Cult TV Blog

...With Peter Cushing as Holmes, that is. I have been watching Sherlock Holmes a Game of Shadows while it has rained interminably today, & I can only call myself unimpressed. I have just realised how watching mainly or only classic TV sensitises one to CGI. The aura of unreality it imparts works in some films, but not for Holmes. It's also no use turning Holmes into an all-action figure: the whole point of turning to Holmes on the winter evenings is that it takes the reader or viewer to a Victorian London of hansom cabs & fog, a different pace. Holmes should go slow, & the all-action approach blunts his intellect. With my love for all things weird I did love the scene with the tarot cards. This Holmes, however, has everything that is missing from the film. I feel Holmes is better filmed in a small-screen way, anyway. This one has the atmosphere, the feeling of stepping into a different world. It has been many decades since most English-speakers have read Holmes as a ...

Image: a drawing by Ronald Searle of Holmes's rooms at the Festival of Britain. Credit: here. ) This post is about the 1968 BBC series, rather than the earlier Hammer film with Cushing as Holmes. Oh dear, within a space of about a month Peter Cushing has become 'my' Doctor Who, & he has now completely usurped Basil Rathbone as 'my' Sherlock Holmes. No pressure there, then. Nor yet the slightest hint of a monopoly. I didn't actually know he'd played Holmes until I found the boxed set in a charity shop today. I have a personal history with Holmes. I read the Conan Doyle stories when I was very young - certainly before the age of ten. At the time I thought him wonderful & would model myself on him. The one guaranteed way to get me to do something then would be to tell me Sherlock Holmes would do it. As I've got older my native cynicism has caused Holmes's repute to be overshadowed in my estimation by a more grown-up & certainly contempor...

The apostrophe is actually on the opening titles to the film, which I'm relieved about, because it's made what's turned out to be a really good film to have a much less cumbersome title. The apostrophe, however, is not present on the original posters for the film that I've seen on tinternet. This film is based on another William Hartnell adventure, although one I haven't seen, & I'm not even sure if it survives. This one got a critical & popular thrashing, when it came out in 1966. Apart from one major plot weakness, I personally think it is better than the first daleks film. Its plot is rather elementary: any film that begins in a waste land is going to go one two ways, & each of these two films goes one of the two ways. In the case of the present one, all's well that ends well. One thing is becoming more apparent for me as I watch this film several times, purely to blog about it: for me film is Doctor Who's milieu. The grander scale ...

The film, that is, the critically-slated & never-mentioned film starring Peter Cushing as The Doctor. I've already blogged about the TV version of this show ( http://culttvblog.blogspot.com/2014/01/doctor-who-daleks.html?m=0 ) & on re-reading that post am delighted to find I liked it more than I thought I did. One of the things I notice about my Doctor Who posts is I don't seem to be able to get into the sort of relentless grinding detail in which Doctor Who is often discussed on the internet. I'm not sure why, I'll probably come to a reason at some point. But for the moment imy main feelings about this film both flies in the face of the fans' & critical opinion & is also very short: I think this film version is *better* than the TV version. <Ducks to avoid the cabbages thrown from the wings>. I found myself repeatedly thinking as I watched it, 'This is the filmic treatment that Doctor Who really needs.' Don't get me wrong - I...