The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes **** (1970, Robert Stephens, Christopher Lee, Colin Blakely, Irene Handl, Clive Revill, Geneviève Page) – Classic Movie Review 2487

Director Billy Wilder is on great form in his revisionist 1970 British-made tale of the private life of the Sir Arthur Conan Doyle sleuth, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Robert Stephens and Colin Blakely are excellent, quite riveting as Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson, happily more serious and haunted than their illustrious movie predecessors Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce would have recognised. They are ideal in many ways.

The first of the film’s two tales has the detective and his sidekick visiting the Russian ballet where the principal dancer Madame Petrova (Tamara Toumanova) wants Holmes to father her child. Then the housekeeper Mrs Hudson (Irene Handl) ushers in to Holmes’s study a German spy Gabrielle Valladon (Genevieve Page) who, after an attempt on her life, wants Sherlock to find her missing husband. This is destined to be a strange case that leads him to Loch Ness, enemy subs, his brother Mycroft (Christopher Lee) and Queen Victoria (Mollie Maureen).

Did I mention six missing midgets, villainous monks, a Scottish castle, the Loch Ness monster and covert naval experiments? Well, this is a busily plotted movie that does justice to Conan Doyle.

It is brilliant than an inspired Wilder gets the mood, tone and period feel exactly right, while orchestrating first-rate contributions from both the players in front of the camera and the crew on the technical side.

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is a complex affair, involving spoof, homage and reinterpretation – for this is a Holmes obsessed by cocaine and the violin, who plays up to his public image, and the film flirts with rumours of his relationship with Watson. It is one of Wilder’s best and least heralded films.

Wilder got composer Miklós Rózsa to adapt music from his own 1956 Violin Concerto as the basis for the film score, supplementing this with new music.

The film was originally intended as a roadshow attraction, touring major cities on its initial run, but for its general release it was heavily cut to 125 minutes by Wilder from its 180-minute original, which featured George Benson as Inspector Lestrade. The film originally contained another two separate stories, and a further flashback sequence showing Holmes in his university days. These were all filmed, but later cut from the final release print at the studio’s insistence.

Significant sections of the film are now missing, but 12 minutes are restored in the 1994 laser disc version, Private Life of Sherlock Holmes: The Special Edition. One sequence, in which Holmes investigates the case of a corpse found in an upside down room, has been recovered and restored for the laser disc release. This sequence, The Dreadful Business of the Naked Honeymooners, is subtitled because no audio was available

The Region 1 DVD release restored portions of these segments and several others, made up of soundtrack and a series of stills. Another scene features Blakely as a descendant of Watson receiving the tin dispatch box from solicitors. 

Kino Lorber released a Blu-ray version on 22 July 2014, including deleted scenes and bonus material.

Wilder had planned to cast Peter O’Toole as Holmes and Peter Sellers as Watson. Christopher Lee took over the role of Mycroft Holmes when George Sanders’s health was failing.

Elaborate sets, including 150 yards of the Baker Street set at a cost of £80,000, were were designed by art director Alexandre Trauner and built at Pinewood Studios. The Diogenes Club, also used in Hands of the Ripper and Carry On at Your Convenience, stood until 1973.

The Scottish scenes were filmed at Urquhart Castle on the banks of Loch Ness.

The 1970 film poster for The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes was created by Robert McGinnis.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2487

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