The Eligible Bachelor (1993)

So much average

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Fantastic!

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

I have decided to stop evaluating these episodes because they fly in the face of the Holmes canon. This one is about a marriage between a young woman and her ne'er-do- well fiancé, who has had a series of conquests, each involving a death or disfigurement or annulment. Each has one thing in common. It pads his wealth, which he quickly dissipates. Holmes has had trouble sleeping. He has a recurring dream with strikingly horrible visions. The episode starts to fall apart when the dreams connect to reality. Conan-Doyle's character was incredibly critical of anything but deduction and fact. Here he moves in and out of a dream world. Several other factors enter in, including the sought after revenge of one of the previous conquests. There is a leopard running around loose and a man who shows up at the wedding. There are a few entertaining moments and visually the special effects are reasonable. But it doesn't seem to work. It's also hard to watch Jeremy Brett in the latter stages of his life, in the kind of distress we see here.

This final Sherlock Holmes film from Granada Television is disliked by many fans but I might be among the few who enjoyed it. In fact, in my mind it is an under-appreciated production. It is absorbing from beginning to end. It is powerfully directed by Peter Hammond with superb acting and scripting. The film is one of the few outings from the Granada series that invites multiple viewings.During the early nineties Granada started producing Holmes films that were loose, expanded versions of short stories with "The Master Blackmailer" and "The Last Vampyre".This film is also an overextended adaptation. It is based on the story called "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor" but even purists would admit that it was one of Arthur Conan Doyle's lesser tales. This film improves what was a mediocre story by turning it into dramatic feature-length film.This film is rather unconventional for a Sherlock Holmes film or mystery movie. T.R. Bowen's script is solid but it requires patience and careful attention. It gradually reveals interspersed clues where the viewer and Holmes eventually put together. Some might find this storytelling approach irritating but it keeps you thinking all the way until the end. This also adds pretensions that you would not see from Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories as this film suggests something spiritual beyond the rational thinking that Holmes himself is known for. Its script has elements of nightmares, premonitions, freundianism, etc. The acting is excellent. Jeremy Brett gives one of his best performances as Sherlock Holmes. He was certainly ill at the time the film was made but it only benefits his acting as Holmes in this film is in fact suffering from trauma. Edward Hardwicke continues to make a dignified and intelligent Watson. Simon Williams is strong as Lord Robert Simon and Paris Jefferson is splendid as the beautiful Henrietta Doran. Anna Calder-Marshall is also good in a dual role as Agnes Northcote and young Lady Helena (who incidentally is the wife of David Burke, the actor who played Watson in the Granada series before Hardwicke).The atmosphere in this film is also top-notch. You could say this is the most cinematic of Granada's Sherlock Holmes films. Peter Hammond's direction is superb if not brilliant in creating the film's Gothic, bizarre nature. He skillfully blends visual and audio during Holmes surreal dreams as well the echoing noises that can be heard as Holmes walks through streets of London during the night. It is also has great close-ups particularly with the moment where Doran looks into the eyes of the Jaguar. Set direction is rich in particular such as with the look of Lord Simon's secret mansion known as Glaven, which turns out to be full of empty rooms, cobwebs, and torn furniture. The Eligible Bachelor is certainly weird, off-putting, and uneven but it is far from being rubbish. It's oddities are part of what makes it unique and different from so many other Sherlock Holmes films. This film is definitely not for the Holmes purists. However, casual viewers (like myself) who enjoy watching Sherlock Holmes but aren't exactly Sherlockians should enjoy it just fine.

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.

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.