The Five Orange Pips represents one of the finest examples of Watson's value to Sherlock Holmes and it also provides a hint as to why Watson degenerated into a bumbling fool when Holmes leapt from the page to the screen.

One of the most egregious literary wrongs ever committed was the negligent, if not willful, character assassination of Dr. Watson by the early producers, writers, actors and directors who transported him from the written page onto the motion picture screen, or placed him in front of a microphone for a radio broadcast, and mutilated him beyond recognition in transit.

When John H. Watson, M.D. was introduced to the public in the late 1800s, television and movies were yet to be invented and the only window into his personality was through his own written words: and the words were wonderful.

"It was in the latter days of September, and the equinoctial gales had set in with exceptional violence. All day the wind had screamed and the rain had beaten against the windows, so that even here in the heart of great, hand-made London we were forced to raise our minds for the instant from the routine of life, and to recognize the presence of those great elemental forces which shriek at mankind through the bars of his civilization, like untamed beasts in a cage. As evening drew in, the storm grew higher and louder, and the wind cried and sobbed like a child in the chimney. Sherlock Holmes sat moodily at one side of the fireplace cross-indexing his records of crime, while I at the other was deep in one of Clark Russell's fine sea-stories until the howl of the gale from without seemed to blend with the text, and the splash of the rain to lengthen out into the long swash of the sea waves." FIVE.

Everything we knew of Holmes was written by Watson, "Gregson and Lestrade had watched the manoeuvres of their amateur companion with considerable curiosity and some contempt. They evidently failed to appreciate the fact, which I had begun to realize, that Sherlock Holmes's smallest actions were all directed towards some definite and practical end." STUD.

Watson at 221B Baker Street

In the beginning Watson was the essential ingredient to every Sherlock Holmes Adventure. He was the director, the stage manager, the art director and the script writer who employed with great and masterful aplomb the only tools at his disposal: a pen, some ink and some foolscap. Almost from the first emergence of the filmed adventures, Watson quickly became unemployed, unnecessary and superfluous. What he had previously described through carefully chosen words could now be shown instantly on film without the need for his accompanying commentary. The marvelous soliloquies found in the text were no longer needed to provide a backdrop. Notwithstanding the crude and unskilled first attempts of the early film makers, Watson's role was changed forever. He was no longer needed to set the stage, fill the gaps and provide the background for Holmes performances. The transformation of Watson's role, from that of vital narrator to absurd fool, reached its nadir when Nigel Bruce assumed the part with Basil Rathbone in the Universal Pictures productions beginning in the late 1930s. Perhaps the greatest insult to the true nature of Watson's character, as portrayed by Bruce, was voiced by Basil Rathbone in his autobiography, "In and Out of Character" wherein he said, " There is no question in my mind that Nigel Bruce was the ideal Watson, not only of his time but possibly of and for all time." It can only be concluded by such a statement that Rathbone either was as arrogant as Holmes himself, and he savored the theatrical contrast of a fool in the role of Watson, or he never read the Canon. Wiser students than I have suggested that the purpose in making Watson such an unbearable oaf was to make Hlmes seem all the more clever. We must bear in mind that motion pictures in the 1940s were not particularly sophisticated and artistic content and verisimilitude were much less important than they are today: indeed they weren't important at all.

Audiences wanted entertainment and action, regardless of how silly it was, and they reacted with more visceral enthusiasm when there was a striking contrast between the characters than they did when the lines of demarcation were fuzzy and blurred. Bad guys had to be really bad and wear black; good guys had to be really good and wear white. Watson's being made stupid made Holmes appear all the smarter. What a shame!