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  1. #31
    Extraordinary Member foxley's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by seismic-2 View Post
    The 6' 1" Robert Stephens starred in Billy Wilder's 1970 film The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.



    Christopher Lee played a condescending Mycroft splendidly.

    Which brings me to another one of my pet peeves: no one ever casts Mycroft correctly. He is supposed to be obese.

    Charles Grey was good in the role in the Jeremy Brett series (and his Mycroft even stood in for Watson and Holmes in episodes where Hardwicke and Brett were not available). Stephen Fry in the second RDJ film actually looks like the Paget illustration of Mycroft, although he seems more overweight than obese. Robert Morley in A Study in Terror had the bulk, but IMO did not feel like Mycroft.

    While there have been many excellent actors play Mycroft (Christopher Lee, Richard E. Grant, Hugh Laurie, Mark Gatiss, etc.) most of them are just physically wrong.

  2. #32
    Old school comic book fan WestPhillyPunisher's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by foxley View Post
    Which brings me to another one of my pet peeves: no one ever casts Mycroft correctly. He is supposed to be obese.

    Charles Grey was good in the role in the Jeremy Brett series (and his Mycroft even stood in for Watson and Holmes in episodes where Hardwicke and Brett were not available). Stephen Fry in the second RDJ film actually looks like the Paget illustration of Mycroft, although he seems more overweight than obese. Robert Morley in A Study in Terror had the bulk, but IMO did not feel like Mycroft.

    While there have been many excellent actors play Mycroft (Christopher Lee, Richard E. Grant, Hugh Laurie, Mark Gatiss, etc.) most of them are just physically wrong.
    And that included Sam Clafin (center) who played Mycroft in Enola Holmes:

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  3. #33
    Astonishing Member Zelena's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by foxley View Post
    Which brings me to another one of my pet peeves: no one ever casts Mycroft correctly. He is supposed to be obese.
    Recent adaptations have been influenced by older adaptations… I think that it’s not that frequent that obese people are represented in movies… not enough glamourous.

    I suppose that it’s enough that Mycroft is portrayed as a lazy bureaucrat.
    “Strength is the lot of but a few privileged men; but austere perseverance, harsh and continuous, may be employed by the smallest of us and rarely fails of its purpose, for its silent power grows irresistibly greater with time.” Goethe

  4. #34
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    The obese Mycroft, wallowing in his chair at the Diogenes Club, seems to be a thing of the past. Modern audiences want both Holmes brothers to be physically capable of at least defending themselves.


  5. #35
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    Quote Originally Posted by seismic-2 View Post
    The obese Mycroft, wallowing in his chair at the Diogenes Club, seems to be a thing of the past. Modern audiences want both Holmes brothers to be physically capable of at least defending themselves.

    Um, wait...what? Kareem sort of partly wrote these? Or rather lent his name to these for some reason?

  6. #36
    Extraordinary Member foxley's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by achilles View Post
    Um, wait...what? Kareem sort of partly wrote these? Or rather lent his name to these for some reason?
    Kareem co-wrote a novel with Anna Waterhouse called Mycroft Holmes. The comic is a sequel he co-wrote with Raymond Obtsfeild. He and Waterhouse have also written two prose sequels.

    No idea how much of the actual writing he did, but he has been a Holmes fan since boyhood, so his contribution is more than just his name.

  7. #37
    My Face Is Up Here Powerboy's Avatar
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    In the mid 1990s, I went on a Sherlock Holmes kick and read every Holmes story written by Doyle and was sorry when it ended.

    I read the Beekeeper's Apprentice which I thought was quite good though some accuse it of being glorified fan fiction.

    Alas, I burned out on trying to sustain it with other people's versions of Holmes.

    I saw Murder by Decree and Young Sherlock Holmes (which, of course, contradicts the premise that they met as adults). Alas, I've never seen any of the Rathbone movies. I like RDJ but I didn't like him as Holmes specifically because I had read the books and the RDJ movie's portrayal of Victorian London just leaves me cold it is so completely false.

    I rather liked the Cumberbatch version with it's modern take on the stories.

    Ironically, I've met people who tell me they are big fans who have read the books. Then they start telling me what an awesome gadgeteer and technological genius Moriarty was.
    Power with Girl is better.

  8. #38
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    I finished my reading of all the Conan Doyle earlier this year. As I was reading those I was watching the Basil Rathbone and the Jeremy Brett versions, plus a few others.

    I haven't found all the Peter Cushing episodes, but I did watch "The Blue Carbuncle." That's one of my favourite stories. I think someone could make a really great Christmas movie with that story and a few others blended in. Holmes in Dickensian England at Christmas--why hasn't this been done?

    I really like MURDER BY DECREE, featuring the Canadian Christopher Plummer, along with other Canadians Donald Sutherland, Susan Clark and Genevieve Bujold.

    I mean to make a list of when each story happens in the life of Sherlock Holmes, for when I'm in a mood to read all the stories again, but this time in the order of Sherlock's life--rather than publishing chronology as I did this time.

  9. #39
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    First, Thanks for the great thread Foxley.

    Next, Holmes is, in my mind, purely the figure Doyle gave us.

    Finally, Jeremy Brett IS Doyles's Holmes. I've liked others (including Rathesbone's [whose personal story is amazing] and Cumberbatch's). But, unless a future actor astonishes me, Brett IS Holmes.

