Sherlock Holmes & The Leading Lady and Sherlock Holmes & The Incident at Victoria Falls

This What I Watch I review is going to be fairly brief.

I recently watch the early 90’s Sherlock Holmes mini-series out of Canada, Sherlock Holmes & The Leading Lady and Sherlock Holmes & The Incident at Victoria Falls. These starred Christopher Lee as Holmes and Patrick McNee as Watson.

The best thing about these two min-series was Patrick McNee as Watson. He played Watson as the intelligent doctor he was in Doyle’s stories, not the comic relief as often used in movies.

Other than McNee there isn’t much else to care for in these productions.

Which is a shame, I have wanted to see these for a long time, as I am a huge Sherlock Holmes fans.

The scripts and characterization are very weak. The acting is atrocious, with Morgan Fairchild being a particular offender.

The production values are almost non-existent, even for a Canadian production. It feels like these were lensed on an early camcorder. Many scenes are flat and lifeless, and some are foggy. It seems like these were more of a stage play, then epic television Mini-Series events.

Then there are the audio problems. Massive audio problems. Most of the dialog doesn’t match up with who is speaking, giving these the feel of old school badly dubbed 70’s Hong Kong Martial Arts flicks.

Just sad.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
You would think that Christopher Lee and Patrick McNee together could salvage these two Holmes stories, alas they were unable.

RATINGS: 3

BLONDIE Film Series

Oh, Boy. Sometimes watching something is just a mistake, a bad mistake.

Not too long ago I bought a bargain bin $5 DVD of the Blondie films from the 1930’s/40’s, based upon the Blondie comic book strip. There are ten films on the 2-disc set. I have since learned to buy nothing put out by this company.

I was feeling like some comedy, and I like the current Blondie strip, so I popped in the first disc to watch at least one film Tuesday night and  . . .

Wow, was it bad. I’m not talking the lackluster, slightly fuzzy print either. I’m talking the film. It wasn’t a comedy, it was just dumb. Dagwood is completely stupid and inept, and even Blondie is presented as dimwitted, and then the kid. Geez.

The stories were terrible. I couldn’t make it through the first film in the series, so I skipped to the second. Then I skipped to the fourth. After a few minutes of that I popped in the second disc and put on the tenth film in the set.

It was just as bad as the first.

I know the Blondie strip was different back then, but I doubt they presented everyone as an idiot. I also know that stories need to be fleshed out a lot to adapt a strip to film. Still, while wildly successful in their day (a few dozen where made) they don’t hold up.

FINAL THOUGHT:
The films are not fun as they should be, just dumb.

RATING: 2