J A N E T I L I T Y

Not long ago, Nicholas Meyer – producer, director, screenwriter, and author of the Sherlockian pastiches The Seven Percent Solution, The West End Horror and The Canary Trainer– wrote a very thought-provoking article titled “Whither Holmes” for the Los Angeles Review of Books. The article addressed the dilemma of adapting a classical work or character – specifically, Sherlock Holmes – for what he called the “postliterate” audience. Mind you, I don’t think that Meyer meant “illiterate”, but rather an audience whose predominant (or only) exposure to a classical work comes by way of a derivative work. Meyer observes that: “In my years as a filmmaker in Hollywood, I’ve attended numerous meetings devoted to making Sherlock Holmes movies; invariably none of the producers in the room have ever actually read Doyle.”

How far does parsley sink into butter on a hot day?

 In an earlier blog, “Do Whatever You Like With Him” (http://janetility.com/?p=648), I had suggested that a bona fide adaptation (or pastiche, sequel, illustration) is one that correctly  identifies the source of Holmes’s timeless appeal, era and environment notwithstanding. You can discard the trappings – the dressing gowns, the gasogene, the bullet-pocked wall  – but if you want to ensure that the audience, particularly the “postliterate” are getting the genuine Sherlock, you can’t reduce the essence of what makes Holmes Holmes to quirks and conduct derived from something other than Conan Doyle.

Watson, don’t you think the peas tasted a bit off?

 Which calls to mind the 19^thcentury “Butter Wars.” In the 1880s, the growing “butter substitute” (oleomargarine) industry came up against the dairy industry. In some cases, the consumer opted for the substitute because it was cheaper and tasted okay, but in other cases, an imitation product was passed off as butter to “the great unobservant public.” By 1886, a number of “margarine acts” attempted to eliminate any possibility that imitation butter might be mistaken for, or labeled as, the legitimate product. In New Jersey, these laws stipulated that “No oleomargarine, butterine or suine, or any substance or compound or mixture in imitation or semblance of natural butter or cheese, or any substance that is rendered, made, manufactured or compounded out of animal or vegetable or mineral fat or oil not the product of pure milk or cream from pure milk shall be sold…except when contained in tubs, pails, boxes, firkins, vessels or other packages that are marked or labeled as follows: … on the outside thereof and midway between the top and bottom thereof a stripe or band at least three inches wide and extending completely around said vessel or package and said stripe or band shall be painted with black paint [and] have legibly branded and burnt in ..in two places as nearly opposite each other as possible the words ‘oleomargarine’, ‘butterine’, ‘suine’ or ‘imitation butter’.

I believe I detected the merest trace of caul fat.

 This may sound excessive until you learn that only a year or two earlier, half of what was sold as butter was reported to be an imitation product made from tinted caul fat derived from hogs. An ingenuous consumer might conclude that because the substance that they were spreading on their toast was pale yellow or lightly salted or tasty or oleaginous, or was labeled in a manner evoked butter (butterine) or was even combined with some butter, it was the real deal.

How far does parsley sink into margarine on a hot day?

 Unfortunately, there is little to prevent Meyer’s postliterate producers from passing off any substance or compound or mixture in imitation or semblance of Sherlock Holmes as the authentic character, and no requirement that the end product be labeled “imitation Sherlock”. The result is that the postliterate viewer may never appreciate how radically different Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes – the “chivalrous opponent” with his “cat-like love of personal cleanliness”, his fine balance of instinct with impartiality, and his embodiment of a great heart as well as a great brain – is from a spurious Holmes who presents as an ill-groomed, petty, socially inept vulgarian hopelessly afflicted with tachyphrasia.

 The success of any adulterated product, whether it is dairy or Doyle, will always be determined by what the consumer can be persuaded to swallow. There may be nothing at all wrong with suilline caul fat, unless you’re attempting to persuade people that it’s butter.

And don’t call me “Shirley.”

“Never, in the delirious dream of a disordered brain could anything more savage, more appalling, more hellish be conceived than that dark form and savage face which broke upon us out of the wall of fog.”

