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Sherlock co-creator Steven Moffat continues to fuel excitement for season 5 of the acclaimed BBC crime drama. The beloved modern adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic detective stories, Sherlock ran from 2010 to 2017 and featured Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson. Created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss, the show brought the famous sleuth into the 21st century, bringing humor and thrilling drama to its intricate mysteries. With the last episode airing seven years ago, however, demand remains for Sherlock season 5 as there hasn't been any progress.

In an interview with SFX, Moffat discussed the prospects of Sherlock season 5, following producer Sue Vertue’s recent comments on the award-winning series’ potential revival. He emphasized that while no concrete plans are in place, he and Gatiss remain enthusiastic about the idea of revisiting the show with season 5. The creator even suggested visiting an older version of Sherlock and John.

After Sherlock and Elementary do we really need another contemporary take on the world of Sherlock Holmes? For fans of everything 221B Baker Street, the answer is always yes. More than any other set of fictional characters, the world of Holmes has proven time and again to be nearly limitless in its ability to accommodate a myriad of new adaptations, sometimes with competing themes. And now, five years after CBS concluded its little Sherlock show that could, a new mainstream drama based on the famous detective stories of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is coming soon. Though, it doesn’t sound like Sherlock himself has been invited.

Titled Watson, the new series will star Morris Chestnut as a contemporary version of John Watson. According to Variety, the show will be “set one year after the death of Holmes at the hands of his archnemesis Moriarty.” In other words, it’s a...

The hangman Albert Pierrepoint (of Pierrepoint – The Last Hangman) makes a small but important appearance in Peter Medak’s 1991 film about the controversial 1953 execution of Derek Bentley for the murder of a policeman The film stars Christopher Eccleston as the doomed Bentley, Tom Courtenay as his father and a supporting cast featuring a who’s who of British character actors including Edward Hardwicke (Watson of BBC’s Sherlock Holmes), Michael Gough (Horror of Dracula) and Clive Revill (The Legend of Hell House) as the executioner Pierrepoint. Even though Bentley’s words ” Let him have it ” were ambiguous when the policeman demanded the shooter hand over the gun, the jury, under prejudicial instruction from the judge, decided the words meant “Shoot him!”

The post Let Him Have It appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

Few latecomer ’60s spy movies were big successes. This amusing Brit effort sank without a trace, perhaps taking with it the career of the talented Tom Courtenay as a leading man. The comic tale pits an underachieving, cheeky London lad against an intelligence conspiracy that wouldn’t be doing anybody much harm — if they didn’t insist on murdering people.

Otley

Blu-ray

Powerhouse Indicator (UK)

1969 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 92 min. / Available at The Ph page / Street Date March 19, 2018 / £15.99

Starring: Tom Courtenay, Romy Schneider, Alan Badel, James Villiers, Leonard Rossiter, James Bolam, Fiona Lewis, Freddie Jones, James Cossins, James Maxwell, Edward Hardwicke, Ronald Lacey, Phyllida Law, Geoffrey Bayldon, Frank Middlemass.

Cinematography: Austin Dempster

Film Editor: Richard Best

Art Direction: Carmen Dillon

Original Music: Stanley Myers

Written by Dick Clement, Ian la Frenais from a book by Martin Waddell

Produced by Bruce Cohn Curtis, Carl Foreman

Directed by Dick Clement

The British film...

By Tim Greaves

The year is 1962. Aggrieved when Algeria is granted independence by President Charles de Gaulle, the militant underground alliance known as the Organisation Armée Secrète botches an attempt to assassinate him. Within months many of the conspirators, including their top man, have been captured and executed. The remaining Oas leaders, bereft of funds, take refuge in Austria and warily decide to contract an outside professional to do the job for them. They settle on a British assassin (Edward Fox), who chooses to be identified as Jackal. The Oas orchestrate several bank robberies to cover his exorbitant fee of half a million dollars whilst the mechanics of the plotting are left entirely to Jackal's discretion. After capturing and interrogating another alliance member, the French authorities learn of Jackal's existence and, suspecting another attempt on de Gaulle's life may be imminent, they set their best man – Deputy Commissioner Claude Lebel (Michel Lonsdale) – on his tail.

