Jeremy Brett (with Gayle Hunnicutt as Irene Adler) is considered by Sherlockians one of the two best screen incarnations of Holmes. His British series was seen on PBS.
Haunted lately by an eerie, ripping noise?
That's the sound of Sherlock Holmes purists rending their garments at the prospect of Guy Ritchie's $80 million extravaganza, Sherlock Holmes, which stars Robert Downey Jr. as the inimitable master detective, Jude Law as a surprisingly edgy Dr. John Watson - and Rachel McAdams as a seductive Irene Adler.
Trailers for the film, which opens on Christmas, couple gorgeous views of Edwardian London with jolting shots of a bare-chested, bloodied Holmes in a makeshift boxing ring.
Holmes brawling bare-knuckled a la Fight Club? Shocking!
Holmes going all Jackie Chan on the villains? Gasp!
Holmes flirting? Oh, my!
What is this Ritchie guy doing?
"Get a grip!" growls noted Sherlockian Les Klinger, who's fed up with fans pointing out the obvious - the film takes liberties with Doyle's stories.
"There have been over 200 films about Holmes," says Klinger, editor of The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes, a multivolume collection of Doyle's work released in 2005.
The Guinness Book of World Records lists Holmes as the most-portrayed character on screen. More than 70 actors have stepped into his shoes, including Eille Norwood, Christopher Plummer, Peter Cushing, Matt Frewer, Peter Cook, Douglas Wilmer, Ronald Howard, Vasili Livanov, and Roger Moore.
"Everyone has taken liberties with Holmes. There's never been a Hound of the Baskervilles version that is true to the original," Klinger says, referring to Doyle's most famous tale, which has engendered 20 films.
And that's just one of 60 Holmes-spun tales that Doyle published between 1887 and 1927.
Everyone has always taken liberties. One of the very first Holmes dramatizations, the stage play Sherlock Holmes, written by and starring American actor William Gillette, ended with impending marriage for Holmes. (Doyle's hero remained a bachelor.) Gillette, who played the role from 1899 to 1930, when he was well into his 70s, famously wired Doyle for permission to marry off Holmes.
Doyle's reply is classic: "You may marry him, or murder or do what you like with him."
Does that mean that anything goes?
Certainly not, says Klinger, who served as an unofficial adviser for Ritchie's film and helped prep Downey Jr. for the role.
Klinger has certain basic hopes and expectations for the film: "That it would be respectful of the original stories and that it not be a jokey satire or distortion."
Sadly, Holmes' celluloid debut was hardly respectful. Produced by American Mutoscope & Biograph in 1900 (some scholars date it to 1903), Sherlock Holmes Baffled was a one-reel spoof that ran between 30 seconds and a minute.
"They use trick photography to make this burglar appear and disappear and Holmes is trying to get ahold of him and can't," says Holmes expert David Morrill. "And that is how we've seen him from then on."
Source:philly.com/
