The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)

"The game is afoot!" 

It is the summer of 1887 and Sherlock Holmes is lamenting the lack of any decent crime that might stimulate his brilliant mind. "There are no great crimes anymore, Watson! The criminal class has lost all enterprise and originality." In his morning mail, he receives a telegram asking for his help in locating six missing midgets from a circus, which he promptly dismisses. It is not until a cabby brings a bedraggled-looking woman to the doorstep of 221B Baker Street that Sherlock turns away from his seven-per-cent solution of cocaine to take interest in a case that will become one of his rare failures and ultimately be written down in Dr. Watson's private memoirs of the great detective. 

Gabrielle Valladon is the mysterious woman who arrives on his doorstep one evening. She was rescued from the river after someone attempted to drown her and has a minor lapse of memory. Watson suggests she stay the night and by morning she is recovered and accounts to Holmes her predicament. It seems that her husband, a mining engineer by the name of Emile, has disappeared. For the past year, she has been writing to and receiving letters from an address that she has just discovered is an empty building. 

This intrigues the private detective enough to warrant a visit to the building. Together with Mrs. Valladon and his faithful companion Dr. Watson, Holmes discovers some baffling clues at the site...namely, an old woman in a wheelchair who collects the mail and a cage of canaries. These insignificant but intriguing findings only hint at the adventure ahead for the trio, a case that will lead them into the heart of Scotland and to an encounter with Queen Victoria herself! 

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is a marvelous film by director Billy Wilder. It captures all of the excitement of Arthur Conan Doyle's original stories and yet it is an entirely new adventure penned by Wilder himself and screenwriter A.L. Diamond, who also produced the film. The story incorporates all of the elements one would hope to find in a Sherlock Holmes film adaptation, plus some added surprises...such as midgets and the Loch Ness monster.

Our titular hero is played by Robert Stephens (The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie) who does an excellent job of portraying the arrogant yet highly appealing detective. Stephens played an amateur detective in an episode of The Rivals of Sherlock Holmes one year later, but never returned to don the deerstalker again which is a shame since he plays Holmes so well. 

Colin Blakely costars as the loyal Dr. Watson. His characterization of Watson differs from any of the actors who played Watson before (Nigel Bruce, Howard Marion-Crawford, Nigel Stock, etc.). Blakely's Watson is impetuous and slightly comical and he often gets frustrated that Sherlock does not confide in him as much as he would like. The relationship between Holmes and Watson in this film reminds me of Danger Mouse and his faithful friend Penfold in the Danger Mouse series. Poor Penfold was often left in the dark about the cases they were working on, too. 

The lovely but mysterious Mrs. Valladon is played by French actress Genevieve Page. Holmes is quoted by Watson as having said that "women are never to be entirely trusted, not the best of them", an observation based on previous experiences. Yet he trusts Mrs. Valladon - and once again regrets it. 

The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes also includes the characters of Mrs. Hudson (played by the inimitable character actress Irene Handl) and Sherlock's brother Mycroft, played by Christopher Lee. Years later, Lee himself would star as Sherlock in a series of television films.

Billy Wilder had a tendency to stretch out his productions till they were overly long and The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is no exception. The film features a sequence at the Royal Ballet in London where Holmes meets a Russian prima-donna who wants to marry him so that she can have "brilliant babies". It probably was meant to amuse and address Watson's feelings towards Holmes and their living arrangement, but the entire sequence was unnecessary and bore no relation to the mystery that Holmes eventually embarks on. The scene could have been cut entirely and replaced with a bit of dialogue referring to the incident instead. 

However, aside from this minor flaw, the film is excellent in so many ways. Miklos Rozsa composed a beautiful score for the picture which was based on a 1953 concerto of his that Billy Wilder favored - Violin Concerto Opus. 24. Tony Iglis' art direction is simply stunning, the costumes (by Julie Harris) are wonderful, and the cinematography by Christopher Challis (The Small Back Room, Arabesque) is lovely, as is the color tone of the entire film, which was shot in Cinemascope. Billy Wilder rarely made films in color so this is a treat for him and for the audience and one that he should have indulged in decades earlier. 

A Foreign Affair ( 1948 )

During World War II, the American, British, and Russian forces bombed Berlin until it was a heap of concrete rubble. After the war, the US Army decided to leave some troops behind to help clean up the mess. This included capturing Nazi members who may have eluded them earlier and also aiding the Germans in getting back on their feet. Both tasks could be rather demoralizing - especially in such a battered environment as post-war Berlin. In order to see just how well the "boys" overseas were coping, Congress decided to send a committee to check up on them...or so the story goes in Billy Wilder's 1948 comedy A Foreign Affair. 

