Main Cast: Robert Stephens, Colin Blakely, Irene Handl, Geneviève Page, Stanley Holloway, Christopher Lee, Tamara Toumanova
Release Year: 1970
Country: US/UK
Run Time: 125 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
In Billy Wilder's cinematic homage to the spirit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, British stage luminary Robert Stephens plays Holmes, while Colin Blakely is his friend and chronicler Dr. Watson. This self-described "hitherto suppressed and thoroughly fascinating" tale concerns Holmes' search for a missing mining engineer -- a case that may have a far-reaching effect on the national security of England. Along the way, Holmes falls in love for the first time in his life, with enigmatic foreign beauty Gabrielle Valladon (Genevieve Page). In this 1970 film, Wilder emphasizes such then-current topics as homosexuality (notably during the film's prologue) and drug addiction. Christopher Lee, a former screen Holmes himself, has a cameo (minus toupee) as Sherlock's brother Mycroft Holmes. Heavily re-edited and rearranged both before and after its release, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes was a box-office disappointment when it came out in 1970. Since that time, its reputation has grown immeasurably, especially among those lucky enough to have seen a complete print. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
Mellow and romantic, Billy Wilder's mutilated late masterwork is more an intimate portrait of Arthur Conan Doyle's famed coke-sniffing, violin-loving, super-rational detective than a straightforward mystery. Shooting elegantly in England, Wilder and longtime co-writer I.A.L. Diamond mine humor from Holmes's suspect sexuality and make plain his drug habit. As played by Robert Stephens, their Holmes is a figure of melancholy and regret. His impossible romance with a woman who is his intellectual match reveals the incompatibility between a life of reason and a life of feeling, yet the poignant end of their relationship renders emotionally palpable what Holmes has lost by being a great detective. Episodic in structure and originally intended to be over three hours long, Sherlock Holmes was drastically cut after a disastrous preview; most of the cut footage is presumed lost. One hour shorter, it was a failure in 1970, but its critical reputation has since flourished due to its visual beauty and fine performances from Stephens, Colin Blakely as Dr. Watson, and Genevieve Page as Holmes's love. The laser disc version contained 12 minutes of restored footage. ~ Lucia Bozzola, All Movie Guide
Clive Revill - Rogozhin; George Benson - Inspector Lestrade; Catherine Lacey - Old Lady; Mollie Maureen - Queen Victoria; Peter Madden - Von Tirpitz; Robert Cawdron - Hotel Manager; Michael Elwyn - Cassidy; Michael Balfour - Cabby; Frank Thornton - Porter; Kenneth Benda - Minister; Graham Armitage - Wiggins; John Garrie - First Carter; Godfrey James - 2d Carter; Anne Blake - Madame; Penny Brahms; James Copeland - Guide; Wendy Lingham; Alex McCrindle - Baggageman; Kynaston Reeves - Old Man; Paul Stassino; Eric Francis - 2nd Gravedigger; Ina DeLa Haye - Petrova's Maid; Paul Hansard - Monk; Martin Carroll; John Gatrell - Equerry; Annette Kerr - Secretary; Philip Ross - McKellar; Philip Anthony - Lieutenant Commander; John Scott - Scientist
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is a 1970film directed and produced by Billy Wilder; he also shared writing credit with his longtime collaborator I. A. L. Diamond. It starred Robert Stephens as Sherlock Holmes and Colin Blakely as Dr. Watson. The film offers an affectionate, slightly parodic look at the man behind the public facade, and draws a distinction between the "real" Holmes and the character portrayed by Watson in his stories for The Strand magazine.
The film was originally intended as a roadshow attraction, touring major cities only on its initial run. However, it was heavily edited on its original release, and significant sections of the film are now missing.
The film is divided into two separate, unequal stories. In the shorter of the two, Holmes is approached by a famous Russian ballerina, Madame Petrova (Tamara Toumanova), who proposes that they conceive a child together, one who she hopes will inherit her physique and his intellect. Holmes manages to extricate himself by claiming that Watson is his lover. This upsets Watson when he realizes that Holmes is not known to have had any relations with women, whereas Watson has, having been married in the canonical stories.
