Very disappointing...

Powerful

Best movie ever!

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

"Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace" is, among the twenty- something films by Terence Fisher that I have seen, one of his less accomplished works. A bit better than the boring "Night of the Big Heat", this is a production with motivations I don't fully understand: for a start I do not know why they decided to make a Sherlock Holmes movie starring Christophe Lee in German (although there is an English language version, the official version is in German, which is the one I opted to watch), with Lee's real voice absent in all versions. Then I cannot reason why in 1962, with moneys coming from German, French and Italian production companies, they decided to shoot an adventure movie in black and white. The decision seems even more uninspired given the uneven quality of Richard Angst's cinematography, ranging from attractive expressionistic images (as the scene where Holmes saves his life using a police whistle) to flat compositions (as the Baker Street apartment). Maybe the budget was low, but they had several names in the cast that were not highly expensive, but neither cheap to hire. And thirdly there is not a well-defined concept of what they wanted to do: producers, composer, writer and director seem to point into different directions. The German producers probably assumed it as one of the many cheap detective movies they were making by the dozen, composer Martin Slavin opted for a playful score, writer Curt Siodmak kept loyal to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's three main creations (Holmes, his nemesis Moriarty and his mate Dr. Watson) and Fisher… well, he had to keep everything going. However it would be unfair to deny that there are a few hints that suggest the intention of making some kind of photo-novel or a black-ink-on-cheap-white-paper comic book, and that would explain why the filmmakers could not care less what language characters spoke, the anachronisms (the more obvious being ladies' hair styles), Slavin's jingling-jangling cues, extensive use of maquettes, and a few disheveled art direction and wardrobe decisions, starting with the key prop, a very ugly and cheap looking necklace that supposedly once adorned Queen Cleopatra's neck. I am also sure that Lee never wore an uglier costume in his entire long career than the horrendous checkered suit he wears in the countryside sequence. The actor does his best as Doyle's creation (obviously not imagining the estrangement that dubbing would produce, resulting in an involuntary Brechtian effect of rejection to his participation in the movie), so we tend to go for the villains, played with gusto by Hans Söhnker as Moriarty and Leon Askin as his chauffeur-assistant Charles. But what we see is what we get, so we better not complain. We are warned very early into the film that we are going to watch a rather sloppy product, when the same shot of a longshoreman working on dock is repeated twice within minutes. Compared to this, Fisher's next project starring Pat Boone is a masterpiece.

very difficult to watch German Holmes film.Christopher Lee is excellent in a role he wanted to play throughout his life (returning to it late in a couple mini-series) - this despite the fact that his voice was unnecessarily dubbed by someone else. He plays the great detective as an intense young crime-fighter with wit and chutzpa.The problems are the script and direction. The story is too convoluted, in a manner familiar to anyone who has suffered through other German mysteries of the same period, such as the Dr. Mabuse films. This was a Germany still dealing with the fact that they had a murderously criminal government only two decades previous - consequently there is considerable suspicion of the police in these films, evil seems omnipresent, the moral center is hard to find. A similar atmosphere, for completely different reasons, crept into British popular culture only in the 1970s, appearing in a British Sherlock Holmes film only in "Murder by Decree." But the German film also suffers from the evident fact that the director can't decide whether he wants to make a Sherlock Holmes film or a Sherlock Holmes parody - there are all sorts of misfired jokes and bits poking fun at a "Sherlock Holmes superhero" image that doesn't really exist - a problem for other directors who have tried spoofing the detective, including the great Billy Wilder. The fact is, Doyle was careful NOT to make his hero an 'Uebermensch,' just a closet Nietzschean - a common romantic British type of the day.Finally, all existing prints I know of are in shoddy condition.Worth a view, especially for Holmes fans, but sub-par for this sub-genre of mystery film.

I really loved the screenplay and the plot of the story but the acting,especially on the part of Moriarty,wasn't very convincing.True,Christofer Lee as Holmes was very good(except for the deerstalker hat and cloak on the country side looked like the costume from the ballet "The Great Detective)and this is the film that truly captures the image of Watson:at first reculant to Holmes' theories(like the scene where he wants Watson to attack him with a dagger while he's armed with a new instalment of the Times)but soon realizes the absolute genius of it.Another thing,this story is completely cannon!!! *****SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!********* Moriarty is not captured at the end which means this could be set after The Valley of Fear and before The Final Problem(even though in this,he says he has never heard of Moriarty but is completely aware of him in the Valley of Fear. ********************************** Again the rest of the cast was hammish and Moriarty was truly god awful but still a good film and a good subject for a remake.8/10

In this movie, Christopher Lee delights us with a very convincing impersonation of the greatest detective of them all (he would later have another go at playing Sherlock Holmes in two made-for-television movies from the late 1980s.) Thorley Walters is also perfect as his friend and associate Dr Watson. The film has not much in common with director Fisher's previous stab at the myth THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLE (also featuring Christopher Lee, not as Holmes), and is not as successful. The picture is reminiscent of the silent films made in the first decades of cinema, a fitting atmosphere for a Sherlock Holmes adventure. The original version is supposed to be a complete mess as far as the sound is concerned (according to Lee in his autobiography), but the French dubbed version is pretty well done. Accompanied by a surprisingly jazzy score, here's an enjoyable enough movie, in an old-fashioned kind of way.