Sherlock Holmes and the Sign of Four (1987)

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

I could do a multi-franchise-spanning treatise on everything Sherlock Holmes but I really think these deserve scrutiny each in their own right. Sherlock Holmes films have been made since the very first year the motion-picture camera was invented in 1900 with the 30 seconds long “Baffled”. Along with Tarzan and Dracula, Sherlock Holmes is one of the most reprised characters in cinematic history.

To purposefully sit down and watch every last bit would be an undertaking I’m not up to. Godzilla may have 39 entries so far but Sherlock Holmes trumps that by almost double (including The Great Mouse Detective and an episode of Murder She Wrote) and some of those installments are whole series! I’ve collected quite a bit of it and I’ll see them when I see them and write them up when I write them up. Not a big deal.

Of all the people to play Holmes I’ve seen thus far, Jeremy Brett is my favorite. He’s so dapper! He dons the typical hunting cap occasionally but most of the time he’s in a silk opera hat. Fancy! Brett has Holmes’ character down perfectly too. He’s marvelous to watch.

Jeremy Brett as Holmes. Superb!

I read the complete works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and maybe I’m going crazy, but I’d swear there are some recurring tropes. One of these tropes is the inclusion of someone with a wooden leg. The other trope is the involvement of a little person. It’s no mystery that both these tropes are in the Sign of Four.

Holmes himself says when you rule out all probable possibilities, the remaining possibility is the solution no matter how improbable. Now if it weren’t for improbabilities, stories just wouldn’t be stories. Mysteries by their nature especially have improbable elements or else they’d be easy to solve and would therefore be uninteresting to the reader.

I used to know a woman who seemed almost Sherlock-Holmesian when it came to detecting extramarital affairs, until I realized she believed literally everyone was guilty of extramarital affairs. Suddenly it was less impressive on the rare occasion she turned out to be correct.

So I have to wonder, if a man goes around assuming every mystery involves a person of diminutive stature partnered with a man of odd-numbered appendages, should we be impressed by the three or four stories where he’s actually correct?

Secondly, how hard is it really to detect this sort of thing? Tiny footprints are found next to the unmistakable prints of a peg-leg everywhere Holmes goes! And they’re always filthy! Filthy enough to leave black footprints on a Persian rug! I’m not so sure I am as impressed with Holmes powers of observation and deduction as I am impressed with the sheer obliviousness and stupidity of the people around him! Holmes should be able to ask random people on random street corners if they’d seen two incredibly dirty miscreants limping through town, blow-darting passersby left and right, and he would get the answer he’s looking for. “Yes, I seen ‘em! Blow-darted me mum and popped into the pub there for a pint, they did!”

Okay, I’m being an idiot just for the fun of it. I’m sure some Holmes aficionado is clutching her blue carbuncles right now. I know these tropes aren’t THAT prevalent. It may happen twice if that. I know there was a “ginger dwarf” in the first Robert Downy Jr. Sherlock Holmes film. It’s far more probable I’ve just seen more than one version of The Sign of Four and I can’t remember one from the other.

The thing I love about Sherlock is you often get to know who the perpetrator is, right from the start. The wonder is in seeing Holmes deduce what you already know to be right. What you don’t get is their motivation. That story is told after the accusation and usually takes up the whole third act. In this The Sign of Four does splendidly well. We are whisked off to far away lands and surrounded by treacherous secrets. It’s almost like an episode of Indiana Jones at that point. Thoroughly exciting and I can’t wait to see the other films in Jeremy Brett’s Holmes repertoire.