Now here's a fascinating curio: The most important Hammer horror director, Terence Fisher, going to Germany to make a krimi-style Sherlock Holmes film with Christopher Lee playing the detective hero, against typing as a villain.
The story starts much like a krimi, with establishing shots of London – an idea(l) of London, rather than the real thing – overlaid with a typically jazzy score as a bunch of mockney accented kids and a man fishing – in the Thames (?!)- discover the body of a sailor from the ship Thaysia.
Sherlock Holmes, first seen in disguise – we know it's Lee, but not what's going on – is soon on the case, visiting the Thaysia at the docks and observing Moriarty – likewise not yet identified – engaged in some no doubt nefarious business with one of the crewmen.
Holmes's contact winds up dead, one of Moriarty's poisoned blades in his back. Of course, nothing can be proven and Inspector Cooper – Lestrade is absent from the proceedings here – refuses to believe that the respectable Professor is a criminal mastermind.
The investigative trail leads Holmes to the country house of Peter Blackburn, a man who came into a lot of money a few years previous and who now lives in fear of his life…
That night, Blackburn is murdered. Only something is not quite right. Soon Holmes deduces what happened: Blackburn killed his assailant – one of Moriarty's men, seeking revenge for the six years he spend in an Egyptian prison on account of Blackburn – then staged things to make it look like he himself was the victim.
But, by this point Moriarty has already dispatched Blackburn and taken possession of the priceless necklace that he had stolen from Cleopatra's tomb six years back…
Can Holmes retrieve the necklace and solve the mystery? And can he prove Moriarty's involvement beyond a reasonable doubt?
Let's get the bad things out of the way first: Christopher Lee is dubbed, poorly. So is Thorley Walters – friend of Fisher, and one of the regulars in his films – as Dr Watson.
That, however, is about it, other than the fact that this will likely not please the Conan Doyle purist; the krimi purist; or the Terence Fisher purist, being too much of a compromised hybrid for their tastes.
Yet, speaking from the point of view of a Fisher cultist – I've never really gotten into Sherlock Holmes – with a passing interest in the krimi as one of those things I've got marked down as a subject for future research – it's worth a look.
In terms of Fisher-ian themes, the most obvious here is the untrustworthiness of surface appearances; the "charm of evil" used by critic Wheeler Winston Dixon as a subtitle for his book on the director.
Thus, Moriarty carefully maintains a facade of respectability while Holmes makes his initial appearance disguised as an eyepatch wearing rogue; a mask he later also adopts to entrap Moriarty's minions…
Likewise, the succession of encounters between the two men, as "disenchanted" monster and savant – though Conan Doyle himself was a long-term advocate of spiritualism, the supernatural makes no appearance here – where they make move and countermove against one another without ever doing so blatantly and overtly feel akin to forerunners of those between Lee's Duc de Richeleu and Charles Gray's Mocata in The Devil Rides Out .
Also worth noting are a couple of occasions where the director or the co-credited Frank Winterstein – though working as assistant to Fritz Lang and others, he'll probably have to wait till hell freezes until he's as the subject/object of analysis, you suspect – utilise lighting effects to carefully pick out part of a villain's face; the sort of technique that Fisher had used in his Hammer gothics, the only difference being that there it would be contrasting colours that were used to produce the same effect rather than classic Expressionist chiarascuro.
Lee, whatever repudiations he may have made subsequently, appears committed to have been committed to the role at the time – or at least was sufficiently professional not to let any disdain show through – and delivers an enthusiastic and engaging performance. Walters and the German cast – many krimi regulars – likewise do pretty well for the most part.
Worth a look, then, and entertaining beyond mere curiousity value.
This Region 2 PAL DVD is a low-rent affair, with no extras and a adequate-but-no-more full-frame transfer – though I can't say I noticed any obviously affected compositions – from a print that's showing its 40-something age. Better than nothing, but only just.
Copyright © K H Brown 2002-2005
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