Review of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) by John T — 11 Dec 2014

Not an adaptation of a story by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but an original story directed and produced by Billy Wilder who also co-wrote the screenplay with I. A. L. Diamond. The film is divided into two separate, unequal an unrelated stories. The shorter of the two stories lasts 30 minutes and has Holmes being approached by a famous Russian ballerina who proposes that they conceive a child together. In the main plot, a Belgian woman is fished out of the River Thames and brought to Baker Street where she begs Holmes to find her missing engineer husband.

The film originally contained five individual stories and reportedly ran nearly 3 and one half hours; the studio demanded that the film be cut to a more manageable two hours. The film is still too long in my opinion. The shorter story added little towards shedding light on Holmes' personal life and could have been deleted without harming the main story.

Robert Stephens was uninspiring as Sherlock Holmes and did nothing to make me forget Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett who were far superior. Colin Blakely was equally disappointing as the goofy Dr. Watson. The rest of the cast was equally underwhelming except for Christopher Lee who admirably portrays Holmes' brother Mycroft.

The plot of the main story is interesting and entertaining and moves along at a good pace A bit of humor turns up in some scenes, usually in how the characters interact with each other. The resolution of the plot, although telegraphed from the point where Mycroft confronts Holmes at the Diogenes Club, is in the tradition of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. There is a stunning score by Miklós Rozsa - who cameos as a conductor, lush location photography especially in Scotland, and good set design of the 221B Baker Street.