Thu 24 Jul 2014
Movie Review: SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE DEADLY NECKLACE (1962).
Posted by Steve under Mystery movies , Reviews[11] Comments
SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE DEADLY NECKLACE. Central Cinema Company Film, Germany, 1962. Original title: Sherlock Holmes und das Halsband des Todes. Christopher Lee (Sherlock Holmes), Thorley Walters (Dr. Watson), Hans Söhnker (Professor Moriarty), Hans Nielsen, Senta Berger, Ivan Desny, Wolfgang Lukschy, Leon Askin, Edith Schultze-Westrum (Mrs. Hudson). Screenplay: Curt Siodmak, based on the novel The Valley of Fear, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (Co-)Director: Terence Fisher.
In spite of some very good scenes, this film was largely a disappointment, the first reason being that all of the English-speaking actors, including Christopher Lee, were dubbed (or redubbed) back into English, by the voices of others. What a waste of talent, and only to save a few dollars in production costs (as I understand it).
Perhaps even better than Lee in the leading role is the German actor who plays Moriarty, and very much Holmes’ equal in several tense scenes they share together. As Dr. Watson, British character actor Thorley Walters plays the part as one or two notches above the level of Nigel Bruce’s bumbling portrayal, but no more than that, nor is he nearly as charming.
There is very little resemblance to the story in this film to Doyle’s Valley of Fear, but the one scene which appears in each is one of the better ones in the film. The “Deadly Necklace” of the title is one that belonged to Queen Cleopatra of Egypt, and Dr. Moriarty is determined to have it in his possession, at all costs. Sherlock Holmes demurs, and the game is on.
The setting seems to be in the 1910s, based on the use of vintage autos of that era rather than hansom cabs, which clashes with a very nice jazzy and swinging film score much more appropriate to a jazzy and swinging movie from the 1960s.
But the biggest problem is the presence of scenes that exist only for cinematic effect and otherwise do not go anywhere, such as an opening scene with Holmes (in disguise) watching Moriarty at the docks before we know who either player is, and which is not referred to later on except in the briefest of mentions.
Or another in which Holmes (in disguise) calls for help in front of his apartment in Baker Street, is “rescued” by Watson, who finds him collapsed on the doorstep and does not recognize his friend. It is all a hoax played by Holmes on Watson, but why?
And, oh, one other thing. Whenever I leave my car, whether I’m involved in an accident or not, I always take my keys with me.
Give this one a pass, unless you’re a fan of Christopher Lee. Fans of Sherlock Holmes might otherwise want to stay away, or at least don’t go too far out of your way to obtain a copy, even though copies are easily (and quite inexpensively) found.
July 24th, 2014 at 9:22 pm
The music really doesn’t fit the film. It’s sort of third rate martini cocktail music from the early 60s.
I think the movie is worth watching if only to see how well Lee portrays Holmes, even if we don’t get to hear the veteran actor’s distinct voice
July 25th, 2014 at 12:21 am
Lee has an extensive Holmesian record. This, Sir Henry in Hammer’s HOUND, and those two mini series with Patrick MacNee as Watson, not to mention Mycroft in Billy Wilder’s THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES.
This one is for completest like me. It looks to have been shot on a shoestring over the weekend. Knowing Lee, he may have done it just to play golf in Germany. That’s how Jesus Franco used to lure him into movies.
July 25th, 2014 at 2:15 pm
He’s been in some terrific Holmesian films, but in the really good ones he wasn’t playing Holmes. My dream Lee/Holmes production would have had him as the great detective, a Watson such as Andrew Keir, Donald Pleasance as Moriarty, and directed by Terence Fisher. Unfortunately what we got was this and those weird productions with MacNee as Watson. What a total waste!
July 25th, 2014 at 3:10 pm
Donald P would have made a great Moriarty
July 25th, 2014 at 4:55 pm
Alas the greatest Moriarity of all never played the role on screen; Martin Gabel in the Broadway musical BAKER STREET. Though I would have hard time topping George Zucco or Gustave Von Sefferitz in Barrymore’s silent.
Ironically in the picture above Lee looks a great deal like the musical’s Holmes Fritz Weaver.
Which brings me to my list of the best of the canonical Watson’s, namely Andre Morel, Donald Houston, Patrick Horgan (BAKER STREET), and Jude Law.
Worst Watson ever? Well, other than Dudley Moore, I’d have to say Bernard Fox or Howard Marion Crawford, though I’ve missed a few foreign ones (German and Russian).
July 25th, 2014 at 5:37 pm
I liked James Mason’s Watson opposite Christopher Plummer’s Sherlock in Murder By Decree.
July 25th, 2014 at 8:44 pm
Barry,
I liked Mason and Plummer even though they were twenty years too old — Mason thirty.
And as good as the movie is Stephen Knight’s nonsensical theory about a Royal scandal is absolute nonsense. Most of his evidence is simply not true. Dr. Gull had a stroke and could not use his right side, John Neal never worked for the Royal family and never was one if their coachmen, artist Walter Richert was in France for two of the murders (and Patricia Cornwell to one side, he could not in 1888 have been in France and London in the same day), plus the romantic Duke of Clarence who Knight accuses of fathering a child in a romance with Mary Kelly had been involved in a Royal scandal that had to be hushed up earlier that year when the Yard raided a male brothel at the wrong time and arrested him.
