Between 1984 and 1994, two thirds of the Sherlock Holmes stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle were adapted for TV by Granada Television, a British television company. Their screenplays stayed reasonably close to the stories, too, only changing what needed to be changed to adapt a written story to a visual medium. Sherlock Holmes was played throughout all episodes and the feature-length films by Jeremy Brett who has ruled supreme as Sherlock Holmes in the minds of many viewers ever since.
I was a preteen when the TV series aired in Germany (having been born in 1974) and so Jeremy Brett became very much the third Sherlock Holmes I ever saw (following Basil Rathbone and Christopher Lee, the latter in a British-German co-production playing very loose with the characters and stories).
I suspect that I only ever saw a handful of the episodes, since I can’t remember much past the second season from re-watching them on DVD recently. The explanation, upon checking the series on Wikipedia, can of course be that the first two seasons were produced in the early eighties whereas the last two seasons were produced about ten years later. Be it as it may, I only got a glimpse of sorts at Brett’s delivery of the character then and have never looked at the series again until quite recently.
Yet, Brett held a certain place in my heart, albeit not the one he should have held. I was probably around eleven by the time the first season aired in Germany, so it was a long time ago. I know I liked it - otherwise, I hardly would remember it any longer. There’s a lot of TV series I loved at that time I can’t even name these days. I can still remember this one - albeit I do remember some things wrong.
Part of this has come from me being a preteen and this being a series for adults. There are things in the episodes which are pretty obvious and clear to me now which I just couldn’t quite understand then.
Brett’s portrayal of Sherlock Holmes was just a muted memory at the back of my mind until recently - other actors taking on the role overshadowed him for one reason or other. Peter Cushing, for instance, who played Sherlock Holmes in one of my favourite versions of “The Hound of the Baskervilles” (and in a BBC series which predates Brett’s). Basil Rathbone, of course, whose movies run every now and then during the holiday season. I was pretty taken with Christopher Lee as an actor for quite a while as a teen (still am, he was a very fine actor and amazing person), so I also revisited his turn as Sherlock Holmes in the aforementioned movie (he is also in Hammer’s “The Hound of the Baskervilles”, playing both Sir Henry and Sir Hugo Baskerville alongside Cushing’s Sherlock Holmes).
One important thing about Brett’s interpretation is that it was long before the idea of the ‘asshole genius’ took off ground. For those of you who are not aware of this trope - in a lot of modern TV shows and movies, very intelligent characters (Sherlock Holmes, Dr. House, Sheldon Cooper, and countless others) are shown as being very brash, abrasive, often outright assholes. It’s suggested that both traits - genius-level intelligence and antisocial behaviour - are somehow connected.
Brett’s Sherlock Holmes is not like that. He’s a reserved gentleman who will not immediately project his feelings for everyone to see, but he’s not an inhuman, robotic computer, either. His interactions with Watson are those of two men who have been sharing rooms for a while - they are friends and they interact like friends do, teasing each other, bickering a bit, arguing every now and then, but being comfortable in each other’s presence as well. He is polite, friendly, and kind towards his clients, especially if the clients happen to be women or a little on the helpless side for other reasons. He can also be harsh towards people, but that side is rightfully reserved for the culprits of the stories.
This fits very well with the way Doyle presents Holmes, through Watson’s eyes, in the stories. Doyle was a man of his time and the same goes for Mr. Holmes, who clearly didn’t grow up the right way to show emotions openly. Even though he clearly does eschew quite some social rules of his time, pushing the Bohemian angle of his character - perhaps to annoy his brother Mycroft - he can’t help being the person he is. He might also simply be a reserved person by nature. Doyle himself would certainly not subscribe to the ‘asshole genius’ interpretation.
After dropping the first DVD into my DVD drive, I was very surprised by Brett’s interpretation of the character and had to belatedly agree with other people online who had been claiming Brett did the best Sherlock Holmes for a long while already.
I don’t think he did the only good interpretation of Sherlock Holmes, of course. Johnny Lee Miller plays a very good modern Holmes in “Elementary” and I was a fan of “Sherlock” until the fourth season (yes, even all throughout “The Abominable Bride”). Christopher Lee has played both Mycroft and Sherlock Holmes rather well. Peter Cushing did a very good Sherlock Holmes, both in the Hammer movie and in the BBC series. Michael Caine playing an actor playing Sherlock Holmes is still cracking me up whenever I watch “Without A Clue”; and Ben Kingsley did a great Dr. Watson who was the real detective and had to play at the bumbling assistant while coaching Caine on the solution of the case.
Yet, Brett has given a wonderful performance as well and I will certainly honour that from now on. I do enjoy the series episodes and I surely do enjoy the feature-length movies. He’s definitely far ahead of many more modern versions of Sherlock Holmes - honestly, stop doing the ‘asshole genius’. That trope has had its time, put it to rest and give us a more human Holmes - and a few other geniuses who don’t think they need to be horrible to other people to show their intelligence.
Watch the series with Jeremy Brett (there is a marvellous full collection for a reasonable price around, so you don’t have any excuses not to) and learn from it. Make Sherlock Holmes Great Again!
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