Kayti Burt Aug 8, 2016

From silent film to the BBC's Sherlock, we're perusing the many on-screen incarnations of the villainous Culverton Smith...

Contains potential spoilers for Sherlock series 4 (well, in the sense that it talks about the hundred-year-old story that inspired one of its characters).

In series 4 of the BBC drama, we're told Culverton Smith is to be Sherlock's "darkest villain yet". Introduced in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Dying Detective" and continuing in various film and TV adaptations over the years, the character has already had a long screen career.

In preparation for the forthcoming season of Sherlock (because what else are we supposed to do with this interminable hiatus?), we're taking a look at Culverton Smith's on-screen history through the ages. We've got your silent films. We've got your fan films. We've got your Jeremy Brett. Pick your poison — or should I say infectious disease...

First, an introduction.

By  Lee Pfeiffer

If you're pondering what to get your significant other for a holiday gift, look no further than "Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Granada Television Series", which has been released in a boxed set by Mpi Home Entertainment. For many, series star Jeremy Brett was- and remains- the definitive interpretation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary detective. There have been countless actors who have provided wide-ranging performances as Holmes and most of them are commendable in their own way. However, Brett's debut as Holmes in this classic British TV series met with instant international acclaim even among the notoriously fussy Holmes scholars who never seem to be pleased with screen presentation of their literary hero.  

The Mpi set contains:

Every episode of the series (41 episodes on 12 DVDs) Includes the five feature film-length adventures   Profusely illustrated collector's guide booklet with extensive essays by film historian Richard Valley Interview...

Today on Trailers from Hell, Brian Trenchard-Smith rediscovers another dark Brit drama about the death penalty, "Let Him Have It," starring Christopher Eccleston as the real-life murderer of a policeman. The hangman Albert Pierrepoint (of "Pierrepoint: The Last Hangman") makes a small but important appearance in Peter Medek’s 1991 film about the controversial 1953 execution of Derek Bentley for the murder of a policeman (even though Bentley merely egged on the actual shooter with the phrase, “Let him have it.”) The film stars Christopher Eccleston as the doomed Bentley, Tom Courtenay as his father and a supporting cast featuring a who’s who of British character actors including Edward Hardwicke (Watson of BBC’s "Sherlock Holmes"), Michael Gough ("Horror of Dracula") and Clive Revill ("The Legend of Hell House") as the executioner Pierrepoint. Even though Bentley’s words "Let him have it ” were ambiguous when the policeman...

The hangman Albert Pierrepoint (of Pierrepoint - The Last Hangman) makes a small but important appearance in Peter Medek's 1991 film about the controversial 1953 execution of Derek Bentley for the murder of a policeman (even though Bentley merely egged on the actual shooter with the phrase, "Let him have it.") The film stars Christopher Eccleston as the doomed Bentley, Tom Courtenay as his father and a supporting cast featuring a who's who of British character actors including Edward Hardwicke (Watson of BBC's Sherlock Holmes), Michael Gough (Horror of Dracula) and Clive Revill (The Legend of Hell House) as the executioner Pierrepoint. Even though Bentley's words " Let him have it " were ambiguous when the policeman demanded the shooter hand over the gun, the jury, under prejudicial instruction from the judge, decided the words meant "Shoot him!"

The post Let Him Have It appeared first on Trailers From Hell.

Feature Louisa Mellor 20 Jan 2014 - 07:00

An in-depth look at how His Last Vow, Sherlock’s series 3 finale, adapts the Doyle story of Charles Augustus Milverton…

Warning: contains major spoilers for Sherlock series three.

Having ticked off Moriarty, the Woman and the hell-hound in series two, Sherlock’s third run was in need of a villain. Enter Charles Augustus Magnussen, a Scandi take on Arthur Conan Doyle’s detestable master blackmailer played to grotesque perfection by The Killing’s Lars Mikkelsen.

