The Eligible Bachelor

Trailer—The Eligible Bachelor

source: The Eligible Bachelor

One can only assume that the producers of Granada's overall fantastic series had become emboldened by its success and reputation, and had decided to show off by the time they came to make this and some of the other feature length stories. Justified though they may be for presuming that they had possibly made the definitive films of Conan Doyle's work, they clearly didn't recognise that Brett is mainly responsible for bringing the mythology so vividly to life. That can be the only explanation for totally illogical sequencing, disorienting camera-work and the altogether odd atmosphere. If they were trying to reflect Holmes state of mind at the time then they went way over the top. How the viewer is expected to accept that Holmes could solve this case while being as confused as they are in trying to figure out just what is happening on screen and in what sequence we are seeing it. Would have been better if this had resolved itself or been shown to be contextually relevant. But by the end it becomes apparent it was just for its own sake. The final scene between Holmes and Lestrade in The Six Napoleons evokes more pathos, conveys more emotion and reveals more surprises while at the same time delivering the familiar more satisfyingly than in the entire duration of this film. Nevertheless, Brett and Hardwicke are great. Always.

This is NOT what I think of when I imagine Sherlock stories, life-long source of enjoyment for me. This was just mean-spirited, with no redeeming factors that I can find, though others might. Simon Williams, was a brute and wastrel and user, not much different than the character he played in "Upstairs-Downstairs" though in that there was less brutishness. This program is a sad decline to a series whose earlier episodes I loved.

I first saw "the adventures of sherlock holmes", those short episodes were intense, and well "dramatized" as they always listed at the beginning of each episode as "dramatized by someone". The same sherlock seemed a little crazy in this show, he seemed like a different person even though it was the same actor. He lost his coolness in this show. It was badly directed, because the storyline did not flow smoothly like those TV episodes in "the adventures of sherlock holmes". I actually was reading a book while it was played on TV. I didn't want to miss anything, but it is not worthy of my complete attention, either.

I read a few of the reviews here before watching this for the first time. I adore Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, and all of the adaptations this company made of the original stories by Conan Doyle. I saw "The Last Vampyre" (not from Conan Doyle) and thought it stupid and silly. So I was prepared to dislike this one, also a late entry in the series. It takes some getting used to. There are odd interpolated scenes that don't seem to make any sense. There are foreshadowings and flashbacks. There are a lot of extreme closeups. There are also brilliantly constructed scenes with impressive lighting effects. It's very non-linear and often puzzling. The overall effect? I'm impressed. All the strange scenes make sense at the end, even granting, upon rational reflection, that the ending is perhaps a bit unlikely. This is a superbly crafted, acted, and presented film. It is a worthy addition to the Canon, and a triumph by Brett and Edward Hardwicke. By all means, give it a shot. Don't be dissuaded by the negative reviews. This is truly a great Sherlock Holmes mystery. henry

This two-hour version of a Sherlock Holmes story that has been embellished with a number of new ingredients and sub-plots taken from other works of literature (most notably, the mad wife from "Jane Eyre"), is an extravagant waste of time for the viewer. I came upon this after the first ten minutes and from then on tried to make sense of the proceedings. This was nearly impossible until I watched at least an hour of it to get to the main thread of the story. Even then, the plot is all over the place with rambling, incoherently staged scenes that seem to lack any sense of continuity. It's as if the editor had a jumbled mess on his hands and didn't know how to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Of course, Sherlock has no such problem. With the thinnest of hints, he manages to solve the entire case using implausible practices. The weird underpinnings of the story are too improbable to bear much scrutiny. Let's just say the settings are fine, the atmosphere proper and the acting is first rate except for Jeremy Brett who seems to be giving his all to an overbaked role that makes Sherlock Holmes look as though he needs a lot of clinical care. Brett looks pale and distraught most of the time, clearly not in the best of health with his asthma hurting his ability to draw his breath at times. Too bad he had to waste so much energy on a badly constructed episode that seemed endless.

Of the three feature length adaptations Granda made of Conan-Doyle's novels (rather than the usual 50 min ones) this was the one that veered the most from the original tale. The original idea of mistaken identity is turned into a surreal gothic horror, with the hero of the original story now a serial murderer and bigamist. Holmes is also turned into a detective with a more tortured soul and what appears to be second sight. The story, however, benefits from this as the original short story was a little bland and boring. Brett rises to the challenge and gives one of his best ever performances, and Simon Callow is suitably suarve and evil as the main protagonist. Generally, a sumptious adaptation, given a 90's polish and reworking!

This dramatization of a short story is stretched past breaking point. Far, far, far too much padding takes place before the story gets started. Even when it does, every scene is dragged out to painful length with no explanatory dialogue so as to make it impossible to comprehend nor actually care for any of the characters. Only Jeremy Brett's usual excellence as Holmes makes this awful mess even slightly worth watching.

*Spoilers* Based loosely off of "The Nobel Bachelor" and "The Veiled Lodger", The Eligible Bachelor comes off as an extremely weird movie. At some points it is uncomfortable watching it. The screenplay, mixing together two quite unlikely stories, is, for the most part, clever and entertaining, but there were several things that were unnecessary. The dream sequence was dumb and came off as some random thing they wanted to put in the film. Holmes needed to stop whining about Moriarty being dead. Lord St. Simon leaving his second wife to rot in a pit did not seem to fit well with the rest of the film. Maybe if we hadn't had those obnoxious nightmares, her situation would have been more shocking. The acting is good. The confrontation between Hettie and St. Simon in the condemned castle is powerful, and the violence is especially grisly. Paris Jefferson and Simon Williams are the standout performances. About a 6.5 out 10.