This is the first I've seen of the BBC Sherlock Holmes series from the 1960s starring Douglas Wilmer (and evidently the last recorded before Wilmer left and was replaced by Peter Cushing) and I quite enjoyed it. Partially because it starts with the events surrounding the case and allows Holmes and Watson to enter later, the adaptation is very through and well-realized for the screen.
BBC productions of this era were frequently rather studio-bound, but this Holmes episode shows its production values with several sets, cutaways, and instances of location footage, making for a very good-looking production. That tendency towards the studio-bound, however, lead to programs that depended on their acting to bring the story across, and the acting here tends to be very good.
I like Douglas Wilmer a lot as Sherlock Holmes. He's a spiky but humorous and very energetic version of the character with a wonderfully expressive face and huge amounts of screen presence. Clearly a legitimately skilled actor, he makes one want to watch more of what he's doing on screen, and now I do. Nigel Stock's Watson unfortunately comes off as rather annoyingly dim-witted, only verging onto the humorously dim-witted when his fixation on the duck dinner becomes evident. I am very familiar with Roger Delgado from his regular portrayal of The Master on Doctor Who, and here he does very well as the suave continental hotelier Moser.
There are a few signs of the rushed television production of "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax" -- a couple of flubbed lines that could have been rerecorded and a supposedly freshly-dead body that looks oddly like a mummy -- but on the whole it's a very entertaining and commendable version of a rarely-filmed Sherlock Holmes story.
BBC productions of this era were frequently rather studio-bound, but this Holmes episode shows its production values with several sets, cutaways, and instances of location footage, making for a very good-looking production. That tendency towards the studio-bound, however, lead to programs that depended on their acting to bring the story across, and the acting here tends to be very good.
I like Douglas Wilmer a lot as Sherlock Holmes. He's a spiky but humorous and very energetic version of the character with a wonderfully expressive face and huge amounts of screen presence. Clearly a legitimately skilled actor, he makes one want to watch more of what he's doing on screen, and now I do. Nigel Stock's Watson unfortunately comes off as rather annoyingly dim-witted, only verging onto the humorously dim-witted when his fixation on the duck dinner becomes evident. I am very familiar with Roger Delgado from his regular portrayal of The Master on Doctor Who, and here he does very well as the suave continental hotelier Moser.
There are a few signs of the rushed television production of "The Disappearance of Lady Frances Carfax" -- a couple of flubbed lines that could have been rerecorded and a supposedly freshly-dead body that looks oddly like a mummy -- but on the whole it's a very entertaining and commendable version of a rarely-filmed Sherlock Holmes story.
