Elementary

I caught Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in a 1959 Hammer production of The Hound of the Baskerville’s recently. The plot is jiggered from the original novel, but I thought Cushing was the best Sherlock Holmes I’d ever seen. He certainly had thin, ascetic physicality, with its suggestions of fanaticism; arrogant and abrupt personably, unlikable in many ways, as Holmes certainly was (but the supposedly most authentic Holmes, right down to the manic depressiveness, as played [lived?] by Jeremy Brett in the 1984-94 British version imported by PBS, fails to capture me), yet still a hero. It was also nice to see Dr. Watson (played by the not-known-to me Andre Morell) in good form, too.

This in light of the preview I saw of the new Sherlock Holmes movie, with Robert Downy Jr. Now, I like Downy Jr., but this preview was aimed for the what-a-bunch-of-maroons crowd that most blockbusters and blockbuster-wannabees are aimed for. It was non-stop action, with what one presumes are all the best lines, and some very un-Doyle T&A (not that Victorianesque dishabille fails to move me), so I hope it is inaccurate.