filmandcinemapuritans

THE ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES SMARTER BROTHER

Being a Gene Wilder fan (see the archive for my blog on Gene Wilder), I like finding his more obscure and forgotten films. SHERLOCK HOLMES being one of them. Wilder plays Sigerson Holmes, Sherlock’s very bitter brother. Sherlock sends Sigerson a message through a policeman named Orville Stanley Sacker (played by the hilarious Marty Feldman), about a case that Sherlock needs “help” with. This leads to some great madcap adventure that is actually pretty funny. My criticism is this though; Gene Wilder wrote and directed the film so this may be the cause for this, and the character of Sigerson is not a constant character. We’re not sure if Sigerson is to be considered a genius or a blundering dolt. Wilder has many instances of where Sigerson is doing very smart things such as pinpointing songs in a musical, figuring out key evidence. In fact one of the things that Sigerson states is that his more famous brother is named “Sure Luck” instead of Sherlock.  However on the other hand he does some foolish things like putting a whole box of chocolates in his mouth to cover up being discovered stealing them and over thinking a simple code where Marty Feldman points out that it was a code that kids use. The juxtaposition is never right, he’s never a complete idiot like Peter Sellers character in the PINK PANTHER films and he’s not a brain like. ..Sherlock Holmes.

            However, this film does have some actual genuine laughs that actually made my guffaw very loudly. Dom Deluise is in the film as well and does a terrific job as an Italian Opera singer and the always-wonderful Madelyn Kahn is charming in the film.

            The only thing missing in the film though is that Sherlock and Sigerson never actually confront each other, just subtle hints of Sherlock’s presence, it almost feels as if Wilder shot a lot more stuff with Sherlock but had to cut it out to maintain it’s ninety minute running time. Great film with great laughs though.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS