Hot Picks
|
|
|
Sherlock Holmes - Das Haus bei den Blutbuchen
episode 6
West Germany 1968
produced by WDR
directed by Paul May
starring Erich Schellow, Paul Edwin Roth, Hanns Ernst Jäger, Katinka Hoffmann, Brigitte Drummer, Karlheinz Fiege, Manja Kafka, Franz Mosthav, Ilse Künkele, Jürgen Schneider, Hans Schellbach, Edith Mill, Elisabeth Trebitz, Elsa Faure
screenplay by Vincent Tilsley, based on the short story The Adventure of the Copper Beeches by Arthur Conan Doyle, music by Rolf A. Wilhelm
TV-series Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes (Erich Schellow), Sherlock Holmes in Germany
review by Mike Haberfelner
|
|
Available on DVD! To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned) |
Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!
|
|
|
Related stuff you might want!!!(commissions earned) |
|
|
|
As Sherlock Holmes (Erich Schellow) and Dr. Watson (Paul Edwin Roth)
are contemplating to get roaringly drunk (really), Violet Hunter (Katinka
Hoffmann), a young gouverness, turns up at their doorstep to seek advice:
She has just been offered a job by Jephro Rucastle (Hanns Ernst Jäger)
and his wife (Brigitte Drummer) to look after their son (Jürgen
Schneider) that sounds just too good to be true, as it pays double of what
her old job does, but she'd have to cut her hair and follow a few other
simple rules, like playing the piano and posing for photos at her
employers' fancies, and only wear certain dresses. Holmes encourages her
to accept the job as he's interested in the meaning of it all. Now the job
itself seems to be alright, but it seems there's a young man (Karlheinz
Fiege) waiting outside the gates to the mansion watching her, and Mr.
Rucastle insists Violet should gesture him to leave. It soon dawns upon
Violet that she ought to impersonate someone else, and she also finds the
maid (Ilse Künkele) is apparently feeding someone in a secret room. She
calls on Holmes and Watson, and Holmes very much agrees with her
deductions. So the next time her hosts go out, she finds a way to get the
maid out of the way, and then invites Holmes and Watson over to
investigate - and they find a secret room where they suspected it alright,
but it's empty. However there's a ladder on the outside, so it seems
whoever-it-was was freed by someone. The Rucastles however only pretended
to go out to spring a trap on Violet who they figure knows to much, a trap
they didn't think through at all though mind you, and in the finale, Mr.
Rucastle is badly mauled by his own mastiff. Now the solution to the whole
case, the woman locked up in the secret room was the rightful heiress to
the Rucastle fortune, and Violet was to impersonate her and then be killed
in an "accident" so the Rucastles could then do away quietly
with the real heiress and get their hands on the inheritance - and yeah, I
don't know either why they just didn't kill the real heiress in an
"accident" rather than creating a silly charade. However, the
young man from before was the real heiress's fiancé who saved her while
Holmes and Watson investigated the house. Last of the Sherlock
Holmes cases starring Erich Schellow in the title role, and sure
one of the livelier ones - even if Sherlock Holmes really doesn't do all
that much here, it's much more up to the leading lady to do all the
footwork, all the investigating, all the deducting, and Holmes only comes
in as knight in shining armour it seems - which in most part is of
course true to the source story. That said, Katinka Hoffmann does give an
engaged performance, while some of the others, especially Hanns Ernst
Jäger's as villain, seem rather stilted. On the plus side then, there's
at least bits of humour in this one, though Watson's constant allusions to
drinking do become a bit tedious over time. In all though, this one ends
the series on a comparably high note.
|
|
|