Category Archives: Sherlock Holmes

November 1, 2017 · 5:10 am

Sherlock Holmes’ Last Bow (#SFWApro)

Following The Return of Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Conan Doyle continued writing Holmes short stories on into WW I (and after, but we’ll get to that in a later post), as well as the novel The Valley of Fear (ditto). Then came the collection HIS LAST BOW, named for a short story that came out in 1917, detailing Holmes’ heroic fight against the German menace (illustration by Arthur Gilbert, taken from the Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia)

The story is set right before the war began. It opens on Von Bork, a German spy who by posing as a good sporting chap, always ready to keep up with the English in their games and fun, has wormed his way inside society and used that position to worm out information about England’s defenses and military plans. His main weapon has been Altamont, an Irish renegade and hoodlum, who’s quite happy to help Germany wreak havoc upon the English. Von Bork and his superior are very smug about how stupid and clueless the English are about what’s going to befall them. Von Bork actually tells Altamont that the August 1914 start of the war was planned for years in advance (nope).

Ah, those foolish Huns, underestimating British pluck and ingenuity! In reality Altamont is Sherlock Holmes on a deep-cover mission (four years!) to worm his way into Von Bork’s confidence. All the secret plans and valuable information he provided is bogus — the Germans are going to get a big shock when they take on Britain (by 1917 it was obvious Germany hadn’t been that clueless, but apparently nobody objected). At the end Holmes and Watson optimistically hope for a better world to arise from the war that’s coming (sigh).

The other stories are competent, but not particularly remarkable. The best is The Adventure of the Devil’s Foot in which Holmes and Watson investigate an almost supernatural death in the countryside. The Bruce-Parkington Plans is noteworthy for establishing that Mycroft, rather than a mere paper-pusher in the government, uses his deductive genius to forecast the outcome of multiple inter-related events and trends (“At times he is the British government.”)

Holmes shows the same enthusiasm for lawbreaking to get the job done that he did in Return. And like Return, this one treats the cops much better than the early stories did. Like the previous volume’s Stanley Hopkins, we have the capable Inspector Baynes in one story and even Gregson comes off more competent. Perhaps now that Holmes was established, Doyle didn’t feel the need to prove it by showing the Scotland Yarders as idiots.

In the introduction Doyle reveals that Holmes has indeed returned to retirement after the events of His Last Bow, devoting himself to beekeeping in Sussex and writing a masterwork on the subject. This, of course, is one of those details (like the two years after his supposed death) that later writers love to elaborate on: isn’t it more likely he was working for British intelligence say? And multiple later mystery writers have assumed that even in retirement, Holmes is still Holmes. A Taste of Honey by H.F. Heard has a beekeeper named “Mr. Mycroft” involved in a mystery. Laurie R. King has written a whole series of mysteries built around Holmes and his protege and later lover Mary Russell (hmm, I may have to look into those now). There’s even a theory Holmes developed an immortality serum based on royal jelly.

The two remaining volumes of Holmes’ adventures took place before his original 1902 retirement. I’ll get to them soon.

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October 18, 2017 · 5:10 am

Sherlock Holmes: the missing years (#SFWApro)

As I’ve mentioned before, Holmes fans were obsessing over continuity, inconsistency and details years before it became common for Trek, comics and other fandoms. And few things have inspired as much speculation as Holmes’ return in The Adventure of the Empty House.

As Holmes explains it to Watson, he faked his own death so that he could work secretly to entrap Moriarty’s remaining lieutenants, most notably ex-army officer and celebrated big-game hunter Col. Sebastian Moran. He spent the two years traveling in Tibert (under the pseudonym Sigerson), Persia, Mecca and researching “coal tar derivatives.” When Holmes deduces the murder of Ronald Adair — apparently shot at close range in an empty room — is Moran’s work, he returns to London to take the villain down.

The trouble is, Moran ambushed Holmes at Reichenbach in the moments after Moriarty falls to his death. It’s understandable lying low made more sense after that than Holmes returning publicly to London (Moran’s a crack shot), but why lie to Watson? If Moran already knew Holmes was alive, there’s no need for Watson to give a convincing show of grief. So what’s the real story?

