DVD Corner!

An unusually stressful month has becoming an unusually stressful week, but I have an escape - the box set of the Ronald Howard 'Sherlock Holmes' TV series.

This tends to be looked down upon in the pantheon of media Holmes. The episodes are short, 20/25 minutes, it was filmed somewhat cheaply in France with limited sets, and the copies that have survived, if any decent copies exist in the first place, have not been served well by some ropey looking DVDs which appear to have been mastered in some cases straight from VHS!

But.... they have some secret ingredients. For starters, Ronald Howard as Holmes and H. Marion Crawford as Watson are excellent in the roles, with great chemistry. Howard's Holmes is a lofty, aloof but chummy character, not at all acidic, and Crawford's Watson is blustery, forthright and prepared to bop evil-doers on the chin at the drop of a deerstalker. More often than not they're joined by Archie Duncan as a Scottish and grumpy Lestrade (who impressively doubles up as a Scottish Laird in one episode thanks to some grey hair dye and a kilt).

The stories are simple, often with a great thriller-type hook, and there's even an internal continuity. The series starts with a sort-of adaptation of the first Holmes & Watson meeting from STUD then straight into 'The Case of the Cunnigham Heritage' - which is then referred to in the next episode when Watson complains to Lestrade that the papers gave him all the credit for solving it! And future episodes often refer to some of these older tales.

The series is available over a multiple different editions, most of them cheaply available. I can recommend the box set from Elstree Hill Entertainment in the UK. Apparently some American DVDs have near-pristine copies of the episodes if you can find those!

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