 | Low budget but good fun
rating: 4
"The Case of the Cunningham Heritage" is the ONLY time the legendary first meeting of Holmes and Watson has been put on film, and "The Red-Headed League", "Shoeless Engineer" ("Engineer's Thumb" made less gory) and "The Pennsylvania Gun" ("Valley of Fear" without the boring flashback) are ALL based on Doyle. So wasn't "The French Interpreter" but that's not in this set. Ronald Howard played Holmes in a likeable way, while H. Marion Crawford was an excellent Watson, and both are closer to the ages Holmes and Watson really were when they first met. The prints could be cleaner, but they're better than what's turned up on local TV stations and come in a nice package. Let's hope they put out the remaining episodes to complete the series. Watch for Michael Gough in "The Perfect Husband" and Natalie Shafer in "The Shy Ballerina".
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wonderful!
rating: 5
These episodes could certainly use restoration. I didn't give this set five stars for the condition of the episodes. It's too bad they don't look and sound better. This series also doesn't strictly follow Doyle's stories, but I must admit that I absolutely loved watching this. It's fun! I had a blast!
I very much enjoyed the performances of the key actors who played Holmes, Watson, and Lestrade. It's really a delightful little show. I had a wonderful time viewing these episodes and wish they would release the entire series.
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Excellent portrayal of both characters!
rating: 4
Ronald Howard was one of the more-as-Doyle-wrote-it portrayals of Holmes there was (appearance-wise, that is; in the canon, he was a superb violin player, but the TV series indicated that he was lousy - a weak attempt at humour? But that's the writer's fault.) It was nice seeing a Watson of the appropriate age (30s rather than a fat blob in his 50s or thereabouts).
The plots were relatively simple (what can you do in a half-hour show) but entertaining.
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The fake detective. But THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT!
rating: 1
This series was produced by Sheldon Reynolds and filmed in France apparently for an American TV audience of 1954-1955. "Holmes" is portrayed by Ronald Howard (son of Leslie Howard), completely out of character from the more classical renditions, decidedly not intellectually convincing. Howard Marion Crawford portrays Watson who, in one of the few negative pluses in this series, is not the boob depicted by Nigel Bruce and drives most of these episodes. Lestrade is somewhat credibly portrayed by Archie Duncan.
The complete Sherlock Holmes repertoire has almost 60 episodes, 38 or so filmed with Jeremy Brett, still leaving a substantial number unfilmed. Don't look to this series to fill any gaps. This reviewer has nothing against faked (not Doyle-created) Sherlock Holmes plots if the story is good. In this case, there are 20 episodes (of an original 39 in this series) which the cover blurb assures us are "loyal to the great Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories." Well, if you think these are Doyle-created or inspired or "loyal" episodes, on even a remotely intellectual par with the original works or some of the TV adaptations of the last 20 or so years, there's a bridge here this reviewer would like to sell you. Only one of these, "Red-headed League" is Doyle's, the basic plot intact except for deficiencies discussed below. The other 19 are stereotyped caricatures having no relationship whatever to any of Doyle's original stories.
What comes to mind as one watches these episodes is crude burlesque. There is no regard for real mystery or quality content. Everything is mock thrills and cheap "entertainment." The "acting" is one-dimensional and grotesquely over-done (and one step removed from evil villains twirling their mustaches and going "heh-heh"). Typically, in "Eiffel Tower" precious minutes disappear showing can-can girls dancing and to hell with "plot" or explanations. After all, THAT'S ENTERTAINMENT! One stinker, "Texas Cowgirl", comes complete with stereotyped "cowgirl;" and insultingly "inscrutable Injun chief" complete with feather bonnet and war paint, squatting in front of a teepee in a hotel room, not "savvying" English, smoking peace pipe and saying "HOW".
Just as one begins to feel one of these charades is maybe of better quality than the rest, Reynolds & Co. uncork a buffoonish ending with the characters hamming it up foolishly with lots of heartwarming feel-good corn, playing to a dumbed-down audience with limited attention-span. But you know what American commercial TV does to just about anything and there's no exception here: a classic example of what still drives such television even today.
By today's standards, the DVD picture and sound are crude. There are occasional lapses, likely by chance, into sporadic good footage from the morass of bad material. Overall these 50-year-old materials show no evidence of re-mastering or cleanup. The black and white image can be very dark in low light scenes when definition is almost totally lost! There are frequent speckles, splotches, jumps, light-level fluctuations, flickers, some hairs or fibers on the lens, something briefly hanging down in front of the camera at one point, and the like. Sound quavers and varies in loudness. The only saving grace (some might say that's no plus) is volume of material for the price (20 episodes at 25 minutes per for a total of 500 minutes). Arthur Conan Doyle certainly had nothing to do with this.
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Largest Ronald Howard Collection Available on DVD
rating: 4
This collection of 5 DVDs contains 20 episodes from the 1954-1955 TV series. I personally like this TV series. Ronald Howard is more personable than most others who have played Sherlock Holmes - more human - but still quirky and particular. In this series, he seems to enjoy being smarter than the other characters, but he does it with more of a sense of humor, rather then being obnoxious about it. Like any TV series, some episodes are better than others, but I found them all enjoyable. The episodes contained in this collection are:Disk 1
-Laughing Mummy
-Texas Cowgirl
-Perfect Husband
-Reluctant Carpenter Disk 2
-Shoeless Engineer
-Singing Violin
-Royal Murder
-Shy Ballerina Disk 3
-Tyrant's Daughter
-Thistle Killer
-Pennsylvania Gun
-Baker Street Bachelors Disk 4
-Neurotic Detective
-Red-Headed League
-Vanished Detective
-Night Train Riddle Disk 5
-Eiffel Tower
-Jolly Hangman
-Cunningham Heritage
-Diamond Tooth The last 10 episodes of this collection (as listed above) were previously released by Madacy in a 2-disk set (ASIN B00006FDAB).
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