The Sign Of Four: A Unique Take On Sherlock Holmes
A short review of Sy Weintraub’s duo of Sherlock Holmes movies from 1983
In 1983 American producer Sy Weintraub produced two Sherlock Holmes films intended to be the first of a series of 6 TV movies of the most popular stories. Weintraub was at the time best known for his moody Tarzan thrillers which reimagined the jungle hero as a brooding American loner. Weintraub would take a much similar route when writing Holmes.
The first of the two films The Sign Of Four introduces us to Ian Richardson (House of Cards) as a jovial, inquisitive and adventurous Sherlock Holmes conducting an experiment where a machine made from a bellows ‘smokes’ several cigars at once so he can study their ashes.
Watson, played in the first film by American polo player David Healy, challenges Holmes to a test of his brainpower which Holmes aces and then in stumbles their beautiful young client.
The case itself is exciting: Holmes’ client has been mailed a giant diamond and an invitation to meet a man who will tell her why she is a ‘wronged woman’, the man turns out to be the Indiophile son of her father’s murderer, whose own father was killed by a one-legged man. When his older brother is also killed by a poison dart he is the one arrested and Holmes sets out to…
