Canon Discussion Post: Silver Blaze
Mar. 24th, 2013 01:31 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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sherlock60Welcome back, everyone! Let's have some canon Sherlock Holmes discussion, shall we? What did you all think of Silver Blaze? As always, I've written up a few of my own random thoughts and questions, which are behind the jump. Add your own in the comments!
Discussion about the Granada adaptation of Silver Blaze is available in this week's Granada discussion post.
- There is so much to love about Silver Blaze. The case itself is interesting, with an interesting setting in the world of horse racing and a fun investigation leading to one of the best reveals of the culprit in canon. Holmes and Watson are both at their best here, cleverly working together, mutually complimentary as they each use their talents to uncover the clues and the truth. They're just wonderful together, and we get one of the best images in canon as Holmes explains the case in the train car. The Paget illustration for it, with Holmes walking his fingers across his palm and Watson leaning back with his cigar to listen, is my favorite.
- Lion-maned Inspector Gregory doesn't have the imagination, as Holmes says, to make the logical leaps necessary to reach the proper conclusions about the case, but he does a good job investigating despite that. He has an idea about the criminal, but realizes his evidence is only circumstantial. He protects the crime scene from footprints, he preserves shoes from all the suspects and victim (even the horse!), he properly identifies what the cork in Straker's pocket was for, and he even has a picture of Straker ready at hand the instant it is requested. Holmes respects him enough to take his word about part of the search, and gives him well-deserved praise at several points along the way. All in all, good show, Gregory!
- 37 pounds 15 shillings = 22 guineas = WAY too much for a dress. As we learned elsewhere in canon, even a Stockbroker's Clerk like Hall Pycroft only makes about 200 pounds in a year. So even for someone working in finance, that dress would have been the equivalent of about two months salary. Wow. I wonder how much John Straker was pulling down as a horse trainer. Could it possibly have been enough to support two wives (official or otherwise), particularly when one clearly has outrageously expensive tastes? Was he supplementing his salary in other ways to keep up? What did he try before he came to sabotage? How long has this double life been going on?
- Holmes taking down Silas Brown is delicious. He crushes the blustering bully's soul. What did he say to him behind those closed doors, and perhaps more importantly, how did he say it to make Brown cower so meekly once they reemerged? Sherlock Holmes can be a very intimidating man when he chooses to be. He enjoys putting people in their place. Even his own client Colonel Ross gets taken down a notch for his "trifle cavalier" manner and used as a tool for Holmes' ample amusement.
Comment away and join us next week for The Beryl Coronet!
Discussion about the Granada adaptation of Silver Blaze is available in this week's Granada discussion post.
- There is so much to love about Silver Blaze. The case itself is interesting, with an interesting setting in the world of horse racing and a fun investigation leading to one of the best reveals of the culprit in canon. Holmes and Watson are both at their best here, cleverly working together, mutually complimentary as they each use their talents to uncover the clues and the truth. They're just wonderful together, and we get one of the best images in canon as Holmes explains the case in the train car. The Paget illustration for it, with Holmes walking his fingers across his palm and Watson leaning back with his cigar to listen, is my favorite.
- Lion-maned Inspector Gregory doesn't have the imagination, as Holmes says, to make the logical leaps necessary to reach the proper conclusions about the case, but he does a good job investigating despite that. He has an idea about the criminal, but realizes his evidence is only circumstantial. He protects the crime scene from footprints, he preserves shoes from all the suspects and victim (even the horse!), he properly identifies what the cork in Straker's pocket was for, and he even has a picture of Straker ready at hand the instant it is requested. Holmes respects him enough to take his word about part of the search, and gives him well-deserved praise at several points along the way. All in all, good show, Gregory!
- 37 pounds 15 shillings = 22 guineas = WAY too much for a dress. As we learned elsewhere in canon, even a Stockbroker's Clerk like Hall Pycroft only makes about 200 pounds in a year. So even for someone working in finance, that dress would have been the equivalent of about two months salary. Wow. I wonder how much John Straker was pulling down as a horse trainer. Could it possibly have been enough to support two wives (official or otherwise), particularly when one clearly has outrageously expensive tastes? Was he supplementing his salary in other ways to keep up? What did he try before he came to sabotage? How long has this double life been going on?
- Holmes taking down Silas Brown is delicious. He crushes the blustering bully's soul. What did he say to him behind those closed doors, and perhaps more importantly, how did he say it to make Brown cower so meekly once they reemerged? Sherlock Holmes can be a very intimidating man when he chooses to be. He enjoys putting people in their place. Even his own client Colonel Ross gets taken down a notch for his "trifle cavalier" manner and used as a tool for Holmes' ample amusement.
Comment away and join us next week for The Beryl Coronet!
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Date: 2013-03-24 04:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-24 06:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-24 06:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-03-26 01:51 pm (UTC)And yes, we're fortunate Granada's creators had the smarts to amend this so the story actually makes some amount of horse-racing sense. :)
On the subject of horse racing
Date: 2013-03-25 04:20 pm (UTC)The English Illustrated Magazine called Isonomy “one of the most remarkable racehorses of the century”.[23] By the time of his second Gold Cup he was being described as "undoubtedly the best horse of late times" and as "one of the grandest and apparently most invincible Cup horses that ever trod the turf." The Sportsman called him "the best horse ever bred in England." John Porter, who trained the winners of twenty-three classics, including three Triple Crowns, regarded Isonomy as the best horse he ever trained. (Wikipedia).
Fitzroy Simpson asked the stable lad "Is it a fact that at the weights Bayard could give the other a hundred yards in five furlongs and that the stable have put their money on him." If that was true, Silver Blaze would hardly have been a favorite in the betting. A furlong is 1/8 of a mile, or about 220 yards. if Bayard could outrun Silver Blaze by 100 yards in a distance of 1100 yards, SB wouldn't have shown much class. 10 lengths or so would have been a much more reasonable margin, even if Bayard was a speed horse being used to set the pace.
Re: On the subject of horse racing
Date: 2013-03-26 01:54 pm (UTC)