I started out my mini Paul Newman marathon with two projects he did behind the camera and in which he didn’t appear but instead highlighted his wife’s acting talent. The effective lead here is actually Newman’s own co-star from THE HUSTLER (1961), George C. Scott, as a lawyer who had a nervous breakdown after his wife’s death and which resulted in his taking on the persona of Sherlock Holmes!
This quirky, amiable but not entirely successful comic fantasy allows Scott to again show his considerable (but often neglected) skills at comedy which had served him so admirably in Stanley Kubrick’s DR. STRANGELOVE (1964). Joanne Woodward is Dr. Mildred Watson, the psychoanalyst who takes Scott under her care and whom he (given her surname) mistakes for his genial literary companion and is soon off in search for his eternal nemesis Professor Moriarty in modern-day New York! The cast also includes Jack Gilford, Al Lewis, Kitty Winn and a debuting F. Murray Abraham as various misfits and oddballs who join Scott and Woodward in their Quixotic quest for the invisible evil mastermind.
The film’s unsatisfactory and enigmatic conclusion (a slapstick supermarket chase involving Scott, Woodward, Gilford et al and the N.Y.C. Police is followed by a ‘supernatural’ encounter between Holmes, Watson and an unseen Moriarty in a tunnel) makes the whole affair somewhat pointless…except perhaps to imply that a retreat into one’s imagination is necessary if one is to survive the real madness that is modern civilization. In any case, executive producer Newman must have been impressed by THE LION IN WINTER (1968) since he engaged three of its major crew members for this one – director Harvey, screenwriter James Goldman (who adapted his own play for the screen) and composer John Barry (who contributes a nice moody score). The film’s running time was originally 88 minutes but it was subsequently lengthened to 98 for TV screenings; the version I got, then (that is the one also available on the now-OOP Anchor Bay DVD), runs for 92! In the end, I was hoping to like this more than I did – and it’s just as well that I opted not to purchase the DVD (which contained an Audio Commentary featuring Anthony Harvey and noted film restorer Robert A. Harris).
This quirky, amiable but not entirely successful comic fantasy allows Scott to again show his considerable (but often neglected) skills at comedy which had served him so admirably in Stanley Kubrick’s DR. STRANGELOVE (1964). Joanne Woodward is Dr. Mildred Watson, the psychoanalyst who takes Scott under her care and whom he (given her surname) mistakes for his genial literary companion and is soon off in search for his eternal nemesis Professor Moriarty in modern-day New York! The cast also includes Jack Gilford, Al Lewis, Kitty Winn and a debuting F. Murray Abraham as various misfits and oddballs who join Scott and Woodward in their Quixotic quest for the invisible evil mastermind.
The film’s unsatisfactory and enigmatic conclusion (a slapstick supermarket chase involving Scott, Woodward, Gilford et al and the N.Y.C. Police is followed by a ‘supernatural’ encounter between Holmes, Watson and an unseen Moriarty in a tunnel) makes the whole affair somewhat pointless…except perhaps to imply that a retreat into one’s imagination is necessary if one is to survive the real madness that is modern civilization. In any case, executive producer Newman must have been impressed by THE LION IN WINTER (1968) since he engaged three of its major crew members for this one – director Harvey, screenwriter James Goldman (who adapted his own play for the screen) and composer John Barry (who contributes a nice moody score). The film’s running time was originally 88 minutes but it was subsequently lengthened to 98 for TV screenings; the version I got, then (that is the one also available on the now-OOP Anchor Bay DVD), runs for 92! In the end, I was hoping to like this more than I did – and it’s just as well that I opted not to purchase the DVD (which contained an Audio Commentary featuring Anthony Harvey and noted film restorer Robert A. Harris).