Yes, has everyone gone mad?

Simply and succinctly put: the movie was too long, UA wanted changes and since it was originally conceived as episodic in structure it was easy to cut away pieces that were deemed superfluous to the main plot. The mistake being, editorially, that the movie is not about the mystery but rather the man - so when the other pieces that were conceived expressly to characterize Holmes were cut away all we're left with was a typical Holmes story peppered with some elements (sexuality called into question, narcotics) that were made more explicit than usual.

I'm a pretty serious Wilder fan and a modest Holmes appreciator and I really like this one. It's not a great Holmes movie (but I prefer the more revisionist Holmes movies anyway - They Might Be Giants, for instance, is my favorite) but I think it's an underrated Wilder film. Even with the pieces that would have undoubtedly elevated the character moments cut out (and they're available on the DVD, but I found it better reading the full script, which is online) I think it's very rewarding. Witty and atmospheric, it's beautifully shot, scored and performed. I thought Wilder nailed the iconography of it better than anyone before and few since. Not being a serious Holmes purist, I found Stephens and Blakely to do well - I recognize the differences in this representation of Holmes, but I didn't bring any strong preconceived notions into it so I imagine it was an easier pill for me to swallow than someone with a firm idea of who and what Holmes should be.

The mystery falls into the unrewardingly absurd and the pay off doesn't equal the build up, but the relationship between Holmes and Gabrielle Valladon is quite well done and is strong as the heart of the film. Repeat viewings go a long way to illuminate how their dynamic is constantly shifting from scene to scene, and how intellectual sparring is going on between them throughout on various levels until she delivers a final, devastating coup in the very last scene. One that's the most emotional I've ever seen in a Holmes (or Holmes-esque) film. It's good stuff, and a blueprint Jake Kasdan actually ended up improving on with the best modern Holmes reinterpretation - Zero Effect.

I don't think Wilder was trying to redefine Holmes. I think he just wanted to do a Holmes story his way. Part of that was outing him. But that's an element I always thought was kind of half-baked either in it's intent or it's interpretation -- since the crux of the film is a (warped) heterosexual love story. I think he was playing with the perceptions. But it's clearly a personal film and I think Wilder walked away from it as part of a growing apathy toward the changes his industry was undergoing at the time and how much the transition of movies in the 70s was adversely effecting the old guard. He wanted to make a classical story, and even consciously structured it as a symphony, and the studio wanted a simpler, shorter movie with broad appeal to justify costs. So Wilder - often a company man who was often in complete sync with his audience - was on the cusp of something weird: a big period picture, essentially part of an unofficial franchise with an apparently built-in audience, that was personal and challenging in it's construction. It proved too classical and too amibitious, and I think when it was gutted of a lot of it's more idiosyncratic qualities (leaving a rather routine Holmes film) Wilder gave up the ghost. Had his version been released I think it would probably have found a bigger audience, as the fuller portrait contained some potentially crowd pleasing sequences that would have given the film more cohesion. What we're left with is like a ruin - the foundation and frame are intact, but many of the more unique details have been effaced. It's ironic that at the time a lot of more challenging, personal pictures were seeing release and audiences were more responsive to revisionist cinema. Somebody somewhere convinced Wilder of the opposite and he second guessed himself out of a final cut. At the same time, I don't think 70s audiences were looking for that kind of escapism touched with reality - the aforementioned They Might Be Giants was a resounding failure, and a much more unconventional updating of Holmes mythos than Wilder ever dreamed of. It's just too bad the excised footage for Private Life was in such poor condition as to prohibit it being reinserted back into the film properly.

Not certain. The books and the movies all left that very open. My favorite Holmes movies were Basil & Jeremy, and this movie. It was certainly different, but that made it interesting.

Some I disliked, like the "Hound of the " with Capt. Kirk, it was in very poor color, and everybody acted like zombies. Some of the pre-Basil were also very poorly done.

I've been watching the Basil ones on U-tube. I see I've missed a few.

"Yes. Perceptive comments to be sure."

Thanks! I can't take total credit for them--critic Richard Corliss was one of the first to note the "century's end" feel of the movie. And novelist Jonathan Coe did a nice tribute to the movie in a "Guardian" article (which is online, btw...) and he mentioned the same things.

There are two basic pullers on a film`s direction.

1. The creative and visionary director.

2. The Boring fart backers who see films as nothing more than an investment.

This is why many films do not make complete sense - the farts have removed the bits that they didn`t understand.