Sherlock Holmes and the case of the silk stocking begins in 1903 with an endless whirl of fog (or is it smog?) engulfing London day after day. This provides the perfect cover for an unknown killer to commits his misdeeds and Holmes is called in to stop him. Unusually for a Sherlock Holmes villain this killer appears to be ritualistic and have a sexual motive for his crimes, something that wasn't really possible to publish at the time A. C Doyle was writing his stories. The fog also acts as a literal metaphor for the mystery surrounding the plot.
The setting of 1903 enables the writers to bring the story a little more up to date, we see Holmes use a telephone in one scene, the old telegraph no longer features in this story. Holmes also places great importance on the use of fingerprinting to catch his killer. Watson's American fiancé is also a woman written to appeal to modern audiences, she gives her husband John orders, insists on first term names, suggests a whisky and Soda for Holmes before adding that she will take one too. In the next scene she's then seen smoking a cigarette while unblushingly discussing sexual perversions in criminal cases. As the story goes on though she disappears and it instead becomes about the boys saving the damsel in distress from the killer.
This story does get more into the psychology and psychological profiling involved in detective work, in the original stories Holmes tended to concentrate more on physical clues and rarely seemed interested in asking why a criminal is a criminal. He would usually refer to the criminal class as one single term which covered every form of crime with the kind of thinking men like Francis Galton freely used at the time. Holmes' brilliance from what I remember was in his minute knowledge of particular subjects such as poisons, the geography of London, bicycle tyres as well as a general ability to make astute logical deductions.
In this story Lestrade is portrayed quite well as a gruff, down to earth detective, he's probably the most human of the characters, he could be dropped right into the 21st century and it wouldn't feel wrong. Sherlock Holmes is portrayed quite faithfully from the original source material, it's probably the adaptation where they've most strongly empathised the sexiness of the character, there's one part where he's dressed in a tuxedo looking a bit like James Bond in the night. Despite his charm and good looks in this he still retains that element of chilliness occasionally surfaces. There's something for the women on the screen with Rupert Evertt looking very suave and cool in each scene and something for the men with the story centred around a group of very young women who spend most of the runtime in revealing outfits for some kind of ancient Greek play they are rehearsing.
The Edwardian period holds a special place in British History, rightly or wrongly it's seen as a golden age in the country's history. The fact that this story focuses on Belgravia and high society in London rather than the slums means that the audience is treated to some rather lavish production design, full of glamorous costumes, elegant furniture in beautiful homes full of artwork and decorations. The nostalgia people have for this time is difficult to over stress, the top hats, steam trains, foggy streets, gas lamps, fireplaces, horse and carriages, grandfather clocks, afternoon tea and an empire the sun never set on.
Another thing this gets right is the relationship between Holmes and Watson, there's a slight element of comedy to it, with Watson getting drawn into doing Holmes bidding when he really should be getting ready for his own wedding. Watson is not just a companion in the story either, like a dog who just follows his master around all day but is of no practical use to a single task when you're honest about it. In this story Watson does a bit of investigating of his own and the information he gathers proves vital, he's also something of the man of action too at the end.
On the negative side there's just a few, I cringed when Holmes says "Elementary my Dear Watson." I was half expecting him to be wearing his deerstalker and smoking his pipe when that line came out. The ending and the revelation is pretty far-fetched and implausible. Lastly the fact that Holmes not once but twice sets a trap that fails and leads to the killer being able to abduct another victim starts to make Holmes look a bit clueless, no pun intended... The abduction too where the killer allows his victim to leave because his ritual has been messed up doesn't really make any sense unless the killer has an exceptionally low IQ which clearly he doesn't. Once the victim has seen the killer's face and could identify him there's no way that the killer can just release the victim, it makes no sense to me.... Also I'm not sure if the writers know or understand just how tightly ingrained social class was back in this time, it asks us to believe that a working-class man is able to socially interact with upper-class ladies, when even a middleclass man wouldn't really have been able to do so. The Pickwick Papers contains a passage written by Dickens of how the Bath footmen liked to secretly pretend that the young ladies they served were in love with them, as the book makes it clear though this can only ever be a fantasy and it rather cruelly mocks them for daring to dream otherwise.
