Shinwell Before Using

(by Dean Richardson)
Cryptic title? Elementary, really. (Or preschool.) This column is going to be an alert (and at times a warning) about new and forthcoming releases of a Sherlockian nature, and my canonical name is Shinwell Johnson.

Some of this information will be a rehash of notes I have sent out recently, but there are several new items as well. Enough of preliminaries and caveats.

Perhaps of prime interest is the release in June and July of the newest set of BBC/Brett Holmes on DVD, The Return of Sherlock Holmes. That series is just as strong as The Adventures and should more than compensate for the frequently disappointing "Sherlock Holmes Feature Films" set released earlier in the year. There are five disks, released separately in June and July and then in a box on August 26. The contents are: volume 1 ("The Empty House" and "The Abbey Grange"), volume 2 ("The Second Stain" and "The Six Napoleons"), and volume 3 ("The Priory School" and "Wisteria Lodge"). Then on July 29 come volumes 4 ("The Devil's Foot," "Silver Blaze," and "The Bruce Partington Plans") and 5 ("The Musgrave Ritual" and "The Man with the Twisted Lip"). The box of five (sounds like an apocryphal story) will be released on August 26 for $60. Unfortunately there are no Paget illustration galleries this time.

You should also know about the mid-July release of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970), Billy Wilder's fine pastiche. Originally four stories united by theme, it was also nearly four hours long, and Wilder was forced to cut two of the stories and rework the rest. What remains is still great fun and even moving, but what could it have been? Among the extras on the DVD are reconstructions of the two missing stories. Only the sound of one survives, and only the visuals of the other, but they are presented in such a way as to give you a sense of the original. I love this format.

On a less exalted plane, but of equal curiosity for me at least, are three Arthur Wontner Holmes films made in England in the Thirties that have just been released on the budget DVD label Alpha Video: The Sign of Four (1932, although the case says 1934), The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1934, although . . . 1935), and Murder at the Baskervilles (1936, although . . . 1937). Actually, that last was originally titled Silver Blaze. Murder . . . is the American release title, and the dates given on the cases are from the American releases. Also, none of the films is as long as the case indicates, suggesting these were abridged for their original run here. Add to that poor prints with atrocious sound, and you have a fairly resistible set. Still, the films are scarce on this side of the Atlantic, and the DVDs are just $8 (OK, I'll give in to marketing and say $7.99). And I, never having had the opportunity to see them before, enjoyed them.

As far as I know the only place they are available locally is at Borders, and you may have to special order them (Borders only carries one copy of each). On the other hand, there's always Amazon.com. For that matter, there are several online sources that might offer any of these titles at better prices, such as Deep Discount DVD (web site ) and DVD Planet (web site).

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