One school of thought is that despite inconsistencies in Holmes’ account (there are practical problems with his course of travel that I won’t get into here), we should accept the story at face value: Holmes was away, he did have those explorations, case closed.

Another view is that he spent the two years working in London to take Moran and the other survivors of the Moriarty ring down. Watson knew this but didn’t want to admit it so Final Problem and Empty House offer an alternative sequence of events where Watson had no idea he was giving his readers a false yarn.

A popular view with romantics is that Holmes was away but not on the trip he told Watson (or that Watson offered to the public). He was in the U.S. working on various cases. He was acting as a secret agent for British interests, as he does later in His Last Bow. He spent at least part of the time on a romantic idyll withIrene Adler; there’s a school of thought that their child (depicted in Sherlock Holmes in New York) grew up to be fictional detective Nero Wolfe (all rights to image remain with current holder).

Then there are the wilder theories. Seven Percent Solution is built around the idea that Moriarty was a fantasy from Holmes’ cocaine-addled brain and that his time away involved clearing his head and kicking the drug habit. An earlier variation on the idea is that Holmes simply made up Moriarty to explain away some of his failures.

Other theories suggest that Holmes did, in fact, die at Reichenbach. Watson knew he could generate some extra money writing more Holmes stories, so he mixed real cases with made up ones. Or it was Moriarty, not Holmes who survived The Final Problem, and took his old foe’s place (a twist on this in one Wild, Wild West episode has a Holmes analog posing as Moriarty to give himself entertaining crimes to solve).

I don’t have a strong opinion on this myself, other than yes, Holmes would have told Watson he lived a lot sooner. Beyond that, the truth is anyone’s guess.

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October 11, 2017 · 5:10 am

The Return of Sherlock Holmes (#SFWApro)

So three years after Arthur Conan Doyle revisited Sherlock Holmes with The Hound of the Baskervilles, he bowed to popular demand by retconning away Holmes’ death in The Final Problem. Or, if you prefer, he decided to go back to his cash cow for a little more milk. Either way readers had the thrill of seeing Holmes alive and in action again in THE RETURN OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.

The opening story, The Adventure of the Empty House, (which will merit a separate post soon) reveals how Holmes used his knowledge of martial arts to throw Moriarty over the Reichenbach Falls, then climbed to safety. However Moriarty’s most dangerous lieutenants were still at large, so he decided to fake his own death; even Watson couldn’t know, because he’d be watched and could never fake grief well enough to fool them.

(From Dancing Men but I’m not sure of the artist)

However Holmes recently deduced that Col. Moran, Moriarty’s murderous right hand, has committed a murder, returns to London and alongside Watson, takes the man down. Mary Watson having died, Watson moves back into Baker Street with Holmes (I suspect if Doyle had known there’d be so many Holmes stories, he’d never have married Watson off) and life resumes as before. Well, a little different: Holmes is off cocaine with Watson’s help, and he’s feeling very bored without Moriarty, which may be why he sometimes comments it would be more exciting to be a criminal. And the stories introduce a young, capable Scotland Yard detective Stanley Hopkins, though I don’t believe he appears much after this volume (and later writers invariably prefer Lestrade).

With the exception of The Second Stain, all the stories take place in the years following Holmes return, which is in the early 1890s; Watson is publishing them with Holmes’ consent because his friend has now retired to keep bees on the Sussex Downs. I was surprised when I read that detail — I’d thought his retirement took place years later — but he did in fact, talk of retiring after busting Moriarty.

Holmes fan though I am, this is definitely a drop in quality from Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes. There’s nothing specific I can put my finger on, but the stories don’t have the same spark as that collection or Hound. Still there’s plenty of good stuff here:

The Adventure of the Dancing Men. Why do simple stick figures drawn by a child plunge Holmes’ client’s wife into a panic? This is one of those where the ending is tragic, Holmes being just a little too late to save the day.

The Adventure of the Six Napoleons. What kind of lunatic would smash every bust of Napoleon he finds? Or … is he a lunatic

The Adventure of the Norwood Builder. Holmes’ client appears to be a murderer, but Holmes detects another, nastier scheme at work.

