The Blue Carbuncle

The Christmas broadcast of "The Blue Carbuncle" (Dec. 23, 1968, completed on the 16th) brought this 16 episode season of Holmes adventures to a close, with the detective trying to avoid recovering the title object, a stolen gem belonging to Lady Morcar (Madge Ryan), until it practically falls in his lap after being swallowed by an edible goose: "it laid an egg after it was dead!" The holiday festivities feature prominently in the story, providing the motivation for the rather surprising denouement, which finds our fabled detective 'compounding a felony' for a good cause. As always, Peter Cushing is a delight, in his largest role in any of the surviving episodes; his performances hardly showed any signs of the hurried schedule rejected by previous Holmes Douglas Wilmer. Alas, he would go on to play the role only once more in the 1984 telefilm "The Masks of Death," opposite Sir John Mills (his co-star in 1954's "The End of the Affair") as a warm and serious Watson.

This is Holmes Christmas story, where a thief steals a priceless stone from a rich woman, and, to avoid suspicion, feeds it to a goose in a pen. Unfortunately, that goose falls into the hands of a man with a police record and he is arrested. This is pretty much true to the original story and moves quickly. I enjoyed Holmes' occasional outbursts.