Review Date July 28th, 2014 by David Krauss. By creating an account, you agree to the Privacy Policy It begins promisingly enough with Sherlock being offered five pounds to trace six missing midget acrobats and complaining: "That's less than a pound a midget." 9 minute read. Billy Wilder's "Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" may be the most charming of the Holmes films. The trail leads to Scotland, where the Loch Ness monster, Queen Victoria, a group of dwarves, Sherlock’s brother Mycroft and a submarine prototype are embroiled in a bizarre plot. But before the movie is 20 minutes old, Wilder has settled for simply telling a Sherlock Holmes adventure. and the Terms and Policies, It’s all very devious and entertaining, with more heart than earlier cinematic Holmes … It is a fitting tribute to this Hungarian-born film music master on the centennial year of his birth. 3 star rating. Unfortunately, this movie is now unavailable on DVD, and that's a crime. Read the Empire Movie review of Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes, The. A. L. Diamond Billy Wilder StarringRobert Stephens Geneviève Page Colin Blakely Christopher Lee Music byMiklós Rózsa CinematographyChristopher Challis Edited byErnest Walter Production company Compton Films The Mirisch Corporation Phalanx Productions Distributed byUnited Artists Release date 29 October 1970 3 December 1970 Running time … So what? Please enter your email address and we will email you a new password. Conceived as a three-hour roadshow but shorn of an hour by its disenchanted director prior to its release, Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) in its 125-minute form was met with mixed reviews and tepid box-office. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. All rights reserved. If you love Holmes, and who could not, then The Private Life of the master detective will be second only to Doyle's public life of Holmes and Watson. B illy Wilder's endearingly romantic The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is back in a new print and it's worth seeing just for Alexandre Trauner's sets, especially a magical Baker Street. Director: Billy Wilder. The TV Homages of WandaVision are an Amusing, Unfulfilling Distraction, On the Disempowerment of Promising Young Woman, Entertaining 30 Coins Examines Depths of Evil with Style. And it's been one of my favorites since I first saw it as a kid on the Big Screen in 1971. A wonderful, cruelly underrated film. There are also some sly innuendoes about his relationship with Dr. Watson, introduced solely to be disproved (Sherlock, you'll be glad to learn, is satisfactorily hetero in the Wilder version). Write a Review. Billy Wilder's "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" is disappointingly lacking in bite and sophistication, the first two qualities we'd expect from the director of "The Apartment" and "The Fortune Cookie." The picture has enough virtues and the flaws are sufficiently interesting for trivia enthusiasts that The Private Lives of Sherlock Holmes is worth dropping in on for a relaxing two hours. Before the movie is 20 minutes old, Wilder has settled for simply telling a Sherlock Holmes adventure. It is an absurd premise for sure, and one with a twist ending almost too bizarre for words, but I can't help but love this movie. Time Out says. Reviews. Yet it doesn't feel like the work of a dyed-in-the-wool Sherlock buff. and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. I read all the Sherlock Holmes stories when I was 10 or 11, feeling a sense of sheer delight when Holmes and Watson lounged away the evening in the upstairs rooms in Baker St., and a cab appeared out of the night, the rain and sleet, depositing at their door a visitor with a bloody handkerchief and a strange tale to tell. But a year or so ago, rereading a dozen or so Holmes cases, I made a melancholy discovery: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle really wasn't very good at constructing devious plots. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Yes, it's "revisionist," but Wilder obviously loved the characters, and it shows. Directed by Billy Wilder. That film would be, perhaps, his most personal…THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES, a three hour extravaganza designed as a final masterpiece from one of cinema’s most eloquent story tellers. (1) Customer rating. Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, The (1970) review. Of all the 'old man directors', Wilder is the only one to embrace the spirit of the new Freedom of the Screen, creating sexually motivated characters without lapsing into exploitation. The film is still enjoyable enough, with good support from Christopher Lee as Holmes' brother Mycroft and a criminally brief appearance by Irene Handl as Mrs. Hudson and it is the performances throughout that maintain the interest. Wilder's after something more profound than a simple mystery tale here and to a large extent he succeeds in his quest to cast the man in relief when held up against The Legend. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. Reviewed in the United States on June 26, 2014. THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES is a Limited Collectors Edition offering the World Premiere of the complete score. Verified Purchase. It takes Holmes about half an hour longer to solve the case than it takes us, and poor Watson never catches on. Miklos Rozsa's score for "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" has been released before as a re-recording which was very good and well put together. Watch carefully, and you'll discover that the loose ends are never tied up, and the case ends without being solved (and with no one, apparently, noticing). Don't have an account? Copyright © Fandango. The photography of the lush Scottish landscape is beautiful and the scenes … 5.0. The central mystery -- concerning the Loch Ness Monster -- is less rewarding, and its shaggy sea-monster solution somewhat less than that. Sidney Poitier’s 7 Most Memorable Performances, All Harry Potter Movies Ranked Worst to Best by Tomatometer. It could be considered a pastiche, even a deconstruction of the character, while being a more than passable romp on its own terms. One of the cornerstone books in any serious Sherlockian bookshelf, and my copy is personally inscribed by Otto Penzler. A. L. Diamond Billy Wilder Written byI. THE FILM. Stage actor Robert Stephens brilliantly plays Holmes with a nod and a wink. The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. The fun of a good detective story isn't in the solution, anyway, but in the complications. Takes us, and it shows on the Big Sleep, '' which is so complicated that Chandler does. 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