The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton. I don’t think this is a great story (and several critics have pointed out Holmes’ getting engaged to a maid to further his scheme is pretty darn callous), but Milverton (according to my friend Ross, based on a real person) is an impressively nasty piece of work. A ruthless blackmailer, he’s poised to destroy Holmes’ client’s marriage by presenting her intended with some injudicious love letters she wrote. When Holmes suggests Milverton should accept a lower payment — otherwise he gets nothing — the man replies that in the long run ruining the woman will make other clients pay up, so it’s all good. He’s all the nastier for being an affable man, cheerful, not at all threatening in demeanor and sublimely confident he’s got the upper hand.

If not Doyle’s best work, there’s still no place like Holmes.

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July 29, 2017 · 5:06 am

Sherlock Holmes, mutants, a Tick and a clever man: movies and TV (#SFWApro)

My first thought after watching The Hound of the Baskervilles was to watch another film about inheriting a title by murder, The List of Adrian Messenger … but it turns out I don’t have it. So I went with 1944’s THE PEARL OF DEATH, a reworking of Doyle’s The Six Napoleons in which conniving villains Miles Mander and Evelyn Ankers steal and hide a priceless pearl, then begin the hunt for it. Aiding them is “the Creeper,” a Brute Man played by Rondo Hatton, a real life acromegalic (so he looks pretty freaky) who went to play similar roles in other films (including The Spider Woman Strikes Back). Opposing them, of course, are Watson, Holmes and Dennis Hooey’s clueless Lestrade (seen between the two stars in the photo — all rights to image remain with current holder). It’s one of the better films in the series. “You haven’t robbed and killed merely for gain like any ordinary halfway decent thug. No, you’re in love with cruelty for it’s own sake.”

X-MEN: Apocalypse (2016) worked better for me than I anticipated from the reviews (that I was stuck on the couch petting Plush Dog so I couldn’t do much but watch TV may have helped, of course) as the return of the original mutant Apocalypse reunites the cast of First Class with newcomers Scott, Jean and Kurt to (what else) save the world. The weaknesses here are Magneto (even given the death of his family is comics canon, it’s stock, and leaves him once again teetering between Good and Evil), Apocalypse (I don’t like the comics version but Oscar Isaacs’ turn here is even duller) and just too much stuff and too many characters (Olivia Munn’s Psylocke gets zero characterization). But there’s no question it was the right movie for that afternoon. “I hate to break it to you but you’re not the biggest freak at this school.”

TV-wise, I watched two first episodes that managed to kill my interest in further viewing. First we have Amazon’s THE TICK (2017) which despite being written by Tick creator Ben Edlund seems to miss all the fun or the comics or the cartoon. It’s the equivalent of a grim-and-gritty reboot where Arthur’s single determining incident is the death of his father after a superhero team crash their jet on top of him because the Big Bad blinded them all with a syphilis based aerosol! I half wonder if Edlund was trying to go so over the top it’d be funny, but I don’t think so. “What’s behind your ear? That’s right — nothing!”

CLEVERMAN (2016) is an Australian specfic show that recycles the cliches of mutants/mages/Ets as discriminated minority: the “Hairies” are confined to their own part of the city, bullied by the authorities, but now the time may have come to fight for their rights. Despite getting some good reviews, I found this one way too trite to bother with.

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July 26, 2017 · 5:24 am

“It was the footprint of a gigantic hound!” The Hound of the Baskervilles (#SFWApro)

Following the death of Holmes in The Final Problem, Arthur Conan Doyle resisted bringing Holmes back from the dead for a decade. In 1901, however, he did return him with a retcon story set earlier in Holmes’ career, THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. A wise decision: it’s one of the best-known Holmes stories, and it’s been filmed more than any other tale in the canon (dozens of times in the silent era alone).

Weirdly, I remember thoroughly disliking it as a kid. Equally weird, I reread it recently and I’ve no idea why I didn’t like it. It’s great.

