| Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking | |
|---|---|
| Written by | Allan Cubitt |
| Directed by | Simon Cellan Jones |
| Starring | Rupert Everett Ian Hart Jonathan Hyde Eleanor David Helen McCrory Neil Dudgeon |
| Music by | Adrian Johnston |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Producer | Elinor Day |
| Cinematography | David Katznelson |
| Editor | Paul Garrick |
| Running time | 99 minutes |
| Production companies | BBC Tiger Aspect Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC One |
| Release | 26 December 2004 (2004-12-26) |
| Related | |
| The Hound of the Baskervilles | |
Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking is a Britishtelevision film originally broadcast onBBC One in the United Kingdom on 26 December 2004. Produced byTiger Aspect Productions, it was written byAllan Cubitt and was a sequel to the same company's adaptation ofThe Hound of the Baskervilles, made for theBBC two years previously.[1] AlthoughSilk Stocking retained the sameDr. Watson,Ian Hart, this time the character ofSherlock Holmes was played byRupert Everett.
In November 1903, young women are being killed inLondon, each with a silk stocking stuffed down her throat. Watson seeks help from theretired and disenchanted Holmes, who determines that the victims are well-born ladies, not prostitutes. Evidence found includes a thumbprint, a pair of ladies' dancing shoes, broken glass, a strong smell of chloroform and a silk stocking removed from a victim's gullet. It seems that the killer has a foot fetish.
Holmes questions a survivor - a young girl who was apparently set free by her captor because she has a club foot - and arranges for her to "accidentally" see the footman that he suspects is the killer, despite his ironclad alibis. The girl identifies him as her kidnapper, but the thumbprint clears the suspect. Holmes then baits a trap for the killer: he uses the sister of a victim and has her perform in a classical tableau at an event attended by the King and Queen. Her Grecian-Roman costume is revealing, and her sandals expose her feet. After the performance, she walks away to be alone; the suspect drugs her and is quickly caught by Holmes and placed in custody. The sister returns home and is tucked into bed by her father.
However, the suspect's thumbprint doesn't match the evidence. Holmes suspects the killer has an identical twin, and that the real killer is still on the loose. Holmes telephones the father of the "bait" sister to warn him, but the real killer has kidnapped her from her bed just minutes earlier. The viewer sees the killer carrying her over his shoulder as blood drips from her face, where he cut her with broken glass.
The police force the other twin to lead them to his brother, but he escapes the police. Holmes finds the killer and his victim just in time; the young woman has a silk stocking tied around her neck, and Watson has to cut it and perform something that looks likeCPR, which was known in similar form from the late-18th century but did not come into standardised common usage until the mid-20th century. Holmes gets the killer twin to confess that he wanted his victims' attention, because they looked at him while in captivity. Both twins are then taken into custody.
At the end, Watson marries his fiancée Jenny Vandeleur, an Americanpsychoanalyst who had aided in the investigation. They leave on honeymoon, and Holmes is left sitting alone at the table.
Some co-production funding for the drama was provided by United StatesPBS broadcasterWGBH, and it was later shown on PBS'sMasterpiece Theatre in 2005. The original title for the production wasSherlock Holmes and the Deadly Season, the name being changed only a few weeks before transmission.[2] While Ian Hart returned from the earlierThe Hound of the Baskervilles film, in this film Rupert Everett replacedRichard Roxburgh as Sherlock Holmes.[1]Guy Henry who had earlier portrayed Sherlock Holmes inYoung Sherlock: The Mystery of the Manor House was cast in the minor role of Mr. Bilney.[1]
Directed bySimon Cellan Jones, the production filmed in and around London in late summer 2003.[1] The musical score is byAdrian Johnston.[1]
The book given to Holmes by Mrs Vandeleur isPsychopathia Sexualis.[3]
UnlikeBaskervilles, this production was an original story written byAllan Cubitt,[4] although the script used some lines of dialogue for Holmes taken fromArthur Conan Doyle's original stories. Set in the early 1900s, Cubitt provided Watson with a new wife and indicates that it had been some time since he and Holmes last worked together.
"This is a departure," said Rebecca Eaton, executive producer for WGBH in Boston, which produced the show with the BBC and Tiger Aspect Productions. "That's what we say at PBS when we don't know what is going to happen. We could be arrested by the Conan Doyle police - or at least severely reprimanded - because we are departing from the canon."[3]
Reviews of the drama were generally mixed. "I did feel that this peculiar tale was intended to tickle American tootsies,"Nancy Banks-Smith wrote inThe Guardian. "The king was announced as 'King Edward the Seventh', Dr Watson married a Yankee psychiatrist [psychoanalyst], the duchess was having an affair with the footman, well, two as it turned out, and the London fog never lifted."[5]
The film had a rating of 75 out of 100 onMetacritic in 2014.[6] Robert Bianco ofUSA Today remarked, "Everett sticks close enough to the outline created by Arthur Conan Doyle to be recognizably Sherlockian, and yet he deviates enough to create an amusing character all his own."[7] Dorothy Rabinowitz of theWall Street Journal wrote, "Everett carries the role of the master detective off with dispatch—a portrayal rich in tortured silences and seasoned with touches of campy authority."[8] Marilyn Stasio, writing forThe Daily Telegraph, called Everett's interpretation "elegant and decidedly decadent".[3]
Melanie McFarland of theSeattle Post-Intelligencer said, "The Case of the Silk Stocking contains more than the usual share of pedestrian turns of phrase, andNeil Dudgeon'sInspector Lestrade is less than an afterthought here. Everett makes up for it with a haunting portrayal."[9] Brian Lowry ofVariety wrote, "The Case of the Silk Stocking is a rather wan addition to the Holmes filmography, yet respectable enough in showcasing the character's cerebral charms. If push comes to shove, though, when all the revisionism's done, I prefer my Holmes in black-and-white."[10]
TheDaily Telegraph rated Everett as number 12 on their 20 greatest Sherlock Holmes.[11]
The film was released onDVD in 2005, with anaudio commentary by Cellan Jones and producer Elinor Day.
| Novels |
|
|---|---|
| Story collections |
|
| Characters | |
| Uncollected stories |
|
| Universe | |
| Studies | |
| Related | |
