Sherlock Holmes disguises

[Sco0T]

Hello!

In which cases/stories Sherlock Holmes used the most disguises?

Thanks in advance.

[Carol the Dabbler]

Hello, Sco0T -- welcome to Sherlock Forum!   

It sounds to me like you're asking about the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, so I'm moving this thread to the Casebooks area of the forum.  If you're actually asking about filmed adaptations, please let us know which ones.  Thanks!

I must admit that I'm no expert on the Conan Doyle stories, but I do know that there were several where he did disguise himself, and it was sort of a standard joke that Watson never recognized him.  In fact, if some obnoxious fellow was annoying Watson, you could just about bet that it was actually Holmes.

I can't offhand name a story where Holmes used more than one, but he sometimes used some very elaborate disguises.  One of the most complicated ones was in "The Empty House," where he came to Baker Street disguised as a hunchbacked old book seller.  Watson still thought that Holmes had died in the waterfall at Reichenbach some years earlier, so when Holmes took off the disguise, Watson was so surprised that he fainted!

There are several forum members who know a lot more about the original stories than I do, so you'll presumably get a far better answer to your actual question.

[HerlockSholmes]

On 3/18/2019 at 12:12 PM, Sco0T said:

Hello!

In which cases/stories Sherlock Holmes used the most disguises?

Thanks in advance.

Hi ScoOT,

If you follow this link and scroll down you’ll get a list of the disguises that Holmes used in the canonical stories.

https://www.arthur-conan-doyle.com/index.php/Sherlock_Holmes

[Carol the Dabbler]

... and here's a key to the story-title abbreviations used in that list.

[HerlockSholmes]

4 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

... and here's a key to the story-title abbreviations used in that list.

Thanks Carol. I tend to forget that not everyone has read all the stories. 👍

[Carol the Dabbler]

29 minutes ago, HerlockSholmes said:

Thanks Carol. I tend to forget that not everyone has read all the stories. 👍

That too, but I tend to have trouble figuring out what story a particular code refers to, whether I've read the story or not.

For example, I was checking that list for "Charles Augustus Milverton" (which I assumed would be coded as MILV), and was surprised not to find it, because I knew there were some disguises in that story.  So I scanned the entire list, and noticed that the disguises I remembered were listed under CHAS -- which isn't even the first four letters of the basic title, but rather a common abbreviation for Charles.  So you kinda need to memorize the codes, which in my opinion limits their usefulness a great deal, making them more of a secret code for insiders only.

When I abbreviate a title, I generally use the most prominent word of it, such as Milverton.  That way everyone who's familiar with the story knows which one I'm talking about.  It takes a bit more space, but I doubt that's often a problem.

[HerlockSholmes]

In the story they begin by not knowing Milverton’s identity. All they had were his initials CAM which would have been a much better abbreviation for the story. I always wondered why, in a Grenada series which aimed to be faithful, did they decide to change the title to The Master Blackmailer?

I agree that some of the abbreviations aren’t great choices.

[Carol the Dabbler]

6 hours ago, HerlockSholmes said:

In the story they begin by not knowing Milverton’s identity. All they had were his initials CAM ....

Really?  I've read the story, but didn't recall that he was first identified as only "CAM."  So that bit of the Sherlock series (at the wedding) was based on canon.

As for why the TV show was called "Master Blackmailer," it's a more explanatory title at least.  I tend to prefer ACD's explanatory titles, simply because I can more easily recall which plot they go with.  He had a habit of naming stories after their settings, though, which I find far less mnemonic.  Nevertheless, I agree that not using the original titles was an odd choice for Granada to make.

[HerlockSholmes]

They did it with the story The Adventure Of The Sussex Vampire which they changed to The Last Vampyre for the series. They had made some changes though......and it wasn’t set in Sussex🙂

[Carol the Dabbler]

They also combined a couple of stories for one episode -- as I recall it was the Three Garridebs and umm, one of the stolen-jewel stories.  They did a pretty good job of combining them, I thought, though it was a real shame that Jeremy Brett was unable to be in that one -- I suspect a lot of people had been looking forward to the "great heart" scene, which was of course totally different with Mycroft.

[HerlockSholmes]

21 hours ago, Carol the Dabbler said:

They also combined a couple of stories for one episode -- as I recall it was the Three Garridebs and umm, one of the stolen-jewel stories.  They did a pretty good job of combining them, I thought, though it was a real shame that Jeremy Brett was unable to be in that one -- I suspect a lot of people had been looking forward to the "great heart" scene, which was of course totally different with Mycroft.

It was The Mazarin Stone Carol. Sadly Brett was ill at the time and schedulers couldn’t wait for him to recover. 

Brett would have played the ‘great heart’ scene to perfection of course (leaving all bias aside😃) We did see glimpses of his more emotional side in the series though. At the end of The Blue Carbuncle he’s genuinely moved by Lestrade’s praise and Then he’s in tears at the end of The Red Circle.

[Hikari]

On 3/22/2019 at 3:39 PM, HerlockSholmes said:

It was The Mazarin Stone Carol. Sadly Brett was ill at the time and schedulers couldn’t wait for him to recover. 

Brett would have played the ‘great heart’ scene to perfection of course (leaving all bias aside😃) We did see glimpses of his more emotional side in the series though. At the end of The Blue Carbuncle he’s genuinely moved by Lestrade’s praise and Then he’s in tears at the end of The Red Circle.

I would have loved to be able to hear Jeremy Brett say, "Watson, say you're not hurt!"  Not to mention, "If you had killed Watson, you would not have left this room alive."

[Hikari]

On 3/21/2019 at 5:07 PM, HerlockSholmes said:

They did it with the story The Adventure Of The Sussex Vampire which they changed to The Last Vampyre for the series. They had made some changes though......and it wasn’t set in Sussex🙂

There's a new Sussex Vampyre in town.  Thanks to this thread I have a new moniker for the Duchess of Sussex, our erstwhile American export to your shores. 

That's good.  I was getting tired of the others . . "Sparkle" . . "Me-Again" . . my own invention of 'Preghan". . . I briefly considered "Markle Stewart" upon hearing that she's promoting eco-friendly organic gardening at Frogmore . ."Sharke", "Farkle" . . I've heard so many.

The Sussex Vampyre works a treat!

[Carol the Dabbler]

2 hours ago, Hikari said:

There's a new Sussex Vampyre in town.  Thanks to this thread I have a new moniker for the Duchess of Sussex, our erstwhile American export to your shores.

Is that a pejorative nickname?  (Just curious, since she seems likable enough from my rather limited info.)