It opens with Holmes and Watson returning home to find a visitor missed them but left his walking stick behind. Convenient, as it allows Holmes to demonstrate his deductive skill (not the first time Doyle used that trick), though Watson makes some sharp deductions too. The visitor, Dr. Mortimer, returns to 221B and explains his plight. He lives in Dartmoor and his friend Sir Charles Baskerville died recently. Officially heart failure; unofficially, Mortimer sees a connection with the family legend of a demonic hound. Why else was a hound’s pawprint found near Sir Charles’ body? Now with his heir coming to Baskerville Hall, Mortimer has a fear the curse will strike again …

Holmes soon discovers a more human agency shadowing Sir Henry Baskerville in London. Having a conflicting case, he sends Watson to stay with Sir Henry in Dartmoor; in reality Holmes is lurking nearby, confident the murderer will show his hand more freely without Holmes’ presence. Despite this ruse, Watson actually does excellent work. He provides full details on the locals (one of whom is a crotchety eccentric who enjoys suing people just for fun), on Sir Henry’s romance with Beryl Stapleton, sister of a local lepidopterist, and on some of the more suspicious goings on around the area. By the time Holmes reveals himself, he’s pieced everything together and he’s ready to move. It turns out Beryl’s brother is the real killer, a distant Baskerville kinsman plotting to eliminate those between him and the title.

Part of the reason it’s so popular, and so adaptable is that it’s the only Holmes novel that doesn’t have a major flashback section (Sign of the Four‘s is smaller than Study in Scarlet or Valley of Fear, but it’s there). There’s the eerie setting. Watson’s solo act. And I think it’s a plus that Stapleton simply disappears at the end — we can assume he died in the treacherous local bogs but we’ll never know for sure. That’s something’s Doyle’s done in other stories, but there’s less certainty here; if it were a comic book I’d be waiting for Stapleton to return.

Of course this has Doyle’s weaknesses too: how Stapleton, well known in the area, could present himself as the heir and not draw suspicion is something even Holmes can’t explain for sure (this led to one fan theory that Dr. Mortimer was in on it with him). Still it’s a fine bit of storytelling, no matter what I thought in my youth.

Probably the best known adaptation is Universal’s 1939 THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES, which I watched last weekend (all rights to poster image remain with current holder). This introduced Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce as the definitive theatrical versions (I’d consider Jeremy Brett the ultimate definitive version, but he’s TV), even though Bruce, as I’ve mentioned before, is a bit thick. Watching this right after finishing the book makes me notice what got changed. Early on, this sets itself up with more of a Who Is The Killer vibe than the novel, as someone suggests one of Sir Charles’ friends and neighbors is behind his death. This also cleans up Stapleton’s complicated love life to remove any hint of adultery.

The one misstep they make is that instead of the seemingly supernatural Hound of the book, Stapleton’s secret weapon is just a big dog. Okay, very big, but still a poor substitute for the horror of the novel’s climax. And instead of the dog killing the Baskervilles through sheer terror (the novel establishes they have a hereditary weak heart), it appears Stapleton’s plan is simply to have the dog rip Sir Henry’s throat out. Which is a lot harder to pass off as “heart failure” than fear.

With Richard Greene (later best known as ITV’s Robin Hood for my generation of kids) as Sir Henry, John Carradine as a sinister butler, Nigel deBrulier as a madman on the moore, Wendy Barrie as Beryl and Lionel Atwill as Dr. Mortimer.

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July 1, 2017 · 5:00 am

Is Sherlock Holmes — Powerless? Movie/TV reviews (#SFWApro)

Due to my wildly social weekend, not much watched:

SHERLOCK HOLMES IN NEW YORK (1976) was a delayed double-bill to last week’s Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, as the Rathbone movie clearly influenced the opening of this one. Once again, Moriarty vows to destroy Holmes’ legend by pulling off the crime of the century (“This past century and all the centuries to come.”) right in front of him. This time though his method is to blackmail Holmes into helplessness by kidnapping his son by Irene Adler (“Do you remember that night ten years ago in Montenegro?”). Roger Moore is much more a conventional leading man than most Holmes, but he makes it work; John Huston is marvelously malevolent as Moriarty; Rampling manages to infuse Irene with considerable presence given she’s a pure damsel in distress. Patrick Macnee is the weak spot, playing Watson as a thickheaded Nigel Bruce type. Well worth watching; as Moriarty’s scheme involves an impossible gold robbery, Goldfinger might be another good double-bill (all rights to image remain with current holder). “Do you now see the genius, the artistry of this Napoleon of Crime?”

