Word: sherlock
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
London's fogs, which once romantically shrouded the nocturnal prowlings of Sherlock Holmes's Professor Moriarty,† Stevenson's Suicide Club and Mrs. Lowndes's Lodger, now veil an even grimmer killer: the estimated three tons of soot and ash that sift daily out of the sky over each square mile of Britain's larger cities. In one smog-bound week last December, 4,000 Londoners died from trying to breathe the noxious combination of smoke and fog that choked their city...
...Sherlock Holmes brought Basil Rathbone to Broadway in a role he has played countless times in movies and on radio. The play was not William Gillette's famous old warhorse. but a new and curious one by Ouida (Mrs. Basil) Rathbone. However it might strike Baker Street Irregulars, for Baker Street occasionals it had none of the thrills of detective drama, only the feeblest period charm, and mere hints of Holmes's personal glamour. A dull clutter of styles and stories, it closed after three performances...
...came-off at all. Sherlock Holmes did so as a museum piece that was being gently spoofed. But the spoofing, unfortunately, came off only at moments: for the most part the play, however rife with crime, merely swirled with inaction. It was lavishly produced. As Irene Adler, Metropolitan Soprano Jarmila Novotna warbled arias; there was much social chatter, much wearing of evening dress, many period fripperies and titled ladies with pasts. As much as anything else, it seemed like a tedious drawing-room play, with a dead body in place of a butler...
Died. Nigel Bruce, 58, cinemactor, best known for his characterizations of Sherlock Holmes's bumbling friend, Dr. Watson; of a coronary thrombosis; in Santa Monica, Calif...
...producers can persuade Rathbone to study his part and play Holmes rather than a House Dick, they can cure the major ill of the play. To make Sherlock Holmes effective, however, they must dispense with the flashbacks, the muddled staging, and the exaggerations of acting in the minor roles. In the meantime, Ouida must straighten out the story line, which now leaves justice inexplicably triumphant in the last act. Certainly the present state of Sherlock Holmes, with the sole assets of Steward Chaney's sets and the charming, if superfluous Mme. Novotna, will not satisfy Doyle addicts, who have waited...