Far from being just another one of those charmingly eccentric 70s comedies,this is ultimately a picture which should be recognized first and foremost as one of cinema's all time great meta-Quixotes. Any first hand familiarity with Cervantes´s classic novel enriches the viewer's understanding of this film immeasurably.
We're pointed to the literary work not only by the explicit references to it throughout the film (of which there are more than a few) but by the title itself. Certainly, more than one person has wondered why this movie is called THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS, as there are apparently no giants to be found nor even looked for. It was Don Quixote who, in a deluded attempt to rid the world of evil, imagined he saw giants everywhere. The giant to be confronted in T.M.B.G. is Holmes's arch nemesis, Professor Moriarity. The Holmes here, far more similar to the great Cervantes character than anything to be seen in Conan Doyle, is a frustrated and lonely old guy who tries to rid the world of malevolence by converting himself into a fictional character and imagining perils and plots where none really exist. The strength of both characters (Quixote and Justin Playfair) is their capacity to draw other people, at first unwillingly, into their fantasy world. That accomplished, the reality or unreality of foes becomes largely irrelevant, hence that marvelously ambiguous ending in T.M.B.G.