POWERLESS was a series I initially didn’t care for but which slowly won me over (though I’m clearly a minority). The premise is that perky Emily (Vanessa Hudgens) goes to work for a Wayne Industries subsidiary run by Bruce’s idiot cousin Van (Alan Tudyk) that works on security products for non-super people in a world where metahuman battles, wormholes and mad science pose a constant threat. At its worst, this was a generic workplace comedy; at its best it got the feel of Astro City or Damage Control (I do hope Powerless hasn’t killed the chances for a Damage Control series) of showing life in a comic-book universe (“No, I’m not from Atlanta, I’m from Atlantis.”). The last episode probably wouldn’t have aired except Adam West’s death gave his “gratuitous cameo” some extra cachet. “Everyone knows Flash got super-speed from a radioactive cheetah.”

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June 24, 2017 · 4:29 am

India, Czechoslovakia, London, Argentina: Around the World in Movies (#SFWApro)

CHARULATA (1964) was a disappointing film from Satyajit Ray in which the wife of a 19th century Indian newspaper publisher finds herself strongly attracted to his ne’er do well intellectual brother. The best moments are between the husband and wife, so the focus on the wife/brother connection didn’t work for me. “Have you ever seen actors play dead soldiers on stage?”

HANGMEN ALSO DIE (1943) was made a year after the Nazi officer “Hangman” Heydrich was assassinated (though as the film notes, “executed” for his crimes would be a fairer term) in Czechoslovakia, showing the resistance struggle to shield gunman Brian Donlevy in the belief his escape makes him a symbol of the Czech spirit. But can they keep it together when the Germans start shooting random hostages and weasel Gene Lockhart is ratting out the resistance from within? Well made by Fritz Lang, who co-wrote the script with Bertold Brecht, and while uplifting, also grimly realistic about the price of defiance — parts of the plot concerns the efforts to get kindly professor Walter Brennan off the hostage list before he’s shot and they don’t work. “I happen to remember another Hitler joke.”

STORY OF A HANGMAN (2014) was a documentary special feature by the author of a Heydrich biography, revealing that unsurprisingly things did not go as well in the real world as in the movie. Not only was the Nazi retaliation horrifyingly brutal, but the execution was arranged by the Czech government-in-exile, not by the resistance. And depressingly much of the operation was given up by informers, resulting in the killers committing suicide rather than being taken alive. As all I know of Heydrich was watching films (e.g. Hitler’s Madman), this was a welcome addition.

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES (1939) has George Zucco’s Moriarty inform Basil Rathbone’s Holmes that to pay the detective back for almost sending him to the gallows, Moriarty will destroy his reputation by pulling off the crime of the century under Holmes nose. Holmes is supposed to be helping with security at the Tower of London, but Moriarty knows a routine job will bore him compared to the spectacular mystery the Professor arranges to distract him (the Rime of the Ancient Mariner, a fake clubfoot, Incan death music — it all makes sense!). This is an excellent film (nominally based on a successful stage play, but nothing of the play remains), though Nigel Bruce’s Watson remains an appallingly dim bulb. Zucco and Rathbone are both great though (though Rathbone is too high energy — he never does capture those moments when Holmes relaxes into uneasy calm) with great dialog between Holmes and Moriarty (“I admire your brain so much I’d like to donate it, picked in alcohol, to the Royal Medical Society!”) and Moriarty and his butler (“All that’s left of him is one boot.”). With EE Clive as a Scotland Yard boob and Ida Lupino as a damsel in distress. The commentary by a mystery-magazine editor was interesting too, pointing out the usual trivia along with comparisons to the stories (he’s quite right, stories of avengers rising from the client’s past to kill are quite common in Doyle). “This is no childish game, Miss Brandon, but a cryptic warning of avenging death!”

GILDA (1946) has gambler Glenn Ford become the right hand and kept man of George Macready (they don’t come out and say it but the subtext is pretty much text here), who gets knocked for a loop to discover his boss has not only married, but it’s Ford’s old flame, Rita Hayworth. What follows is a really twisted romantic triangle (as one of the special features says, it probably makes more sense if we think of Macready, not Hayworth, as the apex of the triangle) which is far more interesting than the crime plot involving a tungsten syndicate. Very good. “A man who makes his own luck, as I do, recognizes it in another.”

