In ‘The Resident Patient’, Brett was particularly proud of the scene where he examines the patient’s room, picking up all the clues without saying a word. He referred to it as ‘the Rififi scene’ because it was similar to a sequence in a Jules Dassin film. It is a remarkable scene, especially for modern television, having no dialogue for two-and-a-halfminutes.
And it does epitomise the essence of Sherlock Holmes’s minute investigation of a scene of crime: all those passages that Conan Doyle created describing his detective crawling on the floor, inspecting paintwork with his lens, and scraping dust or cigarette ash into a small envelope for analysis are crystallized in this sequence, and Jeremy Brett knew it.
(The Rififi scene; with a 32 minute long burglary scene with no dialogue at all)
Sherlock Holmes—his limits. Geology.—Practical, but limited. Chemistry.—Profound. Anatomy.—Accurate, but unsystematic. Plays the violin well. One of the finest boxers of his weight that I have ever seen.
Holmes looked at me thoughtfully and shook his head. “I never get your limits, Watson,” said he. “There are unexplored possibilities about you.”
Watson: Holmes, I don’t think you have any. We used them all on the last case.
Holmes: well, there you have it. I have no fucks to give.
The opening of basically every interview Sherlock Holmes grants to people requesting his help. (Usually after a few minutes he finds some spare fucks in the couch cushions.)
Watson then usually looks disapproving until Holmes finds them, then neglects his practice/wife/life while he helps.
This is also quite true.
WATSON! HOLD MY FUCKS!
Sherlock Holmes and the Adventure of the Missing Fucks by Sir Arthur “Here’s another fucking Sherlock Holmes story, ffs” Conan Doyle.
bless jeremy brett for what he did with the canon and how much he cared about it; he payed an enormous tribute to both conan doyle and his character. i feel pretty confident when i say that there was no greater nor more faithful holmes portrayal before his time and it’s unlikely there will ever be a better one in the future. it will be very hard to beat him.
The
Secret of Sherlock Holmes was a play written by Jeremy Paul, who also wrote several episodes of the Granada series.
Paul and Jeremy Brett, who had been friends for two decades before this play
was produced, would often talk about Sherlock Holmes and his origins.
During one of these discussions, Brett commissioned this play from Paul; it contains many of Brett’s
own theories about the character so many people identified with him. The play
was meant to be a one-off, starring Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke in their
famous roles, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of A Study in Scarlet.
However, it was met with such enthusiasm that it ended up running for a full
year (1988/1989), rather to the detriment of Brett’s health.
As a
refresher, the Granada series ran from 1984 to 1995. The first season ended
with The Final Problem, and the second ended with The Bruce–Partington Plans (episodes did not follow the order of Watson’s writings or any chronological order of occurrence).
The play ran between the second and third seasons.
There
will be lots of spoilers below the cut, so if you’d like to experience the play
before reading, please click here for an
audio recording of the original performance in two parts. Unfortunately, the play was never
filmed. Also unfortunately, the audio becomes very poor around 19:20 in the
second audio link. I promise it never gets loud again after that (except an exclamation or two by Jeremy Brett, of course!), so feel free to turn up your volume.
Before I
read The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, I expected it to be entirely in keeping
with the Granada series. It’s not. The series and the play differ in tone and
content. There are no cases, and Holmes and Watson are the only characters. Stories that had already been adapted in Granada turn up in the
play in different forms, but only to serve their relationship. The play adapts
the subtext of the stories, rather than the text, which is something Granada rarely did, and mainly in the later episodes, like The Eligible Bachelor.
In the context of Sherlock, this means that The Secret of Sherlock
Holmes is a greater source than the Granada series was, because
the play was
original in ways that the series wasn’t (perils of being faithful to the surface narratives of the stories).
I’m going to talk about how the play adapted
the Doyle stories, and how those choices are reflected in Sherlock,
because as we know, “Everything is canon”.
The play develops the Holmes and Watson relationship from the time they
meet and
move in together, until some time after Holmes returns to Watson after
faking his death in the Reichenbach. Along the way, they each address
the audience to tell us secrets they keep from each other; the
action (so to speak) culminates in a discussion of Moriarty’s role in
their lives.
Love, loss, lies, and John Watson being pretty damned smart, under the cut.
Publicity shot of Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke for an unfinished episode of Granada’s series.
Edit for clarity: This was intially filmed for inclusion in “The Second Stain”( Sherlock reminiscing). Producers thought an entire episode could be created from it and shelved the scene for later use. No episode was ever made, the scenes were never made public and the film was destroyed.
This makes me sad ):
I can’t believe this almost happened… Granada retirementlock would have been my everything.
I cannot believe it. They went there! And then destroyed it!
See, this is one of the great things about Granada Holmes: they saw Holmes & Watson as a lifetime partnership. They were each other’s primary Whatever, from “Scandal in Bohemia” to “Cardboard Box,” regardless of ACD Canon. So it makes perfect sense that they would have retired together. But no, we were denied.
Um, so I just watched “The Sign of Four,” and if you know anyone who somehow isn’t convinced that Granada totally intended for a queer reading of their Sherlock Holmes, have them watch the last two minutes of this episode, when Mary Morstan leaves 221B. Seriously. TWO MINUTES, and they are so laden with meaning that I was stunned.
After the case is solved, Ms. Morstan is with them at 221B and she talks about how tired they both must be. Holmes says something to the affirmative while walking into another room, basically dismissing her. Ms. Morstan and Watson share some extended eye contact more than once, like they have been throughout the episode, and she leaves. Then Watson and Holmes have an incredibly loaded conversation about what Holmes gets out of a case where he gets no credit, and Watson goes to sit and watch from the window as Ms. Morstan gets in her carriage.
I can’t get over it. I may write another entire meta on the double meaning in Holmes’ and Watson’s conversation about the case and the visual choices in the scene, cuz it’s all great, but I NEED to talk about the last few moments.
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