In the early 1990s, Christopher Lee starred as Sherlock Holmes in two TV mini-series under the umbrella title “Sherlock Holmes – The Golden Years”. In these films, Holmes is on the verge of retirement and is noticeably older than the typical Sherlock Holmes that we see. It makes a refreshing change to see a near-retirement Holmes after all these efforts to do “child Sherlock”.

On the rare occasion these adventures are broadcast on TV today, they tend to be hideously edited to fit in a typical 2 hour slot. The original adventures lasted over 3 hours each, but the televised versions today are around 1h 45m. This means a lot is missing.

Today I watched Sherlock Holmes and The Leading Lady, the first of the two films featuring Patrick Macnee as Dr Watson and, in this adventure, Morgan Fairchild as Irene Adler (the “Leading Lady” of the title).

Set in 1910, the adventure begins with Mycroft Holmes arriving at Baker Street and bullying Holmes into tracking down a stolen detonator and plans.  Holmes and Watson are quickly whisked off to Vienna to question an Ambassador that was involved in negotiations with the original manufacturer of the detonator before it was stolen.  They meet at an Opera House, wherein Irene Adler is starring in Die Fledermaus.

After introductions and initial questions, Holmes meets with Irene Adler after many years. Around this point is the first major cut. Holmes begins investigating a death at the Opera House which happened during a dress rehearsal. He spends the next hour of the adventure investigating this death – only it’s one that we never saw. He’s forever asking people about their movements, but we don’t know anything about them. I’m presuming there’s a massive cut scene of the first death. Seems a bit of a major omission otherwise.

At one point, Watson says he can’t smell anything because of falling in the canal – but we didn’t see that either. Why did he fall in it? What’s going on?

The question of the stolen detonator and plans is pushed to the side-lines while Holmes goes on trying to solve the initial death, with the help of Dr Sigmund Freud and an undercover Elliot Ness (forgetting to mention that Ness would have been all of 7-years old in 1910).

This kind of leaping about, cutting from one place to another, kind of destroys the narrative flow of the adventure. I can understand that, at three hours long, this may have plodded more than it does, but it was meant to be a mini-series, not a film. A series is allowed to plod a little. As a cut down film, it largely makes no sense whatsoever.

I have a vague recollection of watching this one in a longer format before, so I must have recorded this one at a different time unfortunately. For example, I recall Irene Adler in disguise (a homage to the first time she tricked Holmes), and I seem to also recall Patrick Macnee’s Watson up to his neck in water.

In this cut version, Holmes does precious little detective work, Watson becomes a bit part, and Irene Adler could have been anyone. It’s difficult to see any merit to the work whatsoever.

I hope to obtain the 3-hour version in due course and do a fresh review. As much as it seems that Christopher Lee and Patrick Macnee would make the ideal “elderly Holmes and Watson”, you couldn’t prove it by this edited disaster in which you will spend more time trying to figure out what’s been cut than actually enjoying their performances.