That passage illustrates one of the two challenges that account for the fact that (and not for want of trying) there has never been a satisfactory film or television version of The Hound of the Baskervilles; that is, the difficulty in staging the appearance of the hound and its attack on Sir Henry Baskerville. Too often the scene is an unconvincing tussle between the actor playing Sir Henry and a non-threatening and/or animated creature that calls up the scene in Ed Wood where Bela Lugosi is thrown in a pond with a rubber octopus and told to “Shake his legs around, look like he’s killin’ ya.”

The second challenge, of course, is dealing with the absence of Sherlock Holmes for most of the tale; do you manipulate the screenplay to pull Holmes into the narrative, or do you pattern the screenplay after Doyle’s text?

Another issue – which applies to any adaptation of a celebrated tale – is how far one can alter and abridge the text without misrepresenting the author’s work to the audience. And lastly, there is the matter of casting: there is probably no other fictional character whose physical appearance is more specific than that of Sherlock Holmes, and fidelity to the Canon demands that the actor is the appropriate physical type.

Basil Rathbone as Holmes

In considering a few of the two dozen or so attempts at The Hound, I’ll start with one that did a creditable job of recreating the attack: the 1939 film starring Basil Rathbone. This film was the first of the series, and the only one that was set in the Victorian era. Rathbone really was an excellent choice for Holmes; the same cannot be said for the casting of Nigel Bruce that touched off a veritable Nigel Brucification of the role in too many subsequent Sherlock Holmes films.

Otherwise, there were some decent casting choices here, and some unfavorable lapses: Mortimer is an aged man with a wife, who is a medium (this plot line is used in the 2002/Richard Roxborough Hound as well). There is no Mrs. Lyons, Holmes is pulled into Dartmoor disguised as a peddler, the Stapletons are step-siblings and the Barrymores were re-named the Barrymans, in deference to the Barrymore clan who were still prominent in the theatrical community. The finale is staged as one of those Golden Age murder mystery reveals with everyone piled into the drawing room; Stapleton makes a clean getaway, without the actor having to roll about in the Mire (“… like it’s killin ya.”) In the ‘70s, the print and the censored closing line (“Oh, Watson, the needle!”), were restored.

In 1982, after playing Doctor Who for several years, Tom Baker was cast as Holmes in a BBC miniseries of The Hound. He is a fine actor. He was also the wrong choice – distractingly wrong; nothing in face or figure called up the orthodox representation of Holmes.

Tom Baker as Holmes

In other respects, the casting choices did an excellent job of matching Doyle’s description, particularly Henry Baskerville (Nicholas Woodeson), Mortimer (Will Knightley), Laura Lyons (Caroline John), and Stapleton (Christopher Ravenscroft). Of all the Hounds, Alexander Baron’s screenplay is the most faithful adaptation in the pack. Baron, whose list of dramatizations includes the Scandal in Bohemia episode in the Jeremy Brett/Granada series and the 1981 Sense and Sensibility supports the conviction that Doyle’s narrative can hold up without the addition of mediums and séances, that his plot sequence was sound, and his dialogue was crisp and natural.

Jeremy Brett as Holmes

The 1988 Hound of the Baskervilles was part of the Jeremy Brett series. The series had the advantage of an excellent Holmes, though this particular episode, and many of the later ones, Brett’s failing health was obvious. Brett admitted to David Stuart Davies, author of Bending the Willow, that he was “terribly unwell” during the filming; he looks it, and to the detriment of the film. It is almost a relief, for viewers who had become so attached to Brett’s more dynamic turns, that Holmes is absent for much of the case. Brett, however, is not solely responsible for the weakness of the episode; the screenplay, as he succinctly expresses it in an interview with Davies was “underconceived”. There are few tales that offer so much screen potential as The Hound of the Baskervilles, but realizing its iconic moments must come at a price, and one wonders whether Brett’s diplomatic “underconceived” was code for “cheap”.

A final problem with these versions – and with most of them – is the age disparity between Watson and Henry Baskerville. In the book, it can be inferred that they are roughly of the same generation (Sir Henry, as well as Mortimer, are around 30) and parity and confidence between the London general practitioner and the wealthy heir seems more credible if there is no disparity in age – as gentlemen of roughly the same generation, they would be more likely, in my opinion, to form the sort of companionable bond that is forged at Baskerville hall.

A tale that captures the imagination, whether The Hound of the Baskervilles, Pride and Prejudice, Hamlet or The Three Musketeerswill always invite one more remake, one more throwdown to film the version that will have viewers hunting up the book, and readers applauding its fidelity. And then there’s….