Though perhaps the most despicable, Mikkelsen wasn’t the first on-screen version of the Doyle character. Barry Jones gave an arch, cruelly playful turn as the blackmailer in the 1965 BBC adaptation with Douglas Wilmer and Nigel Stock as Holmes and Watson. Robert Hardy, recognisable to many as Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge in the Harry Potter series, was an odious, amused Milverton in the 1992 television film with Jeremy Brett...

Kieran Kinsella

Appropriately enough for this time of year, Acorn Media’s latest batch of DVD releases includes The Fall. It’s a Belfast based psychological crime drama in which Dsi Stella Gibson attempts to hunt down a sadistic serial killer who seems to delight in deviousness. Somewhat unusually for a crime drama, the killer is identified fairly early on as Paul Spector. Thereafter, Spector and Gibson become embroiled in a game of cat and mouse that lasts through five suspensful episodes. The relationship between Spector and Gibson is similar to the one involving Hannibal Lector and Clarice except for the fact that Lector was banged up while Spector is on the loose.

X-Files actress Gillian Anderson takes on the role of Gibson and she seems quite at home on British TV these days having enjoyed success in recent hits such as Great Expectations. Her nemesis is the rather less...

Despite some controversy surrounding its origins, Us drama Elementary has proven to be quite a hit - CBS recently ordered two bonus episodes of the detective drama and also awarded it the coveted post-Super Bowl slot... For our money, much of the show's success is down to star Jonny Lee Miller, who makes for a fantastically frenetic Holmes. So this week's Friday Fiver is a celebration of the men who came before Miller - the five greatest actors to bring Conan Doyle's detective to life on the small screen... > TV Shows That Need a Sequel: Friday Fiver

> Star Wars TV shows we'd like to see: Friday Fiver Jeremy Brett - Sherlock Holmes (1984-1994)

Often named as the greatest on-screen Holmes in any medium, Brett made for a wonderfully neurotic, fiercely intellectual Sherlock, paired first with David Burke and later Edward Hardwicke (more)...

You can keep your Cumberbatch and Rathbone. Of the 75-odd actors who have played Sherlock Holmes on screen, Jeremy Brett is the man

You can keep Basil Rathbone, fond as I am of him. You can keep Robert Downey, Jr, Benedict Cumberbatch and Peter Cushing. You can even keep Michael Caine in Without A Clue (my secret favourite portrayal of Sherlock Holmes on the big screen). You know why you can keep them? Because, in exchange, I get Jeremy Brett, the Sherlock for the connoisseurs.

Jeremy Brett is the Sherlock Holmes of my childhood, and perhaps (as with the Doctor or James Bond) we simply attach ourselves to the first one we see. But I don't think so. In the ITV series which began in 1984, and ran until a year before Brett's early death in 1995, Sherlock Holmes was as close to his literary roots as he has ever been on screen.

Dr Finlay. co. BBC

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Kieran Kinsella

When you talk about TV doctors, many people immediately think of Richard Chamberlain. However, doctors have always been a major feature of TV shows on this side of the Atlantic and to honor the men and women who monitor the health of our favorite fictional characters, here are the Best British TV Doctors.

Dr Finlay (Bill Simpson) in Dr Finlay’s Casebook. Set in the Scottish town of Tannochbrae, Dr Finlay’s Casebook was first broadcast 49 years ago and even at that time Dr Finlay was something of a throwback to simpler times. Despite his small town surroundings, he valiantly fought against all kinds of ills that included his nutty housekeeper and a pernicious rival.

Doc Martin (Martin Clunes) in Doc Martin. Martin Clunes is not behaving as...

With ‘Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows’ set for release this December you have plenty of time to brush up on the great detective and his trusty partner Dr Watson. Only problem is that in his 124 year history, Holmes is one of, if not ‘the’, most portrayed fictional character of all time – so where to start?

Luckily you readers I have compiled a list of the 10 must see Sherlock Holmes Interpretations.

