In 1949, Alan Napier starred as Sherlock Holmes in The Speckled Band.  Yes, this is that Alan Napier, the one who assisted Adam West’s Batman as his butler Alfred Pennyworth, but you can rest assured that he doesn’t need help from a man in a rodent mask to solve this mystery!

ALAN NAPIER as SHERLOCK HOLMES

This episode is from an American anthology drama series called Your Show Time, that’s presented and partially-narrated by Arthur Shields (with sponsored advertising from “Lucky Strike”, hence Shields lighting up every time the camera is on him).  Shields plays the part of a bookshop owner, who’s telling us about some of the stories he’s read.  The Speckled Band was, apparently, a trial episode for a possible series that didn’t come about.  Other episodes in this series were, presumably, not Sherlock Holmes stories.

THE SPECKLED BAND

This version is a fairly authentic adaptation of the Conan Doyle original The Speckled Band.  It requires Holmes to do a certain amount of detective work and deduction, although it’s perhaps not as well filmed as other versions.  For example, the mystery and the deduction is done better in the Raymond Massey 1931 version.  However, this is a well presented version.

Dr Watson is almost non-descript, but at least he’s not too much of a bungler.  Any bumbling is done for comic effect (like having the monkey land on his shoulder twice, and we hear the large cats sniping at him as he climbs in through the window).  The limitations of a TV studio present themselves in two obvious places (one is the hole in the wall, which surely is in the wrong wall?; and the other is a snake so rubbery it could have been used in Kinda).

Napier makes for an effective and inoffensive Holmes, and it would have been nice to see further adventures to see his take on the character in more detail.  Nevertheless, The Speckled Band is, like The Copper Beeches (reviewed elsewhere), a Conan Doyle original that doesn’t involve demon hounds so, in that respect at least, it’s worthy of adding to anyone’s Sherlock Holmes collection.