TOP SCREEN PORTRAYALS OF SHERLOCK HOLMES

Last month marked the 124th anniversary of Arthur Conan Doyle's seminal Sherlock Holmes novelization, "The Hound of the Baskervilles", first serialized the year before in THE STRAND MAGAZINE. I was introduced to the story as a lad via the 1939 film starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce. Those two actors would carry with me the imprint of Holmes and Watson for years before I saw any other actors play them (as far as I can recall). By that time I'd watched nearly all of the Rathbone/Bruce pictures and their characters were inculcated in my impressionable young mind.

Honestly, I wasn't satisfied with any other treatment of Holmes and his faithful assistant until the 1984 PBS starring Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke when I finally found a new favorite. In the late 70s, I'd seen Brett in his version of DRACULA on the stage along with the magnificent sets by Edward Gorey and he'd brought a few of his mannerisms to Holmes

Since then, I've come to appreciated other Sherlocks such as Christopher Plummer and I'm particularly fond of James Mason's Watson.

The article below from crimereads.com shows the final five from the list of a hundred different Sherlocks ranked over the years. It's way too lengthy to include here, so I've included a link to the complete article at the bottom of the post.

THE 100 BEST, WORST, AND STRANGEST SHERLOCK HOLMES PORTRAYALS OF ALL-TIME, RANKED

Once you eliminate the least compelling Sherlock Holmes performances, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the best.

By Olivia Rutigliano | April 8, 2021 |crimereads.com

5. Benedict Cumberbatch, Sherlock (2010-2017)

In this modern BBC version which adapted individual Holmes stories (until it paid too much fan service and thus went off the rails), Benedict Cumberbatch delivers a sturdy, compelling performance—abrupt, eccentric, calculating, and a tad sentimental, seemingly everyone’s favorite Sherlock in the early 2010s. Though less waggish than the literary Holmes, his buddy-buddy chemistry with Martin Freeman’s John Watson is the best and most sincere part of his magnetic presentation. Sherlock is a few steps ahead of John basically at all times, but he clearly adores him and always wants to impress him. (I think this is one of the key factors in a solid, traditional Holmes-Watson dynamic, Holmes wanting to show off specifically for Watson). Cumberbatch’s Sherlock is, though, a bit of an asshole, and although the show lifts the corners of this very frequently (most specifically and sentimentally with respect to Watson), the show drills this until it becomes a cliche, fetishishizing his hard exterior as much as his soft heart. His famous line, “I’m not a psychopath, I’m a high functioning-sociopath” is the show’s ultimately-laborious thesis statement.

4. Douglas Wilmer, Sherlock Holmes (1964-1965)

Douglas Wilmer’s Sherlock Interpretation is one of the best, helped by the fact that he looks a lot like Sherlock Holmes in Sydney Paget’s original illustrations (so, a bit, do Basil Rathbone and Arthur Wontner). Wilmer’s Holmes is the first take on the detective that actually makes him a bit arrogant; he is tough, confident, and exacting. Wilmer’s obituary in The Guardian even went so far as to call his Sherlock a “steely antihero.” But he pulls this off without seeming off-putting; there’s no vainglory or pomposity. There’s focus and drive. In 1975, Wilmer made a cameo appearance as Sherlock in Gene Wilder’s The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother. That film isn’t really about Sherlock, as the title suggests, so it might not even be worth critiquing Wilmer’s performance as Sherlock, since the point of it is the cameo. But he’s a slightly more exaggerated version than his Sherlock from the series. Slightly.

3. Arthur Wontner, Sherlock Holmes’ Fatal Hour, (1931), etc.

In 1933, the critic Vincent Starett wrote, in his foundational collection of Sherlockian scholarship The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, that “No better ‘Sherlock Holmes’ than Arthur Wontner is likely to be seen and heard in pictures, in our time… The keen, worn, kindly face and quiet prescient smile are out of the very pages of the book.” I have to say, I quite agree. He’s a softer Holmes than those we normally see, but nonetheless shrewd. There’s a gentleness to him, even when at his most brusque, that feels very authentic. As I’ve said in my introduction, I’m not staunchly using ‘fidelity to the source material’ as a criterion to measure the quality of performance, but looking for performances acknowledging that the literary Holmes is such a comprehensive, dynamic character. Adaptations that stray from his literary identity are tasked, then, with inventing qualities that are just as compelling as the original Holmes’ qualities. Wontner’s capturing these elements of the literary persona (even despite these films’ setting in the 20s-30s!) gives his performance a kind of wholeness and realness that isn’t often seen. (Furthermore, I think he’s more of a dead ringer for the Sydney Paget illustrations than Douglas Wilmer, but that might just be me.) For his countenance, he might be my personal favorite Holmes. I’m not sure. But he might be.

2. Basil Rathbone, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939), etc.

The consummate actor Basil Rathbone, besides having my favorite name ever, is often considered to be the gold-standard for Holmes portrayals, having played Holmes in fourteen films in the 1930s and 40s. For many out there, he is *the* Holmes, and this is more than fair. Rathbone’s Holmes is an interesting take… very logical, though not wry, but also very vigorous. While he’s certainly very affable, there is little whimsy, nothing too nonconformist about him. It’s truly marvelous to behold (though more marvelous is how he never once turns around to flick Nigel Bruce’s idiot Watson on the head).

1. Jeremy Brett, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984-1985), etc.

It’s really, really hard to pick a #1 slot, but I think first place has to go to Jeremy Brett, whose long-running Holmes (from 1984 to 1994) is both serious and brilliantly diagnostic while also being a tiny bit absurd (Brett’s Holmes, though rather unsmiling, does lean into Holmes’s nutty penchant for disguise and performance). He might be a flash more arrogant than Doyle’s Holmes, but he’s never overweening; he’ll even occasionally burst out laughing or grin with excitement. He also says great things like: “You are the stormy petrel of crime, Watson.” A faultless performance. CASE. CLOSED.

Click HERE for the other 95 entries.