And probably half the professional men in England were Masons and well familiar with the infamous ‘jewes’ quote. Possibly the only thing the Police Commissioner did right in that investigation was to wipe that off rather than risk Anti-Semetic riots in Whitechapel.
Donald Rumbelow (curator of the Yard’s Black Museum and foremost Ripper expert) believed the Ripper was Leatherapron a Jewish butcher in Whitechapel; and I lean toward Montague John Druitt because the only policeman to see the Ripper (Constable Malcolm MacNaughton who would eventually command Special Branch) believed it was Druitt who perfectly fit the only eye witness descriptions of the Ripper (two witnesses including him both giving the same description), and as Dr. Joseph Bell pointed out, when Druitt committed suicide the murders stopped.
Like Cornwell’s theory Knight’s makes a better movie or novel than history.
Incidentally, Druitt was a young barrister (his father was a surgeon and he inherited his instruments and his mother died of an inheritable mental disease) with rooms in Lincoln Ends Fields which in the rear opens into Whitechapel, providing the Ripper with perfect access and a quick almost invisible escape.
All circumstantial, but they hanged men on less.
July 25th, 2014 at 10:08 pm
David,
While your essay is interesting I don’t consider it meaningful. History has been raped for centuries in the interest of the story. Scott, Dumas, Homer…etc.
As for age relative to Holmes and Watson, I am indifferent. They are fiction and in this exploration just happen to be played by older, but fit and fabulously successful actors, who I believe, found the right key in which to sing their song.
July 26th, 2014 at 1:27 am
I would argue history is relevant when someone deliberately lies to push a theory as Knight and Cornwell did to sell books. I applaud the films use of the idea, but Knight was flogging his non fiction theory which had holes the giant rat of Sumatra could have chewed into it. I would argue it matters more that the Ripper was rather than who he was, but to lie to sell books and claim a solution is at the least tacky and MURDER BY DECREE is taken from Knight’s inaccurate history which damages it a bit for me(and probably onlyme I readily admit).
Poe was wrong about the Mary rogers case, but he only presented his fictional work as a solution, not the solution which is fair game.
But like you I love to see history fictionally tweaked ala the Flashman books, but he never tried to flog bad history as the truth via Flashman as Knight does Holmes.
I enjoy MURDER BY DECREE, but still have a problem with Holmes and Watson that old in the year after the first story was published. I didn’t care for the later Moore Bonds for the same reason. But I will grant I come at this as a Sherlockian first and movie fan second. On the other hand I love Robert Downey’s interpretation which extrapolates quite a bit on the theme, but never tries to pass itself off as factual.
I enjoy all the Farmerian Wold Newton business, but no one writing in that area (myself included) is trying to claim our stories are the factual truth.
Perhaps it only matters because the other day I overheard a sixteen year old clerk in a store explaining how Marilyn Monroe assassinated JFK. Stupid is catching.
July 26th, 2014 at 5:59 am
Hmmm, Marilyn assasinated JFK. Let’s see how long it takes that one to be made as a movie.
I think that the difference between Dumas et al, and Knight is that the Dumas stuff is presented as fiction, rather than saying “Hey look, this is the truth!” I saw umpteen versions of THE THREE MUSKETEERS before I knew that the story was based on a real-life memoir (although how much trust one should place in the original is open to debate). Fooling about with history is a fun game for a novelist, but when the novelist starts to try and pass themself off as an historian, then I think that we have a right to object. A novelist has a novelist’s licence to mess with the truth (a number of Agatha Christie novels have elements obviously taken from real life), but writing about genuine history requires one to not falsify the basic facts, however one wishes to interpret them.
For the record, my personal theory is that the Ripper was probably someone whose name we shall never know. Quite possibly a local, since people had long since stopped noticing him, maybe a merchant seaman, since he might have returned to the sea after the last Ripper murder, he was likely someone who would simply not register on the memory.
It’s traditional to cast older actors as H&W. Plummer was only 50, which isn’t bad, but Mason was 70, which is really pushing it. That said, they are both enjoyable in the film. I’ve seen Cumberbatch described as a young Holmes, but he’s about the right age for the part. The older Bond in the later Moore films is quite interesting, as they did seem to quietly acknowledge in the script that he was no longer young. I think that it was only in his last one that his age was really beginning to damagingly show. In the original novels, Fleming kept fudging the dates in order to keep Bond relatively young, and although he tried to give the character within realistic bounds, there is a sense that we are in Batman/Robin Hood/Nero Wolfe territory, where they are not bound by the usual rules about longevity.
August 16th, 2014 at 12:25 pm
Sherlockiana actors ages:
Basil Rathbone, born in 1892 was about forty-eight in Hound of the Baskervilles, and Jeremy Brett, born in 1935, was just about the same age when his tv series began broadcasting, so Plummer, born in 1927, is just about right in the casting wheelhouse. Robert Stephens, born in 1931, was a little younger, though not much, and we know how his ‘youth’ worked out. Rejected by the public and his director Billy Wilder.