HerlockSholmes

With Sellers as Watson I’d have been constantly thinking ........ https://youtu.be/64yianfGvzc Coincidentally, with Colin Blakely as a police officer.

I know what you mean. He was going through a really tough time just as he took on a role in a movie directed by a guy who took nitpicking to new levels! Even the fact that Watson was played by his great friend and drinking buddy Colin Blakely didn’t really help. It was pretty much a recipe for disaster and yet the result was a brilliant film. Before the movie was made there was talk of a stage version (or a musical, I can’t recall which) starring Peter O’Toole as Holmes and Peter Sellers as Watson.

I’ve just finished reading ‘Knight Errant,’ which is an autobiography of Robert Stephens that I picked up on eBay for less than £3. An enjoyable book. Stephens is one of those people that you’d like to have as a dinner guest. Pretty much liked by all and best friend of Jeremy Brett. Plenty of great thesp-related anecdotes here but there’s only a short chapter on ‘The Private Life....’ but it was a difficult time for him. His marriage to Maggie Smith was breaking up and Wilder wasn’t an easy director to work for as he took perfectionism to limit. Stephens attempted suicide during the shoot but after a period of recovery went back and finished the movie. From his experience it’s probably inderstandable that he advised Brett against playing Holmes. Thankfully Brett ignored the advice.

A bit of ‘no news’ news here

Wonder if this is where Moftiss got the idea for Anderson's Jack-the-Ripper room? We have the original DVD, but I'll put this one on our wish list -- our interest is in inverse proportion to the price! Understandable Carol. Give it a month or two and you’ll no doubt be able to pick one up much cheaper on eBay.

A quick Herlockian review of the new Blu-ray version of The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes. Firstly, for anyone that hasn’t seen it yet, it’s a wonderful movie. Like Mark Gatiss it’s my favourite. For the Holmes nerd it has great extras which include three interviews (a film historian, the editor of the movie and Christopher Lee. But best of all we get the first sighting of the ‘missing’ footage. The movie was originally intended to be well over three hours long but was eventually cut drastically. We get stills and the script of an opening scene where Watson’s grandson arrives at Cox and Co to open his grandfathers box. The bank manager is also a member of The Sherlock Holmes Society Of London And has delayed his retirement for this day. He ends up trying on the deerstalker. Then we get stills of a scene on a train with Holmes and Watson in a carriage when a man rushes in. Holmes deduces that he’s recently jumped out of a window after being shot at by his lovers husband. We get the voices with this one which are great to hear. Then there is the case of The Upside Down Room. Holmes and Watson are called to a room with a corpse but everything in the room is upside down. Bed and chairs on the ceiling etc. Holmes deduces that it was all set up by Watson. Watson wanted to provide a distraction for Holmes from cocaine. Holmes says something like “well you had me fooled for all of ten minutes.” Finally, and best of all, there’s footage with subtitles of a very funny scene on a ship where Holmes lets Watson try and solve a murder. Well worth getting. Brilliant stuff. And if you were just thinking of getting the movie get this version. An absolute must

My answer to the original question in this thread is......none

Sounds like witchcraft to me. Are you two standing around a large cauldron as you typed those last two posts

End of March. I’ve decided to hire. Me, my brothers and my friend are all going to the same place to get fitted up.

‘Theirs’ not ‘there’s’. Grrrrrrr.

You’re absolutely right Hikari, I should be thankful that men's clothes shopping is much simpler than women’s. Especially if, like me, you have absolutely zero interest in fashion. The pressure on women to look good is something pretty primal but you would think that, as time moves on and we try (not always successfully) to treat women equally, there would be a decreasing of that pressure but no. Fashion pervades everything; advertising is relentless; movie stars and models look more and more perfect. I wonder if things will change? Not in our lifetimes that’s for sure and sadly, if anyone on here has grandkids, not in there’s either.☹️

To be honest Arcadia there isn’t anything that I really wanted to post. I was just going to post a drawing that I’d done of Peter Cushing as Holmes just to see if my new app had worked. Thanks for the offer though

But I’ve never managed to post a single picture ever. Either on here or on other forums. It always says ‘file size too large.’ So i wouldn’t have thought that it could be anything to do with using up an allowance?

There’s always hope Arcadia

If you’ve only read a few Arcadia maybe you could remember the titles? I’m only asking because if you didn’t want to read them all we could recommend some of the better ones (not that they’re not all masterpieces of course

I’ve had a break from pastiches for a while as i recently got another Doyle biography. When I’ve finished it I’ll go back to David Marcum. My ‘Holmes For The Holidays’ arrived today so that’s next in line and I’m still waiting for The Return Of Solar Pons so I’m well stocked for reading material. I had a few emails recently from the editor of The Sherlock Holmes Journal (from The Sherlock Holmes Society) about hard to get Holmes movies. He put me on to a guy call Matthew Elliott who organises film shows for the Society. I saw the name in Vol III so I asked if he was the guy that wrote The Adventure Of The Reluctant Corpse? He is. He’s wrote at least one Holmes novel and he’s also written Doctor Who books. He’s trying to burn me a copy of a hard to get Holmes tv show.

Not yet Arcadia. I’m going to wait until I see my techno-friend for advice. I might not be using the app that I have correctly.

Isn't imgur the one that some people can't see? Like the ‘statesmanship’ Forrrest Trump? Oops....sorry Mods, wrong thread

Thanks Caya

I haven’t. I’m going to wait until I see a friend of mine who’s more knowledgeable about computers than me (to be honest though, that would include your average toddler

Cheers Carol.

Doyle always acknowledged his debt to Poe

Thanks Caya. I’ve never been able to post pictures/photographs either on here or on other forums because it always said ‘file size too big’ or words to that effect. So I recently bought an app from the iStore called ShrinkMyPicures. I compressed a picture to the maximum but it still said ‘too big.’ I’m unsure if I’m doing something wrong but I can’t for the life of me see what. It’s a bit frustrating. It’s not that I’m desperate to post anything but it would be good to be able to do it. Nothing is simple with technology. Not when I’m involved anyway☹️

I’m not too bad with spiders. I once had a work colleague who had a special licence so that if someone found a dangerous or even a non-dangerous spider he was called out to collect it. Then he’d pass it on to a zoos if he didn’t have room himself. I’ve held a tarantula but I can’t say that I particularly like them. I’d go nowhere near the one in the photo though. It looks like something out of a 50’s sci-fi movie.