  10. #40
    Old school comic book fan WestPhillyPunisher's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DrNewGod View Post
    First, Thanks for the great thread Foxley.

    Next, Holmes is, in my mind, purely the figure Doyle gave us.

    Finally, Jeremy Brett IS Doyles's Holmes. I've liked others (including Rathesbone's [whose personal story is amazing] and Cumberbatch's). But, unless a future actor astonishes me, Brett IS Holmes.
    I had read the stories several times (currently have it on my Kindle) before discovering the Brett series when episodes ran on A&E back in the early 2000’s, and I was instantly hooked on his astonishing portrayal. While other actors (Rathbone, Cushing, Cumberbatch, even RDJ) put their own stamp on the character, and I wouldn’t argue others who like those actors, but none of them can touch Brett in my opinion.
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  11. #41
    Latverian ambassador Iron Maiden's Avatar
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    Thanks WPP! I only recently discovered that Peter Cushing did a Sherlock Holmes series. Hammer did a Hound of the Baskervilles adaptation prior to the TV show (1959) where Cushing again was Holmes (his first time I believe) and Christopher Lee was Sir Henry Baskerville. Years ago I saw the matinee performance of the stage play "Sherlock Holmes" at the Shubert Theater in Chicago with my sister. Leonard Nimoy played Holmes with believe it or not Alan Sues (from Laugh In) played Professor Moriarty. Truth to tell, Sues performance as the villain upstaged Nimoy's Holmes from what I recall!

    I think my 2 favorite Holmes are Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett. I've seen all of Rathbone films and really looked forward to each new season of Jeremy Brett's Holmes on Masterpiece Theater on PBS. Nigel Bruce is very endearing as Watson in the Rathbone series but the better version of Watson played opposite Brett. I should say versions because there were two, starting with David Burke and then Edward Hardwicke, whose father was Sir Cedric Hardwicke.
    Last edited by Iron Maiden; 11-27-2020 at 05:41 PM.

  12. #42
    Old school comic book fan WestPhillyPunisher's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Iron Maiden View Post
    Thanks WPP! I only recently discovered that Peter Cushing did a Sherlock Holmes series. Hammer did a Hound of the Baskervilles adaptation prior to the TV show (1959) where Cushing again was Holmes (his first time I believe) and Christopher Lee was Sir Henry Baskerville. Years ago I saw the matinee performance of the stage play "Sherlock Holmes" at the Shubert Theater in Chicago with my sister. Leonard Nimoy played Holmes with believe it or not Alan Sues (from Laugh In) played Professor Moriarty. Truth to tell, Sues performance as the villain upstaged Nimoy's Holmes from what I recall!

    I think my 2 favorite Holmes are Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett. I've seen all of Rathbone films and really looked forward to each new season of Jeremy Brett's Holmes on Masterpiece Theater on PBS. Nigel Bruce is very endearing as Watson in the Rathbone series but the better version of Watson played opposite Brett. I should say versions because there were two, starting with David Burke and then Edward Hardwicke, whose father was Sir Cedric Hardwicke.
    Brett and Hardwicke were, IMO, the ultimate Holmes and Watson, a perfect partnership. By the by, I’m sure everyone here knows all about the connection of Jude Law (Watson in the RDJ Holmes films) and the Brett series as he was in “Shoscombe Old Place”, playing a stable boy pulled into a sneaky scheme by his employer.
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  13. #43
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    Quote Originally Posted by WestPhillyPunisher View Post
    Brett and Hardwicke were, IMO, the ultimate Holmes and Watson, a perfect partnership. By the by, I’m sure everyone here knows all about the connection of Jude Law (Watson in the RDJ Holmes films) and the Brett series as he was in “Shoscombe Old Place”, playing a stable boy pulled into a sneaky scheme by his employer.
    You are absolutely right...but why did Hardwicke leave? Did he die? As for Law, I did not know that.

  14. #44
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    I still remember THE $128,000 QUESTION that aired in the mid-70s. There was a young man on there who was an expert in all things Sherlock Holmes and he kept winning. However, there was a question--I believe it was to do with Holmes' deerstalker cap or something like this--and the guy got it wrong. But it was an unfair question, because it was based on the Basil Rathbone version of the character rather than what was in the actual books. Still, I think the guy lost and they didn't give him the money. I still feel sad for the guy all these years later. It seemed to me he knew the real facts and they just tried to trip him up with a bogus question. For me he was a heroic figure, representing all us nerds out there who become obsessed with the trivia of fictional characters.

  15. #45
    Extraordinary Member foxley's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by WestPhillyPunisher View Post
    Brett and Hardwicke were, IMO, the ultimate Holmes and Watson, a perfect partnership. By the by, I’m sure everyone here knows all about the connection of Jude Law (Watson in the RDJ Holmes films) and the Brett series as he was in “Shoscombe Old Place”, playing a stable boy pulled into a sneaky scheme by his employer.
    Another Holmes connection that people might not be aware of.

    In Mr. Holmes, the aged Sherlock Holmes (Ian Richardson) goes to see a movie based on one of his exploits. The actor playing Holmes in the film-within-the-fim is Nicholas Rowe, who played the teenaged Sherlock Holmes in Young Sherlock Holmes.

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