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June 21, 2017 · 5:10 am

Enter Moriarty, Exit Holmes: The Final Problem (#SFWApro)

Arthur Conan Doyle had much bigger ambitions than Sherlock Holmes. He was confident that his real achievements would be his sweeping historical epics, The White Company and Sir Nigel, but they didn’t make the cut (there are some fun bits in the first novel but it bogs down fairly soon. Never tried the second). Instead it was Holmes, with the second string being Professor Challenger (The Lost World) and swashbuckling French soldier Brigadier Gerard.

Doyle, however, had no way to know this, so he was probably confident he could wrap up the adventures of Sherlock Holmes in “The Final Problem,” the last story in The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

Holmes opens the story by showing up at Watson’s house, obviously in fear of attack. He tells Watson how he’s come to realize that at the center of London crime lies a mastermind, someone who manipulate and controls all the lesser players, a “Napoleon of Crime.” Holmes has identified the man as mathematical genius Professor James Moriarty (illustration by Sidney Paget), a man of seemingly perfect respectability. He has everything in place for Scotland Yard to bust and convict the gang, but not if he’s killed first. He and Watson flee to the Continent until the arrests are made, but Moriarty and his top lieutenants escape. In Switzerland, Moriarty confronts Holmes and decides to settle things mano-a-mano, though he courteously allows Holmes to leave a note for the absent Watson. It appears to Watson that the finest man he’s ever known went over the Reichenbach Falls grappling with Moriarty, ending both lives (Holmes had previously stated that he’d consider sacrificing himself to take out Moriarty a Needs of the Many situation).

Partly based on master 18th century criminal Jonathan Wild (and possibly also the 19th century thief Adam Worth), Moriarty is a truly memorable figure. Their conversation together, as Holmes later recounts to Watson, is just a pleasure to read (“All that I have to say has already crossed your mind.” “I imagine my answer has already crossed yours.”). Although he would only make one more appearance, in The Valley of Fear, later writers have made far more of him. Not only the Cumberpatch Sherlock but the Arthur Wontner films of nearly a century ago, plus several appearances in Basil Rathbone’s 1940s series. He’s even shown up in multiple stories with no Holmes attached. Fans want more Moriarty, so they provide it.

The story also provides a feast for Holmes fans because there’s so much that can be read into it. At one point Holmes says without him the police can’t possibly arrest Moriarty and make it stick … but after running off to the Continent he’s surprised that Moriarty has escaped. And while Watson is completely ignorant of Moriarty here, in The Valley of Fear, set several years earlier, he’s fully informed about him.

Obviously in introducing Moriarty here, Watson had to pretend ignorance so he could have Holmes explain the professor to him (presumably a conversation they actually had on some earlier case). But establishing that Watson’s stories fudge the facts gives fans a lot of leeway to ignore what’s on the printed page rather than be bound by it.

The logical gaps likewise fuel fan speculation. For example, maybe Holmes actually couldn’t get the goods on Moriarty so he lured him into a confrontation that would end the master criminal. So Holmes himself would also be capable of fudging facts (things really kick into high gear when Holmes returns, as I’ll detail eventually).

“Final Problem” is a memorable story in more ways than one.

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June 20, 2017 · 5:12 am

The Secret Origin of Sherlock Holmes, plus more! Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes (#SFWApro)

MEMOIRS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES is, I think, a much stronger volume than Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, even though it was meant to wrap up the series (art by Sidney Paget) Among the noteworthy stories:

•”The Gloria Scott,” in which Holmes tells Watson about the events that set him to becoming a private detective. A subsequent story, “The Musgrave Ritual,” details Holmes’ first big case.

•”The Greek Interpreter,” which introduces Mycroft Holmes. It’s one of his only two appearances in the canon (he’s backstage in a couple more) but he would become far more important to later writers, for example the current BBC Sherlock.

•And of course “The Final Problem,” which introduces Professor Moriarty — who again, appears only once more in the stories. The story which was supposed to write the finish to Holmes’ legend is worth discussing in detail, so I’ll do that in a subsequent post.

