Granada Discussion Post: The Crooked Man
Mar. 9th, 2013 11:54 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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sherlock60Let's talk telly in the discussion post for Granada's adaptation of The Crooked Man. If you haven't seen this episode yet, you can find it at YouTube, Netflix, Amazon Video, and DVD. Follow me behind the jump for my random thoughts and impressions. Please add your own in the comments!
Canon discussion is available in the canon discussion post.
- David Burke is terrific as Watson, isn't he? I've really come to appreciate him so much more this time through these episodes. There's a boyish eagerness to the way he plays Watson that I love. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and you can read every emotion on his face: the sad, pained cringe he gives when Holmes berates Major Murphy, the sympathetic look at Henry before he closes the door at the end, the wide smile for the fellow officer at the beginning. Burke plays his Watson's feelings openly for all to see, and it's perfect.
- Since Granada doesn't involve Mary, the sweet meeting at the beginning of this case in canon is unfortunately lost. Sad, because instead we get Holmes being annoyed and frustrated about the case instead of excited by it and the prospect of working with Watson again. Jeremy Brett's Holmes complains that he doesn't have any interest in the military like Watson does, that he feels dragged out to Aldershot, that the slowness of Murphy's explanations is intolerable. He is angry here, nearly bitter. It's an interpretation of the character of Sherlock Holmes that is fairly common, but one that strikes me as wrong given the canon. He can be angry, and he is often short, inconsiderate, and easily frustrated, but he's not as pointlessly mean and cruel as he is often portrayed in adaptation. Brett doesn't always play Holmes this way, but in this particular case especially, he does, and it seems wrong.
- Random question: when Holmes detects Henry's footprints out through the window and across the field, why isn't he can't see that the man is crippled? He can only walk with great difficulty. Seems like that awkward gait would be visible in his footprints. Maybe I'm expecting too much, even out of the Great Detective.
- I enjoyed watching a little bit of Henry's magic show. As a lover of magic through time and history, it pleases me to see him do the cut rope trick, a bit of slight of hand that has been performed for centuries.
Canon discussion is available in the canon discussion post.
- David Burke is terrific as Watson, isn't he? I've really come to appreciate him so much more this time through these episodes. There's a boyish eagerness to the way he plays Watson that I love. He wears his heart on his sleeve, and you can read every emotion on his face: the sad, pained cringe he gives when Holmes berates Major Murphy, the sympathetic look at Henry before he closes the door at the end, the wide smile for the fellow officer at the beginning. Burke plays his Watson's feelings openly for all to see, and it's perfect.
- Since Granada doesn't involve Mary, the sweet meeting at the beginning of this case in canon is unfortunately lost. Sad, because instead we get Holmes being annoyed and frustrated about the case instead of excited by it and the prospect of working with Watson again. Jeremy Brett's Holmes complains that he doesn't have any interest in the military like Watson does, that he feels dragged out to Aldershot, that the slowness of Murphy's explanations is intolerable. He is angry here, nearly bitter. It's an interpretation of the character of Sherlock Holmes that is fairly common, but one that strikes me as wrong given the canon. He can be angry, and he is often short, inconsiderate, and easily frustrated, but he's not as pointlessly mean and cruel as he is often portrayed in adaptation. Brett doesn't always play Holmes this way, but in this particular case especially, he does, and it seems wrong.
- Random question: when Holmes detects Henry's footprints out through the window and across the field, why isn't he can't see that the man is crippled? He can only walk with great difficulty. Seems like that awkward gait would be visible in his footprints. Maybe I'm expecting too much, even out of the Great Detective.
- I enjoyed watching a little bit of Henry's magic show. As a lover of magic through time and history, it pleases me to see him do the cut rope trick, a bit of slight of hand that has been performed for centuries.
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Date: 2013-03-10 01:53 am (UTC)Another change Granada made in the Crooked Man, I think is really for the worse. In the story, Henry and Nancy meet under a streetlamp, but Granada makes them meet in the crowded Mission Hall instead, probably because it was much easier to shoot the scene there, rather than outside at night. Seems to me it's one of the times when they deviated from Canon, without really any good reason. However, it does set up one of the best scenes in the episode, where Fiona Shaw delivers the "A promise is...a promise" line. Unfortunately, the drama of it was a little lost on me the first time I re-watched the episode, because it was there that the penny finally dropped and I said "OMG! That's Aunt Petunia!
I also love to watch Jeremy Brett in this episode while he zooms about over the lawn, looking for clues. Actually, there are very few times that I don't enjoy watching Jeremy Brett in these early episodes, but I digress.
This is not one of my favorite episodes and I can't really say why, because it's very well done, the scenes in India are exciting (I keep expecting Michael Caine to show up), but somehow the parts don't add up for me. Maybe it does have something to do with the 'offness' of Brett's portrayal of Holmes.
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Date: 2013-03-10 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-10 08:10 pm (UTC)Trivia factoid of the day: TMWWBK also featured Gary Bond, who was Jeremy Brett's main squeeze for several years.
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Date: 2013-03-15 12:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-15 12:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-16 05:18 pm (UTC)