Over the weekend, I took part in the Great Sherlock Holmes Debate,
a fund-raiser for Stepping Stones School (located at Undershaw, former home of
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), and Happy Life Children’s Home in Kenya. You can watch
it all on You Tube.
Each of us was to defend our favorite interpretation of
Sherlock Holmes in 90 seconds. Here’s my pitch for Basil Rathbone:
If you ask Sherlockians of a certain age how they first
encountered Sherlock Holmes, a large number will say it was through watching
Basil Rathbone movies on TV.
For me, it’s a different story. I read much of the Canon
before I ever saw a Rathbone movie. And when I did, I was shocked at the imbecilic
Watson and the non-Canonical plots. So, my love of Rathbone’s Holmes has
nothing to do with nostalgia. I think his interpretation is the best for the
following reasons:
· First, he looks
like Sherlock Holmes. That is, he looks like those iconic Sidney Paget
illustrations.
· Second, he sounds
like Sherlock Holmes. That’s why other actors who took over the part on
radio tried to sound like him. And that’s why his voice is the voice of Sherlock Holmes in The Great Mouse Detective.
· Third, he acts
like Sherlock Holmes. He is – by turns – hyperactive, superior, sardonic,
didactic, supremely confident, and sometimes even self-critical. These all are
characteristics of the Holmes that we know from the Sacred Writings. And, unlike
some actors who assumed the role after him, Rathbone never overplays the part. Not
for him the strange facial twitches or the manic leaps.
I’ll give the final word to Vincent Starrett. He wrote in
the 1960 edition of The Private Life of
Sherlock Holmes that Rathbone “has given us a believable, an unforgettable
Holmes.” More than half a century later, Basil Rathbone’s Holmes is still
unforgettable.
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