MovieChat Forums > The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970) Discussion > Nifty 1970 Movie Poster

Nifty 1970 Movie Poster

posted 4 years ago by ecarle (14979)
9 replies | jump to latest

The 1970 movie poster for The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is actually in the tone of many last 1960's posters(The Dirty Dozen comes to mind) in which a realistic painting conveys the plot and selling points of the film, in a way that is bigger than the movie itself.

Here the elements include:

Sherlock Holmes himself(in shadowy profile with deerstalker cap and pipe)

A sexy naked woman(covering herself with a blanket) VERY 60's...a lot of paperback novels had this kind of titillating illustration (check out the flowing red hair.)

"London" and Big Ben(remind the audience that this movie is going to "take them somewhere.")

A submarine. A submarine!? What kind of Sherlock Holmes movie is this? (Not the action epic suggested here, but still -- a submarine.)

I suppose that the most pointed connection here is Sherlock Holmes and a naked lady. "The private life" of Sherlock Holmes, indeed.

It was 1970. The Hays Code was over.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 2 years ago

I love this very 1960s style of poster-- the painterly look, the way images from the film are combined within a larger image (in this case, around the silhouette of Holmes). Posters like that always look great on a wall.

I do have to chuckle at how the tagline on the poster tries making the movie seem a bit spicier than it is. The sexual stuff-- Holmes pretending he and Holmes are lovers, the implied nudity of Gabrielle, some risque jokes-- is pretty tame, especially compared to what the New Hollywood crew were churning out.

And yet, I find this movie more enjoyable than the likes of Midnight Cowboy or Easy Rider. I find it quite funny, sophisticated, and even touching in its melancholy tribute to a bygone age. The film seems like an average Sherlock Holmes adventure (albeit with some "sexy" moments now and then), but the references to submarine warfare and the nods to the coming Great War give it an elegiac edge.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

And yet, I find this movie more enjoyable than the likes of Midnight Cowboy or Easy Rider. I find it quite funny, sophisticated, and even touching in its melancholy tribute to a bygone age. The film seems like an average Sherlock Holmes adventure (albeit with some "sexy" moments now and then), but the references to submarine warfare and the nods to the coming Great War give it an elegiac edge.

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What I think I like the most about "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" is the exquisite and very sad musical score, which is anchored by a violin solo with the same sad melody (recall that Sherlock likes his violin.)

The movie is a reminder that for all his Borscht Belt comedic bluster(and I know that Wilder had Germanic roots)..he also had a great sense of melancholy that ran through his best film (The Apartment) and touched portions of Some Like It Hot, Sunset Boulevard, and The Fortune Cookie(to name but three.)

All of those other movies were in black and white, but Wilder made "Sherlock Holmes" in color "under orders" and we ended up with a rather weird Wilder entry: a lush, plush Technicolor period piece with a heartrending score. (The sadness sounds in a tragic ending for one character and Holmes being left bereft from the loss.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Famously, "The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes" was cut down from a much longer version that had been intended for a "road show with intermission" prestige release, but wound up shorter, a bit incoherent and rather dumped into the marketplace without an intermission. It came out around the time of Hitchcock's Topaz and Hawks' Rio Lobo and together those three films told the filmgoing public that it was time to make way for New Hollywood, the Old Masters' time was over.

Still, I like all three of those films, and I probably like Sherlock Holmes the best of the three, because it was mounted so well and the sexual stuff was Wilderish. (The female lead, fresh from Belle du Jour, was sexy indeed; and as I recall, the ballerina in Sherlock Holmes had been the ballerina in Torn Curtain...its like the same character moved from Hitchcock to Wilder.)

One issue with Sherlock Holmes at the time is that Holmes and Watson ended up being cast with non-stars. Wilder had intended Holmes for Peter O'Toole and Watson for Peter Sellers, and star power might have made a difference. Robert Stephens and Colin Blakely were interesting actors, but they were not stars. The same problem would haunt Hitchcock on Topaz and Frenzy -- he couldn't get big name stars for any of the key roles.

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 2 years ago

I would love to see the original cut of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. The other stories only exist in script form, audio form, or film footage w/o audio. It's a shame because taken all together, they create a nuanced picture of Holmes and Watson. I find the college flashback particularly interesting-- Holmes falls in love with a woman from afar, becoming so besotted that he misses the obvious signs that she is a prostitute. It's ironic and sad... and I'm sure a great genertator of critical discussion about Wilder's portrayal of women in his movies (which in my opinion tends to be more complicated than his critics claim).

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 2 years ago

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

One issue with Sherlock Holmes at the time is that Holmes and Watson ended up being cast with non-stars. Wilder had intended Holmes for Peter O'Toole and Watson for Peter Sellers, and star power might have made a difference. Robert Stephens and Colin Blakely were interesting actors, but they were not stars. The same problem would haunt Hitchcock on Topaz and Frenzy -- he couldn't get big name stars for any of the key roles.
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That might have harmed box office, but I love Stephens and Blakely in those roles. They work so well together and generate a warm, humorous chemistry.

