cinema history class: a study in terror

Keith's film class in the basement continues with week two of our Sherlock Holmes session. This time it was A Study in Terror (1965), starring John Neville and Sherlock Holmes. Not counting the stupid Sherlock Holmes episodes of Star Trek the Next Generation*, this was my second exposure to the Holmes character. The first was a week prior, when Keith showed us the 1959 production of The Hound of the Baskervilles.


Short answer? I loved this film.


Study isn't a horror  movie; it's more of a crime drama/mystery. In the discussion afterwards, I said it seems to me like a krimi, though I don't really know what exactly that genre entails. Keith seemed intrigued by that observation, though he explained that the krimis typically involved criminal plots that were more complicated.


The key to why I enjoyed this movie is that it was well-paced and riveting. Like any good mystery, it had me guessing the whole time. In addition, there were some good comedic moments (including Sherlock's scene with his brother Mycroft -- who was admirably portrayed by Robert Morley). And since this was a restored version on blu-ray disc, the color was wonderful.


As an aside, I note that a lot of this movie seemed like it was right out of  Oliver! In fact, during a couple of the bar scenes I kept expecting Georgia Brown (who was playing the role of the singer) tyo start belting out "Oom-Pah-Pah" And a couple of times I thought I was looking at Bill Sikes. And, who knows? Maybe that association played a role in my enjoying the film. Oliver! is one of my favorite musicals -- the Broadway soundtrack is one of the records I associate with my childhood, and I played Fagin in my sixth grade class production. My apologies to the curious: that performance is not available on Youtube.


As I noted in a prior post, I wasn't crazy about the 1959 Hammer version of Hound of the Baskervilles, so I actually had low expectations going into this. But this helped restore my faith in the possibilities of Sherlock Holmes. Even if the character is an a-hole.


*Data, the android, had an obsession with Holmes. Data was the most annoying regular on the show (with the possible exceptions of Picard, Riker, Troi, La Forge and Wesley Crusher). But that's another matter.