William Shatner as Stapleton in a '70s Hound

Which Austen character would have enjoyed The Hound of the Baskervilles? Catherine Morland and Isabella Thorpe, of course, and Sir John Middleton may have delighted in the lively Christmas ball in the 2002/Richard Roxborough version.

And three degrees of Austen?
1939 Hound: Nigel Bruce appeared in Rebecca with Laurence Olivier, who was Darcy in the 1940 Pride and Prejudice.
1982 Hound: Tom Baker appeared in Luther with Judi Dench who was Lady Catherine in the 2005 Pride and Prejudice.
1988 Hound: Edward Hardwicke appeared in Love, Actually with Emma Thompson, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant from the 1995 Sense and Sensibility; Colin Firth, from the 1995 Pride and Prejudice and Keira Knightley from the 2005 Pride and Prejudice.

In honor of the January birthday of Sherlock Holmes (b. 1/6/1854), my January film notes will concentrate on a few of the more interesting screen re-imaginings of the world’s greatest detective.

The first, in keeping with the season, will be the Granada interpretation of The Blue Carbuncle, which I think did a superior job of transposing a Holmes tale. It had the advantage of being one of the earlier programs in the series, so you have Jeremy Brett, as Holmes, in better form and health than he was in the last installments, and David Burke, the actor who gave us the most faithful Watson.

Brett & Burke

The story, which appeared in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, involves the theft of a rare gem, the Blue Carbuncle, its discovery in the crop (the gullet) of a goose, and the goose finding its way to 221 B Baker Street.

The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle begins with Watson’s visit to Holmes two days after Christmas, but the filmed version gives us a prologue, as the Blue Carbuncle- “the precious stone”- is passed from one generation to the next, falling into the possession of the Countess of Morcar. The characterization of the Countess is a departure, but an interesting one: in the Conan Doyle story, she remains off stage, but offers a thousand pound reward for the gem, and Holmes observes that the Countess would “part with half her fortune” for its recovery. In the teleplay, she is a tight-fisted miser whose tip to the hotel servants is to be divided “for the three of you”, whose Christmas tree is a limp cheerless affair, who is infuriated by the suggestion that she ought to offer a reward for her own property; actress Rosalind Knight’s rendering of this worldly, lonely miser is shrewd and on point.

Rosalind Knight (left) as the Countess of Morcar; note the sorry-looking Christmas tree in back.

In fact, the entire translation of the tale, from the development of minor characters, the different arrangements of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen supplementing the score and the inspired direction of David Carson, render a visual equivalent of Conan Doyle’s prose with remarkable fidelity. There is a gentle humanity in the details – Henry Baker(who inadvertently comes into possession of the prized goose) whose shillings have not been “so plentiful as they once were”, nonetheless stops to give a coin to a beggar; Holmes groping for a match to light his morning cigarette, just frenzied enough to hint at graver addictions; and the near-farcical episode of Holmes conning a poulterer into a wager -  suggest an understanding of the Canon that is too often lacking in many modern renditions.

David Stuart Davies, in his excellent record of the Granada series – Bending the Willow – credits Brett with certain cynical details that stave off an excess of sentimentality: the early-morning craving for a cigarette, the curt dismissal of the pathetic Henry Baker who is, after all, only “a mere unit, a factor in a problem” (as Holmes remarks in The Sign of the Four). But it is in the comic scene where Holmes finesses a skeptical poulterer  that the episode really shines.

Three degrees of Austen? Jeremy Brett (Holmes) appeared in the TV version of The Merchant of Venice with Sir Laurence Olivier who was Darcy in the 1940 Pride and Prejudice.

And who would have liked this film? Jane Bennet, always optimistic, would have sympathized with Holmes’s release of the culprit, though she might have been less cynical about his future, possibly hoping that he would “come to a right way of thinking”. A mystery involving stolen gems, a Countess, a detective and an unexpected conclusion would have appealed to Catherine Morland’s penchant for sensational fiction and perhaps Mrs. Nicholls, the Netherfield cook, employs her master’s long absence to catch up on reading and hopes for a stroke of good fortune when she rounds up “three couple of ducks, just fit to be killed.”