Sherlock Holmes | dual personalities

Friday movie pick

by chuckofish

Tomorrow is the birthday of the famous character actor Nigel Bruce (1895–1953).

The second son of a baronet, Bruce served in WWI as a lieutenant in the 10th Service Battalion of the Somerset Light Infantry. He was seriously wounded at the Battle of Cambrai (1917)and spent the rest of the war in a wheelchair. After the war, he went on the stage and then moved to Hollywood, becoming a leading member of the British film colony in Los Angeles where he was captain of the (mostly British) Hollywood Cricket Club.

Best known for portraying Dr. Watson in fourteen Sherlock Holmes movies with Basil Rathbone,

he made 78 movies–many of them classics. He is one of those guys who is always turning up in favorite films.

My personal favorite is The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) starring Leslie Howard and Merle Oberon. Bruce played the Prince of Wales: “Why, damn me, Percy, you’re brainless, spineless, useless: But you do know clothes!”

I think I will toast Nigel Bruce tonight and watch The Scarlet Pimpernel, but you could watch The Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), Rebecca (1940), Lassie Come Home (1943) or any one of those Sherlock Holmes movies.

Lassie_Come_Home,_Original_Theatrical_Poster.jpg

charge of the lught.jpg the blue bird.jpg

They just don’t make ’em like Nigel Bruce anymore!

I should also note that February is ’31 Days of Oscar’ month at TCM, so check out their schedule for a particularly strong line-up of Academy Award-winning titles.

Have a great weekend!

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December 14, 2016

What are you reading?

by chuckofish

“It saved me from ennui,” he answered, yawning. “Alas! I already feel it closing in upon me. My life is spent in one long effort to escape from the common-places of existence. These little problems help me to do so.”

“And you are a beneficiary of the races,” said I.

He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, perhaps, after all, it is of some little use,” he remarked. “‘L’homme, c’est rien–l’oeuvre c’est tout.’ as Gustave Flaubert wrote to Georges Sand.”

–Sherlock Holmes in The Red-Headed League

In casting about for something to read last week, I plucked The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle off a shelf at home. It was a 1930 edition which had belonged to my father. The name inscribed on the frontispiece was in my father’s adult hand, but judging from the words that are underlined throughout the book, he must have read it as an eight-year-old. It adds a certain je ne sais quoi to the experience, imagining little Newell looking up the words amiable and succinct.

Funnily enough, I have never before read any stories in the Holmes oeuvre. Of course, I am well versed in the Basil Rathbone film series

and I have seen one of the Robert Downey, Jr.’s movies.

My DP even gave me a boxed set of the British tv series from the 1950s starring Leslie Howard’s son Ronald Howard as the famous sleuth.

But until now, I do not recall having delved into the original Doyle stories. Let me tell you, they are really good! Holmes is a wonderful character, always observing and thinking and deducing. And the stories are well-written, concise and light-hearted.

They are a wonderful distraction from the worries of the world. I highly recommend them.

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October 30, 2015

“One more murder may be one too many.”*

by chuckofish

Every year at this time I wrack my brain for a good movie recommendation for Halloween. I usually come up with something, but what is there new to suggest? As I have said many times, I am no fan of horror and I do not like gratuitous violence and bloodshed. So what does that leave?

How about some good old-fashioned Sherlock Holmes?

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) with Basil Rathbone as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr. Watson is hard to beat.

Holmes and Watson investigate the legend of a supernatural hound, a beast that may be stalking a young heir on the fog-shrouded moor that makes up his estate. Yes, fog-shrouded moors are a good choice for Halloween, don’t you think?

I seem to remember that The Scarlet Claw (1944) is also pretty scary.

When a gentlewoman is found dead with her throat torn out (!), the villagers blame a supernatural monster, but Sherlock Holmes, who gets drawn into the case from nearby Quebec, suspects a human murderer.

Of course, there’s always Jane Marple–and by that I mean Margaret Rutherford.

There are four of these movies, but Murder Most Foul (1964)–when Miss Marple joins a theatrical company after a blackmailer is murdered, and then several members of the troupe are also dispatched by a mysterious killer–is my favorite.

But come to think of it, Murder She Said (1961), Murder at the Gallop (1963) and Murder Ahoy (1964) are all wonderful and hilarious! One could have a wonderful night of binge-watching all four.

I have not seen it in a long time, but M (1931) with Peter Lorre, Fritz Lang’s haunting, German-language crime drama, in which the Berlin police are hunting a whistling killer of children, is a great film.

The criminal underworld is after the killer as well, since the police manhunt has put a damper on their activities. And Lorre as the creepy killer is almost sympathetic in the famous confession speech where he describes with anguish his horrible compulsion. And who does creepy better than the Germans?

Another movie I have not seen for a long time, but liked when I first saw it, is From Hell (2001). Johnny Depp stars as an opium- and absinthe-addled Scotland Yard man assigned to the Jack the Ripper case, Robbie Coltrane is his stalwart partner and Ian Holm is the creepy royal surgeon who offers his advice. I’m sure I recall gratuitous violence and bloodshed, but nothing’s perfect. And it is scary.