Ghosts that shine our day!

Sherlock: The Abominable Bride (2016)


Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional character has stood the time. From the time he appeared in the Strand Magazine to the eagerly waiting die-hard fans to read about his next case and the time he was the subject of many movies and TV series, he continues to excite the masses.

Over the years, the stories get only more attractive. This time around, he is trying to solve a century old unexplained murder of two men; one after she had apparently shot herself through her head in a suicide then return to kill another! The complicated thing is that he is doing through a stuporous state of a self-proclaimed regulated dose of cocaine in the system. Holmes is the 21st century, and he goes in and out of consciousness as he tries to find the answer to the perplexing question, how ghosts commit murder? At the same time, he has to fight his arch nemesis, Professor Moriarty, the devious ‘Napoleon of crime’.

The role of Holmes is assumed again by Benedict Cumberbatch, and Martin Freeman is Dr John Watson. Listening to the dialogue, I sense that there is more to it than the rattling off words. Some hidden meanings, perhaps? Just realised that it is the Suffragette movement that fought for the women’s rights in England at the turn of the 19th century.

Every great cause has martyrs. Every war has suicide missions and make no mistake, this is war. One half of the human race at war with the other. The invisible army hovering at our elbow, tending to our homes, raising our children. Ignored, patronised, disregarded. Not allowed so much as a vote. But an army nonetheless, ready to rise up in the best of causes. To put right an injustice as old as humanity itself. So you see, Watson, Mycroft was right. This is a war we must lose.

Nothing beats the pleasure of reading

Dressed to Kill (1946)
Sherlock Holmes can be said to be the first private investigator that the world came to know about. As we read more about him in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's compositions, we discover that he has indeed a dark shady past behind him. This small juicy bits about him and how he deduces the theories to solve his cases cannot be enjoyed merely by seeing some characters acting out what he or the directors thinks happened in the Victorian times and the foggy streets of London and Baker's Street.
Clueless on what to expect to see, our imagination is an excellent composer of our own mythical and mystical platform on how we wish our elitist hero to be portrayed. In this way, our imagination is rekindled again and again to became imaginative and innovative. The idiot box dulls our brain to be a recipient of information which does not leave much to imagination. This is what went through my mind as I watched this old 1946 depiction of our pipe chomping mentalist.
Three identical music boxes are sold off in an auction in London. After the auction is complete, a gentleman barges into the auction office to obtain the whereabouts of the buyers of the music boxes.

Holmes & Dr Watson

Next scene, Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson usher in a rather distraught client, Stinky, who is an acquaintance of Watson. He had been hit by a common thief who scooted off with a cheap music box that he had bought at the auction. Even though there were other pricier music boxes in his personal collection, the thief specifically went for the cheap one.
Holmes with a lot of accidental help from Watson, he cracks the case, as usual. It turns out that the three musical boxes were made by inmates of a prison. The prisoner who was instrumental in the box was a convict who went in for stealing a printing mold of Bank of England's pound note. He had hidden his loot before apprehension and had kept mum about it. The musical notes of the music from the box, when written as the number of key on a piano which correspond to the alphabet and read out a message which would reveal the hiding place of the mold.
The crooks after the box managed to lay their hands on two of the boxes, after a series of mischief, murder and a lovely femme fatale Mrs Courtney to spin the guys around.

Lovely locked modern day Sherlock!

Meet the new 21st century occupant of 221B Baker Street, London. Yes! It is yet another version of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's fictitious crime buster, Sherlock Holmes - 2011 BBC edition.
Thanks to UniFi and BitTorrent, we are not at total dependence for the strewn our way by our unfriendly satellite TV to view new shows.
I just finished viewing the three 1-hour episodes of the entertaining Season 1 series of Sherlock which were released in the UK in 2010. Refreshing, cocky, conceited tenant of Baker Street terrorizing the streets of London doing what the present day CSI team should be doing.  Only this time, the streets of London appear clean and breathable and the London Black Cab is Sherlock and Watson's frequent mode of transport , not hansom cab as in the original Doyle's novel. Also missing are the paraphernalia frequently associated with Holmes- the Sherlock cap and the pipe (Sherlock is on nicotine patch now). I wonder if he is still on dope. Holmes is still the mysterious character frequently in his own world but I did not hear him say, "Elementary, my dear Watson!". Watson is an Army doctor who injured himself in tour of duty in Afghanistan. His injury turned out to psycho-somatic as thought by Holmes and towards the end of the first episode, he was running together with Holmes after the bandit!