Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady [VHS]

Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady [VHS]
by Peter Sasdy

Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady [VHS]

List Price: ~~$14.98~~
Category: VHS Video
See more movie releases

Buy Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady [VHS] at Amazon.com

(Click here)

Buy this VHS video movie at online store in your country
Canada

Product details

Actor: Christopher Lee, Engelbert Humperdinck (II), John Bennett, Morgan Fairchild, Patrick Macnee
Director: Peter Sasdy
Edition: VHS Tape
Audio: English (Original Language), Analog
Format: Color, NTSC
Running Time: 122 minutes
Release Date: 1992-05-20
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Publisher: Lions Gate/Vestron
Studio: Lions Gate/Vestron

VHS Movie Reviews of Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady [VHS]

Movie Review: Morgan Fairchild's not bad, but edited version is a MESS
Summary: 2 Stars

Bob Shayne (the writer) panned his own movie, which should give you an idea of just how terrible the (very badly edited) version is. By his own account, the script was changed in several critical places which messed up the plot and an actor with a key supporting role literally walked out in the middle of the production. And _then_ some geniuses decided to cut over a third of the movie out for home-video release. Result; a Wood-style (as in Ed Wood, Jr.) slumgullion. On the other hand, the movie has just been released to DVD in its full-length version along with its companion piece ("Incident at Victoria Falls"); I bought it last weekend and, while still not terrific, the movie/miniseries is now at least coherent.

I like Morgan Fairchild and think she did OK as Irene Adler (she looks terrific in Edwardian costume), but it's the outstanding Christopher Lee and Patrick Macnee (neither of whom need any introduction) who make even the edited version endurable as Holmes and Watson. Even all the other reviews that've panned this movie have good things to say about the Lee/Macnee team!

Movie Review: Avoid, avoid, avoid!
Summary: 1 Stars

If you're like me, and love seeing new or new-to-you Sherlock Holmes movies, please do not be conned into viewing this one; it's a real spirit-breaker.

Even at two hours, the film is an hour too long, and yet it still feels like it takes five hours to watch. As the previous reviewer commented, the editing down of the four hour mini-series is atrocious, ham-fisted, and done with no skill whatsoever. This results in huge gaps in the story that make no sense when the characters refer to a previous event that wound up on the cutting room floor.

There are few if any examples of Holmes' methods, and even Lee seems tired and bored with the proceedings. Patrick Macnee serves as an okay Watson, but he too seems bored with the whole thing. Morgan "Old Navy Chick" Fairchild ranges from alright to downright hammy as Irene Adler, and one wonders why such a young-ish babe would be hot for the grandfatherly-by-comparison Lee. Engelbert Humperdinck seems in search of "The Love Boat", the show he probably thought he was going to be guest starring on when he found himself in this insult to Sherlockia instead.

And as for the mystery, you simply will not care who did what or why because the movie will cast you into a somnambulic state long before the first twenty minutes elapse. If by some miracle your brain can struggle out of this movie-induced torpor for but a moment, all you can think of to say is, "End, movie! END!" Purgatory could not last any longer than this movie, unless in Purgatory they make you watch this movie twice.

A certain professor of mathematics, known to the followers of the world famous consulting detective, must surely have been at work here in an evil attempt to denegrate the hallowed name of Sherlock Holmes!

Avoid like Richenbach Falls!

Movie Review: see the other listing.
Summary: 5 Stars

This is the same film as the other video you have listed by this title. See my review there.

Movie Review: A completely incomprehensible mess based on a lovely idea.
Summary: 1 Stars

I originally wrote the four hour miniseries (with considerable help from British author H.R.F. Keating) as "Sherlock Holmes and the Merry Widow," and in it Irene Adler was starring in a Vienna Opera Company production of "The Merry Widow" when she and Sherlock Holmes meet up once more. I used various subplots from "The Merry Widow" as subplots for the actors/singers performing in the produciton, so that the effect was that these people were having affairs, etc., in real-life that reflected those in the opera they were performing. Also the subplot between Holmes and Sigmond Freud concluded with a scene on a fast moving train in which Freud gives Holmes a Rorschach test in which all the words Freud shouts out remind Holmes only of famous clues in his famous cases. The main subplot had Holmes and Irene meeting each other again and exploring their dysfunctional relationship with the help of Freud, and finally getting it on! The main mystery -- a spy story -- was based very loosely on Conan Doyle's "Bruce Parkington Plans." Soon the production company discovered that "The Merry Widow" was still under copyright. So they changed the operetta the cast would be performing to "Der Fledermous." So now we had the cast of "Der Fledermous" living out subplots from "The Merry Widow." Then the company moved the production site from Budapest to Luxenbourg where they have no old-fashioned looking trollies, so the most important sequence from the "Bruce Parkington Plans" had to be dropped. Then Englerbert Humperdink walked out midway through shooting, so his subplot stops halfway through. Then the brilliant director refused to edit and include in the final film the scene where Freud adminsters the test to Holmes, so that the Freud subplot leads nowhere and that key scene is missing in the Holmes-Irene love story. The mini at four hours was an abomination. But if that isn't bad enough, the company hired someone without the slightest interest in coherence to cut the mini down to a two-hour video. The end result is completely incoherent, the worst piece of filmmaking I've ever seen. Even Ed Wood couldn't have equalled it.

However, the same year another miniseries was made in Zimbabwe called "Sherlock Holmes and the Incident at Victoria Falls" that worked, even though the script (also by me) wasn't nearly as good as this one started out to be. A vastly better director and a vastly better set of locations made all the difference in the world. I'd recommend you get that one instead. -- Bob Shayne

Write your own review

Mystery Video

Video Genres

Movies most talked about in Mystery Video

To Catch a Thief [VHS]
Paramount; Release date: 1998-01-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $4.98
Price in other shops: ~~$9.95~~

The Glass Key [VHS]
Universal Studios; Release date: 1992-03-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $26.95

Lord Peter Wimsey - Five Red Herrings [VHS]
Acorn Media; Release date: 2001-02-06; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $44.90
Price in other shops: ~~$59.99~~

Brother Cadfael Series 1 Box Set: The Sanctuary Sparrow, One Corpse Too Many, Monk's Hood and The Leper of St. Giles [VHS]
Acorn Media; Release date: 1999-09-11; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.26
Price in other shops: ~~$59.99~~

Murder on the Orient Express [VHS]
Paramount; Release date: 1998-02-13; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $8.01
Price in other shops: ~~$14.95~~

Spartacus (Widescreen Edition) [VHS]
Universal Studios; Release date: 1997-09-09; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $2.99
Price in other shops: ~~$14.98~~

The List of Adrian Messenger [VHS]
Universal Studios; Release date: 1994-01-12; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $44.95

Soldier's Sweetheart [VHS]
Paramount; Release date: 2001-04-03; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $156.99

Laura (1944) [VHS]
20th Century Fox; Release date: 1998-03-03; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $18.40

8 Million Ways to Die [VHS]
20th Century Fox; Release date: 1998-01-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops: ~~$19.98~~

Similar Video, DVDs, Audio CDs

Sherlock Holmes: Incident at Victoria Falls [VHS]
Lions Gate/Vestron; Release date: 1992-02-19; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $25.00