Reading over the collection as a whole, I think part of what made Holmes a success is that for all his genius and his personal presence, he’s very fallible. In “The Yellow Face,” for instance, he gets everything wrong. In “The Greek Interpreter” the bad guys get away (though as with “Five Orange Pips” in the previous collection, it’s implied they paid for their crimes down the road).

In other stories, Holmes is simply inconsequential. In “The Stockbroker’s Clerk,” Holmes’ involvement changes nothing. It just gives readers an explanation for what’s been going on, and Watson to narrate the events. “The Cardboard Box” isn’t quite that extreme but it’s close. At the same time I never felt like Holmes and Watson were ever shoehorned into the narrative.

On the other hand, Watson’s ability to drop his practice or leave his wife’s side at the drop of a hat does feel ridiculous. It’s easy to see why when Holmes returned from the dead in “The Adventure of the Empty House,” Mrs. Watson had passed on so Watson could return to Baker Street. It makes more sense that way.

And Doyle, as I’ve noted before, was a sloppy writer. “Silver Blaze,” as Doyle admitted after readers wrote to him about it, would have gotten most of the people involved banned from horse-racing for life for their conduct. Doyle simply knew nothing about the sport. At the same time the story does provide one of those classic lines when Holmes refers Watson to “the curious incident of the dog in the night time.”

“The dog did nothing in the night time.”

“That was the curious incident.”

Happily this was not the finish of Holmes’ career. I’ll discuss Doyle’s intentions when I talk about “The Final Problem.”

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June 10, 2017 · 5:10 am

Yellowface martial artists, Sherlock Holmes and the Addams Family: TV seasons wrapping up (#SFWApro)

KUNG FU caused a sensation when it aired on TV in 197x. David Carradine plays a half-American Shaolin monk who kills the Emperor’s son (after the latter killed Caine’s beloved teacher) and so flees to America, where he seeks to find his half brother Danny Caine. Traveling across the West, sharing Eastern philosophy and doling out kung fu kicks when necessary, it was like no Western (or TV show) ever seen (including dealing with racism in the Old West more frankly than most sixties westerns did). And it went a long way to broadening American interest in the martial arts (it was after this series that Marvel put out Master of Kung Fu for instance).

Of course 40 years later I’m aware that it’s yellowface casting (David Carradine was thoroughly Caucasian) and with its share of Asian stereotypes. Nevertheless, having just watched the first season on DVD (I picked up the set a while ago), it still works for me. All rights to image remain with current holder.

Netflix’s IRON FIST, on the other hand, didn’t work at all. Carradine was good in his role; I can’t think of anything Netflix gained by putting largely forgettable Finn Jones in the lead role as Danny Rand, who’s returned to New York and the company his father built years after vanishing in the mysterious East, supposedly dead. Almost nobody believes he’s the Iron Fist, a mystical martial arts champion chosen as the adversary of the Hand, those ninjas from Daredevil — and the people who do believe, Danny comes to wish did not. Danny in the comics is a white guy, so it’s not yellowface, but I can understand why a number of Chinese Americans would have liked someone Chinese or Eurasian in the role (it’s not as if the story requires Danny to be white, it was just that in the Bronze Age that was still the default for characters). Admittedly I’d be more forgiving if the series was good, but it wasn’t: it spends an astonishing amount of time on Danny’s legal and boardroom maneuvers as he struggles to get the company back and direct it more effectively. A flop all the way around.

Then again, it’s still superior to the BBC/s 1965 SHERLOCK HOLMES series. Despite adapting Doyle’s stories well, this tanks due to Douglas Wilmer’s portrayal of Sherlock — with his plummy, uppercrust accent, Wilmer comes off as a very pompous, stuffy kind of Sherlock. And neither of those attributes should ever apply to the great detective.

The second season of ADDAMS FAMILY has been a pleasure to rewatch. The cast are amazing (there’s a great spotlight episode for Ted Cassidy as a love-smitten Lurch) and even though the shticks and tropes don’t change from show to show, it’s goofy and over the top enough to work. And the Addams are still so outside the mainstream that even years later, the show hasn’t become dated. It’s easy to see why it’s had so many spinoffs (cartoons, the two movies, and recently a film-to-Broadway musical).

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