Cheap The Sherlock Holmes Feature Film Collection (DVD) (Jeremy Brett) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Sherlock Holmes Feature Film Collection

Two Hour Holmes worth in 5 DVD's
This collection of the feature length Granada Television Sherlock Holmes stories featuring Jeremy Brett as the famous detective has a few good items in it. The best is "The Master Blackmailer" which is a build upon the original "Charles Augustus Milverton" story and is excellently done and colorful.The standout role of "Milverton" is performed by our friend from "All Creatures Great and Small" Robert Hardy, and he does a GREAT JOB! You may also notice one of the actors from "Brideshead Revisited" in this episode, look carefully! It is Nicolas Grace who gave us "Anthony Blanche" in "Brideshead".The second best is perhaps "The Sign of Four" with John Thaw as the central character to the story, Johnathan Small. Little did we know at the time that he would shortly go on to immortality as Inspector Morse. "The Hound of the Baskervilles" lacks excitement and seems drawn out and dull, and our "replacement" Watson, although good does not quite measure up to the standard that David Burke set for the role in the early 80's original and still best episodes covering most of the "Adventures". The Hammer 1959 version with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee still reigns in color drama and the '39 Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce production in B&W. "The Sussex Vampyre" is a matter of taste and "The Eligible Bachelor" is one of the last of the series that were made and is terrible due to Mr. Brett's ill health (which can be clearly seen)and ridiculous revelations by dreams leading to the solving of the crime bordering on Freudian philosophy. Overall it is satisfactory, but it is a 50-50 mix of Holmeswork, half good, half bad.

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The Closer to the Canon, the Better
In these five feature-length films, we see Holmes at his best (though the quality of the films themselves varies). With The Sign of Four, the Granada team decided to avoid the question that plauge Sherlockians 'how many wives did John Watson have?' by avoiding the subject all together. This was a risky move, but it proved to streamline this series dramatically, and ended on a most worthy note. The portrayal of Jonathan Small by Jonathan Thaw (TV's Inspector Morse) ranks as one of the best guest appearances on this series. Outside the Mary Morstan subplot with Watson, this is very faithful to the original narrative. Better than Ian Richardson, by far better than Charlton Heston's Crucible of Blood, and stronger than anything Rathbone and Bruce had to offer. Can you imagine Bruce's bumbling, mumbling Watson trying to carry a picture? Oh, that's right they tried that with their over-blown Hound.
The Hound of the Baskervilles found in this DVD set can be a bit dry, and a bit slow at times. It is obvious that Brett is in ill-health. However, his performance is solid, and the moments he interacts with Hardwicke's Watson, we see a relationship between Holmes and Watson that no other team has captured. While Holmes delights in foiling Watson, such as in the opening scene over Dr. Mortimer's stick, it is Watson who steals the show. Hardwicke plays Watson as a world-weary, older brother of Holmes who understands him, and who is much needed by the world famous sleuth. Incidentally, for those who feel this particular version is too slow, I challenge you to see what happens when one tries to make a 'hipper, darker' version of the story, such as the 2002 production with Richard (Moulin Rouge) Roxburgh. The result is a gore-fest with little of the original story left in tact.
The Master Blackmailer is my favourite of the set. Holmes has fallen in love. The inexplicable has happened. In the original Canon story, he did get engaged to Milverton's maid. However, she turned out to be the Lady Swinstead, who turned the gun on Milverton at the end. This version takes liberties with that idea, and presents us with perhaps the saddest look at Holmes; a man who does not know how to kiss, love, or be loved. I remember hearing how folks who have trouble cultivating romances watched this episode, and responded that the episode was theraputic. Brett himself in this episode appears as if his health was getting better. He has more energy, and appears younger than in Hound.
The Eligible Bachelor is loosely based on The Noble Bachelor, and here is where the series gets into some trouble. While the performances of Brett and Hardwick are amazing, the story itself gets just a little too weird, especially with Holmes Prophetic dreams and the harrowing hag-like woman who has been kept in captivity. Because of Brett's deterioration in health, it makes sense that Holmes is having a 'breakdown.' His monologue about a world without Moriarty is particularly engaging. These moments make the film. The case itself is a let-down.
And finally, the last disc, I'm sad to say is the worst of the Brett series. I also felt it was the worst of the Canon stories. In the Canon story, when the boy is found to have tried to commit murder, Holmes recommends that he takes a few years to travel abroad. What? So, in this version, we do have a Dracula-esque human being who takes the young lad under his wing. Brett looks very run down, and older than his age in this film. And although, for the most part, the Memoirs series (which followed these films) is very good, Brett continues to look worse and worse. Does it make these later episodes unwatchable? Of course not! BRETT IS HOLMES. But we can't help but watch, with a lump in our throats, the slow deterioration of the definitive Holmes, who was in life, one of the most remarkable actors ever to grace the world.

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Only for the completists--save money and cherry-pick.
I'd recommend cherry-picking the "fourth-season" 1988 episodes, "Hound" and "Sign," and purchasing them individually, rather than obtaining this set. The other three "movies" are from 1991 (after "Case-Book" and before "Memoirs"), and were the first episodes done after John Hawkesworth and Michael Cox had left as producers of the show and the faithfulness to the original stories fell dramatically: just as an indication, all three of these movies had their plots altered so much from the Doyle stories that the writers changed their titles (none of the other episodes had this happen). The only reason to purchase this set is to save money if you're a completist who needs ALL the episodes, or if you're a British-actor fan who doesn't care about script quality or Holmesian faithfulness.