10. Young Sherlock Holmes (1985)

I’ll start with this underrated and often overlooked entry from executive producer Steven Spielberg and writer Chris Columbus (who went on to direct ‘Home Alone’ and the first two ‘Harry Potter’ pictures). This original adventure which re-imagines Holmes and Watson as teenagers who meet at boarding school and team up to solve a mystery involving a spate of murders around London.

Intended to kick off a franchise, this movie, while not based on any of Doyle’s stories,...

British actor Martin Freeman has paid tribute to his Dr. Watson predecessor Edward Hardwicke, who died earlier this month.

Hardwicke, who passed away at the age of 78, is best known for playing Sherlock Holmes' sidekick on U.K. TV in the 1980s.

Now Freeman, who co-starred with Hardwicke in 2003 movie Love Actually, hopes he can continue his legacy with his current role as Watson in hit U.K. series Sherlock.

He says, "He was a great Watson, they were really good adaptations, it was great television.

"I found out when a friend texted me while we were filming the second series of Sherlock, and I texted him back and and said hopefully I'll pick up the torch."...

British actor Edward Hardwicke has died, aged 78.

The star, best known for playing Dr. Watson opposite Jeremy Brett's Sherlock Holmes on U.K. TV in the 1980s, passed away on Monday.

Hardwicke appeared as the detective's sidekick in The Return of Sherlock Holmes for eight years, before moving on to beloved British shows Lovejoy, Agatha Christie's Poirot and Shameless.

The actor also more recently appeared in movies including Love Actually and Roman Polanski's Oliver Twist.

He is survived by two daughters, Kate and Emma.

Placing Sherlock Holmes right where you would least expect him (modern day Portland, Oregon), filmmaker Aaron Katz‘s Cold Weather finds the mystery in the mundane. His Sherlock, a man named Doug (Cris Lankenau), works at an ice factory when he’s not trying to solve the case of the missing ex-girlfriend (Robyn Rikoon). He’s even got a crack team of slackers helping him out, in the form of his co-worker Carlos (Raul Castillo) and his sister Gail (Trieste Kelly Dunn).

Tfs talked to Katz about moving Mumblecore into a genre plot setting, who makes the Kleenexes in the world and, of course, which Sherlock Holmes is best.

Tfs: Your films operate a lot on what is not said. Being the writer, director and editor of your films, how hard is it to check yourself during the process?

Aaron Katz: The good thing for me is that my producers,...

Sherlock Holmes purists who were not enamored with Robert Downey Jr.'s recent take on the Great Detective may want to thank A&E for cashing in on Hollywood's Christmas blockbuster. In The Sherlock Holmes Collection on DVD the American cable and satellite network has resurrected a bygone Holmes in the form of Peter Cushing. The great British actor, who played Van Helsing in Hammer's horror films in the 1970s and Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars Episode IV, played Holmes in a 1960s BBC television series. Not much of that show survives but what does is a welcome addition to the detective's DVD canon.

Want to know more? The BBC aired the Cushing series in 1968 under the title Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. The show was a continuation of sorts of another series of adaptations the network had aired three years earlier. That starred Douglas Wilmer as...

DVD Playhouse—August 2009

By

Allen Gardner

Watchmen—Director’S Cut (Warner Bros.) Director Zack Snyder’s film of Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ landmark graphic novel is as worthy an adaptation of a great book that has ever been filmed. In an alternative version of the year 1985, Richard Nixon is serving his third term as President and super heroes have been outlawed by a congressional act, in spite of the fact that two of the most high-profile “masks,” Dr. Manhattan (Billy Cruddup) and The Comedian (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) helped the U.S. win the Vietnam War. When The Comedian is found murdered, many former heroes become concerned that a conspiracy is afoot to assassinate retired costumed crime fighters. Former masks Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson), Silk Spectre (Malin Akerman) and still-operating Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley, in an Oscar-worthy turn) launch an investigation of their own, all while the Pentagon’s “Doomsday...