The Paradol Chamber" **; Contrived.
"The Viennese Strangler" *****; Good plot.
"The Notorious Canary Trainer" ***; One of the apocryphal adventures.
"The April Fool's Day Adventure" **; Holmes & Moriarty meet for the first time.
"The Uneasy Easy Chair" ****; Murder most ingenious.
"The Demon Barber" *****; Death stalks the production of a famous play.
"The Headless Monk" ***; Contrived, but entertaining nonetheless.
"The Amateur Mendicant Society" ****; Another apocryphal adventure.
"The Vanishing White Elephant" ****; Holmes & Watson in India.
"The Girl with the Gazelle" ***; A locked room theft.
"The Limping Ghost" ****; Moans and chains in a drafty castle.
"The Out of Date Murder" *****; A corpse that couldn't be.
"The Waltz of Death" ****; A serial killer attacks dancers in Vienna.
"Col. Warburton's Madness" ***; Another apocryphal adventure with a gaping hole in the plot.
"The Iron Box" *****; A new year's story for the new year.
"A Scandal in Bohemia" *****; One of the few "Conanical" adventures in the collection.
"The Second Generation" ****; Irene Adler's daughter matches wits with the Great Detective.
"In Flanders Field" ****; A WWI story for a WWII audience.
"The Eyes of Mr. Leyton" ****; Here's looking at you.
"The Tell Tale Pigeon Feathers" ****; Holmes performs a virtuoso feat of observation and deduction.
"The Indiscretion of Mr. Edwards" ****; The fate of the Empire depends on keeping Mr. Edwards out of trouble.
"The Problem of Thor Bridge" *****; Another "Conanical" story. I believe it's one of Conan Doyle's best.
"The Double Zero" ****; It's a gamble.
"Murder in the Casbah" *****; One of Holmes' rare ventures outside England.

"The Tankerville Club" *****; Another apocryphal adventure in which Holmes confronts Col. Moran.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle invented Sherlock Holmes, but Edith Meiser translated him to radio and wrote many, many more Holmes stories than Conan Doyle. She took a hiatus from writing Holmes radio plays during the WWII years, and the duties devolved upon Dennis Green and Anthony Boucher. Green and Boucher wrote the best radio plays up until the coming of the BBC series with Clive Merrison. The Merrison productions have to date only been "Conanical" stories, but beginning in January/February of 2002, the BBC will air all new Holmes stories. It remains to be seen if they will top the Boucher-Green team's stories.

These gems from just after WWII include stories from the last year of Basil Rathbone's tenure as Sherlock Holmes. While the stories are somewhat contrived, and the list of suspects nearly always amounts to 3 people (the reasons for the 4 out of 5 stars), the charm, the wit, the joie de vivre of the cast and scripts I find disarming and irresistable. To hear again that incredible baritone of Rathbone and the charming slur of Nigel Bruce come through my stereo from ages ago transports me to simpler times and more polite civilization. I cannot recommend these enough - and encourage all fans of the Great Detective and those who enjoy Old Time Radio to purchase this collection. You cannot go wrong ... and if you find yourself smiling or even with a tear in your eye, you too will understand why this set is important and wonderful.