This committee, comprised of five men and one woman, is given a 3-day tour of Berlin in order to make their report to Washington. But as Congresswoman Ms. Frost ( Jean Arthur ) points out, this is a carefully crafted tour designed so that the members see only what the US Army wants them to see. 

Ms. Frost chooses to remove her blinders and what she sees surprises her! American soldiers are engaging in the black market, openly fraternizing with the frauleins, and clearly enjoying themselves. Just one chocolate bar can buy a guy a lot of favors in Berlin. 

Nightclub singer Erika von Schlütow ( Marlene Dietrich ) certainly knows how to use a soldier to her best advantage. She remembers what it was like in Berlin right after the war. 

"We've all become animals with exactly one instinct left - self-preservation....What do you think it was like to be a woman in this town when the Russians first swept in? A living hell. And then I found a man, and through that man, a roof, and a job, and food, and I'm not going to lose him."

That man is Captain Johnny Pringle ( John Lund ), an officer at the very camp that the committee is visiting. He is well aware that Erika is a hot potato, a woman who once had affiliations with Nazi party members, but he pulls a few official strings to shield her because he is enthralled by his "gorgeous booby trap". 

Ms. Frost discovers the curvaceous performer one night at the Lorelei club and overhears that she is being protected by an American officer, so she enlists the aid of fellow Iowan Captain Pringle to help her ferret out the name of this man, little realizing that it is Pringle himself that is Ms. von Schlütow's sugar daddy.

A Foreign Affair is one of director Billy Wilder's lesser-known films but it nevertheless bears his trademark style, especially in the cynical but humorous script, penned by Wilder, Charles Brackett, and Richard L. Breen. The cinematography is beautiful and the music, by Friedrich Hollander, perfectly captures the feel of post-war Germany, but what makes the film really work is the performances from its three principal actors: Jean Arthur, John Lund, and Marlene Dietrich. 

Growing up, I was familiar with Jean Arthur only from her role as Marian in the classic western Shane ( 1953 ). Then, in my teen years, I discovered all of her marvelous films from the 1930s and realized just how popular an actress she was. This decade was really the peak of her career, and she starred in such comedy classics as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town ( 1936 ), You Can't Take it With You ( 1938 ) and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington ( 1939 ). She was Columbia Studios' top actress up until her retirement in the mid-1940s. Wilder enticed her away from college to make this picture. 

Jean gives a wonderful performance here as the stern Ms.Frost, playing her icy cool from her entrance and then peeling away layers of her personality as the film progresses. Frost is a fastidious, independent, prudish, Iowa-born-and-bred, no-nonsense kind of woman, who - living up to her namesake - is particularly cold to men after having been used by a man several years back. When Captain Pringle realizes that she is gunning down his liebling Erika - and himself - he knows he will receive no sympathy or mercy from her. So, he undertakes a really courageous task - that of wooing the unwooable woman. And boy is he in for a surprise! After a few kisses, Ms. Frost suddenly becomes "Pheobe" and before he knows it, he's polishing his shoes and whistling "Shine on Harvest Moon".

Marlene Dietrich is also alluring as Erika. Wilder had her in mind for the part as he was writing the script and there really was no other actress who could have played her part as well. She is best in the nightclub sequences, entertaining the soldiers as she so often did in real life during the war. 

John Lund also shines as Captain Pringle. Few actors could play comedy as well as Lund could, plus he was a believable "ladies' man". Cary Grant could have tackled this role with equal ease but Grant does not seem like the kind of man who would be having an affair with the former mistress of a Nazi officer. Also in the cast is that old pro, character actor Millard Mitchell as Pringle's commanding officer. 

A Foreign Affair is available on Blu-Ray DVD and via streaming through the Criterion Channel.

This post is our contribution to the Shades of Shane Blogathon being hosted by Rachel at Hamlette's Soliloquy. Be sure to visit her blog to check out other film reviews featuring actors who starred in the classic western Shane.

Hot Like Sugar

Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in a scene from the classic Billy Wilder comedy "Some Like it Hot" ( 1959 ). Sugar Kane and Jerry are having a ball while Joe poses as the millionaire heir to Shell Oil. When Some Like it Hot was released it was issued a "C" rating from the National Legion of Decency and this film, along with Hitchcock's Psycho, contributed to the end of the Production Code. Well, some like it hot and some do not.