Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962)
Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962)
DVD5 | ISO+MDS | PAL | 4:3 | 720x576 | 6900 kbps | 4.4Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps
01:27:00 | France, Italy, West Germany | Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
DVD5 | ISO+MDS | PAL | 4:3 | 720x576 | 6900 kbps | 4.4Gb
Audio: English AC3 2.0 @ 192 Kbps
01:27:00 | France, Italy, West Germany | Crime, Drama, Mystery, Thriller
Legendary Baker Street sleuth Sherlock Holmes (Christopher Lee) takes on the evil Moriarty again when the mad doctor goes after a priceless necklace which once belonged to Cleopatra.
Director: Terence Fisher
Cast: Christopher Lee, Hans Sцhnker, Hans Nielsen, Senta Berger, Ivan Desny, Wolfgang Lukschy, Leon Askin, Edith Schultze-Westrum, Bruno W. Pantel, Heinrich Gies, Bernard La Jarrige, Linda Sini, Roland Armontel, Danielle Argence, Franco Giacobini, Waldemar Frahm, Rena Horten, Max Strassberg, Thorley Walters, Corrado Annicelli, Pierre Gualdi, Kurt Hain
Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962)
Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962)
very difficult to watch German Holmes film.
Christopher Lee is excellent in a role he wanted to play throughout his life (returning to it late in a couple mini-series) - this despite the fact that his voice was unnecessarily dubbed by someone else. He plays the great detective as an intense young crime-fighter with wit and chutzpa.
The problems are the script and direction. The story is too convoluted, in a manner familiar to anyone who has suffered through other German mysteries of the same period, such as the Dr. Mabuse films. This was a Germany still dealing with the fact that they had a murderously criminal government only two decades previous - consequently there is considerable suspicion of the police in these films, evil seems omnipresent, the moral center is hard to find. A similar atmosphere, for completely different reasons, crept into British popular culture only in the 1970s, appearing in a British Sherlock Holmes film only in "Murder by Decree."
But the German film also suffers from the evident fact that the director can't decide whether he wants to make a Sherlock Holmes film or a Sherlock Holmes parody - there are all sorts of misfired jokes and bits poking fun at a "Sherlock Holmes superhero" image that doesn't really exist - a problem for other directors who have tried spoofing the detective, including the great Billy Wilder. The fact is, Doyle was careful NOT to make his hero an 'Uebermensch,' just a closet Nietzschean - a common romantic British type of the day.
Finally, all existing prints I know of are in shoddy condition.
Worth a view, especially for Holmes fans, but sub-par for this sub-genre of mystery film.
~ winner55
IMDb
Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962)
Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962)