In the main plot, Belgian Gabrielle Valadon (Genevieve Page) is fished out of the River Thames and brought to Baker Street. She begs Holmes to find her missing engineer husband. The resulting investigation leads to a castle in Scotland. Along the way, they encounter a group of monks and some midgets, and Watson apparently sights the Loch Ness monster.
It turns out that Sherlock's brother Mycroft (Christopher Lee) is involved in building a pre-World War I submarine for the British Navy, with the assistance of Mr Valadon. When taken out for testing, it was disguised as a sea monster. The midgets were recruited as crewmen because they took up less space and needed less air. When they meet, Mycroft informs Sherlock that his client is actually a top German spy, Ilse von Hoffmanstal, sent to steal the submersible. The "monks" are German sailors.
Queen Victoria (Mollie Maureen) arrives for an inspection of the new weapon, but is "not amused" by its unsportsmanlike nature. She orders the exasperated Mycroft to destroy it, so he conveniently leaves it unguarded for the monks to take (rigging it to sink when it is submerged). Frau von Hoffmanstal is arrested, to be exchanged for her British counterpart.
In the final scene some months later, Sherlock receives a message from his brother, telling him that von Hoffmanstal had been arrested as a spy in Japan and shot. Saddened, the detective retreats to his room to seek solace in drugs and his violin.
Holmes' attitude to von Hoffmanstal is clearly reminiscent of that towards Irene Adler in the canonical Holmes story "A Scandal in Bohemia" - i.e. a grudging respect for a worthy opponent - though Wilder more clearly hints at the two being platonically in love with each other than was the case with Adler.
Missing scenes
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. One sequence, in which Holmes investigates the seemingly impossible case of a corpse found in an upside down room, has been recovered and restored to the film's laser disc release. The Region 1 DVD release restored portions of these segments and several others. They are made up of soundtrack and a series of stills. Another scene features Colin Blakely as a descendant of Watson receiving the tin dispatch box from solicitors.
While not a major box office success, the film was well-received by most critics. It has a rating of 95% on Rotten Tomatoes.[1] A review in Empire magazine described it as the "best Sherlock Holmes movie ever made" and said it was "sorely underrated in the Wilder canon".[2]
Cultural references and inaccuracies
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There are inconsistencies about when the film is supposed to be set. In the main story Holmes signs into a guest register giving the date as 1888. However the film contains references to Holmes stories in The Strand, where they first appeared in 1891, and to the development of Zeppelins, again implying a later date. Madame Petrova claims to have read The Hound of the Baskervilles, which was only published a few months after the death of Queen Victoria in 1901 (and she must have read it in translation which would have been even later).
Wiggins, the messenger at the Diogenes Club to whom Mycroft gives instructions regarding various items, shares the name of the leader of the Baker Street Irregulars who often assist Sherlock in his investigations.
The British secret service are seen abandoning the new submarine because of an order from Queen Victoria. In fact she was a constitutional monarch who had no real power over such matters. The Prime Minister would have made the decision.
The legal, political and moral problems resulting from submarines shooting torpedoes without warning to destroy surface ships - in contravention of the rules hitherto governing naval warfare - did become a major issue in the First World War (see Submarine warfare#World War I) but that was long after the death of Queen Victoria.
A historical Austrian Von Hofmannsthal family existed (and still exists) which included the well-known novelist and poet Hugo Von Hofmannsthal. The film does not claim that the fictional woman spy, who is German not Austrian, is related to them.
Most Victorians would never have heard of the Loch Ness Monster; this legend became widely known only in the 1930s.
Mycroft says that the submarine has been undergoing sea trials in the Moray Firth. This is implausible since this would mean passing through either the River Ness or the Caledonian Canal, which in either case raises a number of practical problems.
The film depicts incidents surrounding a performance in London of the ballet Swan Lake as performed by the Imperial Ballet of the Mariinsky Theatre of St. Petersburg, however the ballet company of this theater never toured in the history of its existence, nor was the ballet Swan Lake ever produced outside of Russia until the twentieth century.
