Here's a strange one. A German-French-Italian production with a werid jazzy soundtrack and a screenplay by Curt Siodomak. For some reason, it seems to be set in the 1930s. Christopher Lee stars as Holmes, but it's been dubbed into English, and I'm pretty dang sure this ain't Lee's voice.
More Overlooked and Weird stuff at Sweet Freedom.
When it was dubbed into English, Lee and Thorley Walters were replaced, along with the Germans, by other actors. "Holmes" almost seems to have an American accent in the English-language version.
ReplyDeleteI saw it on TV many years ago but I don't remember much about it. The ending seemed inconclusive, IIRC. They were probably planning a series, so maybe the loose ends would have been dealt with in the later installments. AFAIK, though, there were no sequels. But Lee did play Holmes again in two made-for-TV movies in the early 1990's.
The German producers may have intended to set the story in the present time, which might explain the incongruous music score, with its jazzy 1960's style. Someone must have vetoed the idea, so it's set sometime between the 1910's and 1930's. Probably no sillier than the Universal series, which updated the story to WWII.
Adrian Conan Doyle, son of Sir Arthur, once said that Christopher Lee's performance as Holmes was "one of the two finest I have ever seen." The other was Basil Rathbone's.
Amusing.
ReplyDeleteThis is pretty hard to watch, but it IS Sherlock Holmes. Sort of.
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