Customer Reviews

Sherlock Holmes: Greatest Mysteries (5 DVD Set)

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

 

 

It is tempting to deduct marks because of these not being digitally restored, but I am so thrilled to have this collection of 39 television episodes (and they were dirt cheap). Until recently I was completely unaware of this 1950's television series. I have since discovered that you can watch them on hulu, but the DVDs provide a commercial-free viewing option, and make a nice addition to my Holmes collection. Ronald Howard, who plays Holmes, is son of the rather more famous actor, Leslie Howard.

The television series is on three disks, and as a bonus you get two more disks with four Basil Rathbone movies, three movies staring Arthur Wontner, and one with Reginald Owen. Of course, if you're into Basil Rathbone, there are better collections, including some colorized and even a complete collection of all 14 of his Holmes movies digitally restored.

I love Sherlock Holmes stories and movie adaptations. This collection includes a nice cross section of fine stories, but the transfers are not restored (and probably taken from public domain copies of copies in some cases). However, the low quality, grainy, vintage-looking transfers do give the videos an added element of old England's atmospheric ambience. But it takes another leap of suspended disbelief to fully enjoy them because we are so spoiled with great-looking hi-def discs. Mill Creek should find a way to restore these prints and they'd really have something cool.

The plots are typical Holmes, and I'll not touch the details as any who haven't seen them before I don't want to give the game away. That said...

After dinging the series one star for overall quality of the original prints used there's not much more to rate it down on.

The set is old, but its certainly still entertaining.

Film quality is typical for productions of the period, as is acting and characterization, however I do enjoy older dectective or sleuthy type films.
If this was not a subject that held my interest it probably wouldn't be on my "buy" list. As it is I'll watch it more than once.

It's typcal of English sets of the period, but the gaslight London scenes and English countryside are worth watching these for if nothing else.
The horses, buggys, costumes and sets are all very well done for the period, and it's the sets that make it relatively easy to fall into the storylines.

If you're hypercritical and expect everything remastered or colorized to the 'nth degree, then you may want to give this a pass, but if you enjoy these period releases with the odd blemish adding to the character you might just enjoy it as much as myself. The biggest issue I had was not unexpected and that was audio quality on my set which varied a little during shows.