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Yes...they were quite good and perhaps hit the "real" notes that Peters O'Toole and Selleres might not have.

Hitchcock said that once you have to cast a star in a role, you have compromised the role. On Topaz(somewhat) and Frenzy(very much) a liability became a positive. The three male leads of Frenzy -- Jon Finch(anti-hero), Barry Foster(psycho villain) and Alec McCowen(police inspector) -- each had very precise looks and fit their roles like the proverbial glove. Foster looked a bit like first choice Michael Caine for the villain, but I can't picture Caine going as creepy as Foster did; meanwhile, Alec McCowen looked and sounded perfect as the Scotland Yard man -- a bit young and virile to go with his moustache and tweedy ways. Finch was the least impressive to me, but all three men looked and sounded like movie stars in Frenzy. Alas, they did nothing to "advance."

Billy Wilder reportedly bullied Robert Stephens into a nervous breakdown and a "mild" suicide attempt(not too lethal in intent), and perhaps that gave us the sad and wounded Holmes of this movie, with Blakely supporting Stephens on screen and off.

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

I would love to see the original cut of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.

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Me, too. There were a LOT of dull, big budget movies given road show presentation in the late 60's(The Shoes of the Fisherman, anyone?) you'd think the studio could have given the man who made Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot and The Apartment ONE nice long uncut "epic" in its intended form with an intermission at flagship theaters for awhile(say, the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood). But I guess preview audience cards weren't good on at least one of the stories(perhaps the now-missing "Case of the Upside Down Room.")

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The other stories only exist in script form, audio form, or film footage w/o audio.

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Hoo boy. Have you seen or heard any of those "missing pieces?"

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It's a shame because taken all together, they create a nuanced picture of Holmes and Watson.

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Again, I wish we were given that movie. The movie we WERE given bombed anyway.

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I find the college flashback particularly interesting-- Holmes falls in love with a woman from afar, becoming so besotted that he misses the obvious signs that she is a prostitute. It's ironic and sad...

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I would think it would be. The issue of falling in love with a woman is a frightening one for men who aren't "ladies man studs." Pro athletes and the like. But I suppose for them too. For the rest of us, its a matter of physical infatuation, then attempted courtship, then rejection OR acceptance and then if you DO get a "yes," terror that you will lose the woman in question later. (This is where Jack Lemmon ends up at the end of The Apartment, even with a happy ending, I'd say.)

CONT

[–] ecarle (14979) 2 years ago

Superimpose the wiles and looks of a prostitute on the situation and things get REALLY complicated. They do love you...for a timed block and for a price. I"ve always been intrigued by the true life stories of male clients who marry their hookers and convince them to "retire." Does it work? Is the woman truly sick of other men and ready to settle down? Er...wasn't that the plot of Wilder's "Irma La Douce."?

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and I'm sure a great generator of critical discussion about Wilder's portrayal of women in his movies (which in my opinion tends to be more complicated than his critics claim

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I would hope so. I'm not sure what the critics claim. MM in Some LIke It Hot and Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment are sympathetic. Though Lemmon's ex-wife in The Fortune Cookie is a female swine(and allied, even sexually we surmise, with Lemmon's crooked and married brother in law, Walter Matthau.)

And there's Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity.

I dunno. If Wilder doesn't treat his women very nice, he's the same with his men...

[–] ElizabethJoestar (946) 2 years ago

Hoo boy. Have you seen or heard any of those "missing pieces?"
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I own the Kino Lorber DVD release and it includes what remains of the deleted scenes. Some of it would have been too much (the prologue with Watson's grandson reclaiming his grandfather's papers is TOO LONG), but everything else was interesting. I particularly liked the one about the "naked honeymooners," where Watson tries to solve a case on his own and hilarity ensues.
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I'm not sure what the critics claim. MM in Some LIke It Hot and Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment are sympathetic. Though Lemmon's ex-wife in The Fortune Cookie is a female swine(and allied, even sexually we surmise, with Lemmon's crooked and married brother in law, Walter Matthau.)

And there's Barbara Stanwyck in Double Indemnity.

I dunno. If Wilder doesn't treat his women very nice, he's the same with his men...
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Some claim Wilder is a misogynist. I don't see it, honestly. You're right that both his male and female characters can be nasty pieces of work. I consider Fred MacMurray about as bad as Stanwyck in DI-- the two of them are greedy as hell, cold-blooded, and ruthless.

And he does have a number of sympathetic women in his films-- I recall Irma La Douce being one. Audrey Hepburn's characters in Sabrina and Love in the Afternoon are others.