The setting of 1903 enables the writers to bring the story a little more up to date, we see Holmes use a telephone in one scene, the old telegraph no longer features in this story. Holmes also places great importance on the use of fingerprinting to catch his killer. Watson's American fiancé is also a woman written to appeal to modern audiences, she gives her husband John orders, insists on first term names, suggests a whisky and Soda for Holmes before adding that she will take one too. In the next scene she's then seen smoking a cigarette while unblushingly discussing sexual perversions in criminal cases. As the story goes on though she disappears and it instead becomes about the boys saving the damsel in distress from the killer.
This story does get more into the psychology and psychological profiling involved in detective work, in the original stories Holmes tended to concentrate more on physical clues and rarely seemed interested in asking why a criminal is a criminal. He would usually refer to the criminal class as one single term which covered every form of crime with the kind of thinking men like Francis Galton freely used at the time. Holmes' brilliance from what I remember was in his minute knowledge of particular subjects such as poisons, the geography of London, bicycle tyres as well as a general ability to make astute logical deductions.
In this story Lestrade is portrayed quite well as a gruff, down to earth detective, he's probably the most human of the characters, he could be dropped right into the 21st century and it wouldn't feel wrong. Sherlock Holmes is portrayed quite faithfully from the original source material, it's probably the adaptation where they've most strongly empathised the sexiness of the character, there's one part where he's dressed in a tuxedo looking a bit like James Bond in the night. Despite his charm and good looks in this he still retains that element of chilliness occasionally surfaces. There's something for the women on the screen with Rupert Evertt looking very suave and cool in each scene and something for the men with the story centred around a group of very young women who spend most of the runtime in revealing outfits for some kind of ancient Greek play they are rehearsing.
The Edwardian period holds a special place in British History, rightly or wrongly it's seen as a golden age in the country's history. The fact that this story focuses on Belgravia and high society in London rather than the slums means that the audience is treated to some rather lavish production design, full of glamorous costumes, elegant furniture in beautiful homes full of artwork and decorations. The nostalgia people have for this time is difficult to over stress, the top hats, steam trains, foggy streets, gas lamps, fireplaces, horse and carriages, grandfather clocks, afternoon tea and an empire the sun never set on.
Another thing this gets right is the relationship between Holmes and Watson, there's a slight element of comedy to it, with Watson getting drawn into doing Holmes bidding when he really should be getting ready for his own wedding. Watson is not just a companion in the story either, like a dog who just follows his master around all day but is of no practical use to a single task when you're honest about it. In this story Watson does a bit of investigating of his own and the information he gathers proves vital, he's also something of the man of action too at the end.
On the negative side there's just a few, I cringed when Holmes says "Elementary my Dear Watson." I was half expecting him to be wearing his deerstalker and smoking his pipe when that line came out. The ending and the revelation is pretty far-fetched and implausible. Lastly the fact that Holmes not once but twice sets a trap that fails and leads to the killer being able to abduct another victim starts to make Holmes look a bit clueless, no pun intended... The abduction too where the killer allows his victim to leave because his ritual has been messed up doesn't really make any sense unless the killer has an exceptionally low IQ which clearly he doesn't. Once the victim has seen the killer's face and could identify him there's no way that the killer can just release the victim, it makes no sense to me.... Also I'm not sure if the writers know or understand just how tightly ingrained social class was back in this time, it asks us to believe that a working-class man is able to socially interact with upper-class ladies, when even a middleclass man wouldn't really have been able to do so. The Pickwick Papers contains a passage written by Dickens of how the Bath footmen liked to secretly pretend that the young ladies they served were in love with them, as the book makes it clear though this can only ever be a fantasy and it rather cruelly mocks them for daring to dream otherwise.