JohnHowardReid Filmed at Pinewood Studios, England, and on locations at Inverness, Scotland; Oxford; London; and Malta. A Mirisch Films Presentation. A Phalanx Production, released through United Artists.Copyright 1970 by the Mirisch Production Company. New York opening: 29 October 1970 at the Radio City Music Hall (ran 3 weeks). U.S. release: December 1970. U.K. release: 17 January 1971. 11,270 feet. 125 minutes.NOTES: Wilder actually shot two more stories, but the distributor felt that the movie was far too long and would discourage theater owners from booking the film. I have seen stills from these cut segments which look very interesting indeed, including a fair amount of footage that was actually shot in Malta. And I used to have a still where all the contents of a room seem to be upside down. And what happened to Inspector Lestrade who is listed in some of the distributor's hand-outs, but isn't at present in the movie at all?The movie as we now have it, begins with a short Prologue with the grandson of Dr. Watson opening a dispatch-box of unpublished Sherlock stories. The first of these is actually a well-known tale concerning George Bernard Shaw, in which it was alleged that some moderately famous female (her profession varies from fellow writer to Russian ballerina) suggests to Shaw that they have a child who will inherit her looks and his brains. Shaw is alleged to have replied: "But what if the child has my looks and your brains?"VIEWER'S GUIDE: Adults.COMMENT: Wilder says that "private" is the operative word here — and I agree with him. This is not so much a detective whodunit but a vie intime. So far as detecting is concerned, Holmes comes off a distinct second best.I admit I didn't see the point of the film's elaborate Prologue. It seemed to me to have very little to do with the rest of the film except to create atmosphere and character — and show off some delightfully Victorian sets and bric-a-brac. In fact, the whole film seems devoted to an exposition of Victoriana, capped by the appearance of Queen Victoria herself.The pace is leisurely, and somewhat unexciting - by design rather than accident! Wilder has seen to it that just about all the drama for the most part occurs off-screen. Nevertheless, the cast is appealing; the photography, costumes and sets are all most attractive; and perhaps most exciting of all is that we can give a big welcome back to composer, Miklos Rozsa, whose music score brilliantly sets just the right mood of menace behind the Victorian picturesque.I'm happy to add that this movie was available on an excellent MGM DVD, but I'm not sure if it is still in the catalog.

pyrocitor Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's iconic detective has always been astute at cheating death (you'd practically imagine him, upon leaving the room, to call out "Be Reichenbach!"). But how to cheat a movie death, outliving the chipper Basil Rathbone adventure serials of the 40s and more sombre Christopher Lee Hammer Horror films of the 50s/60s? Why, by the 1970s version of one of Hollywood's favourite contemporary go- to tropes: the gritty reboot. Behold: The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes. Penned by Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond, arguably Classical Hollywood's most famous comic duo after the Screwball era, Private Life is an enjoyable romp, but a touch too confused in terms of what it wants to be to really hit home. Take the 'gritty reboot' qualifier, for one. Wilder seems to be simultaneously striving for an old- fashioned feel (the scratchier, grainier film stock, stagier performances, and more bombastic score), while also embracing the freedom the 1970s have lent him (Holmes can do cocaine here! Nudity! References to homosexuality, and even Holmes' sexuality!), which he does with almost whimsical abandon. This disjuncture can't help but feel a touch gratuitous, like a teen giddily but clumsily experimenting out of parental supervision. Moreover, its ensuing projected uncertainty worms its way into the rest of the film. As the first third, a cute but overstated prologue set strictly to reflexively tweak and challenge the public's - and audiences' - perceptions of Holmes' legendary mystique winds up, we settle into a British Isles-spanning mystery adventure, which chugs along satisfactorily. The seemingly disparate elements of the plot's mystery inevitably coalesce with a suitable 'big reveal' and intriguing conspiratorial undercurrent. Still, affairs culminate somewhat awkwardly, especially anchored on an unsatisfyingly understated climax - which, spoilers aside, has no business falling so flat, considering it involves international intrigue, explosives, and the Loch Ness Monster(!!). It's also an oddly flat and disinterestedly serious film, considering Wilder and Diamond's satirical pedigree, and the fact that Robert Stephens appears to be bursting to uncork the campy Holmes he seems to be barely keeping in check. A sillier, zanier Billy Wilder touch could have helped liven up the proceedings and sweep plot quibbles under the rug, but profiling the most fiercely observant character in literary history makes such audience scrutiny and nitpicking impossible to avoid. Ultimately, though, the majority of the film's plot gaps lead to a mishandled characterization of Holmes himself. Taking its cue from the film's reflexive deflating of the legend, Holmes is played as more emotional and far less intuitive and observant than customary, and even prone to the kind of asinine redundant questions he would normally rebuke others for. This uneven portrayal leads to several inconclusive plot points and character beats at the film's conclusion, leaving a conclusion intended as poignantly bittersweet playing as simply vexing instead. Still, the Scotland sequences are fun, if a bit twee - every single castle Holmes and Watson travel to is accompanied by a blare of bagpipes, and the barely feigned accents are something else - while the 'Loch Ness by night' interludes are a welcome dose of The Hound of the Baskervilles- calibre crackling tension. Even if the 'Sherlock Holmes vs. Loch Ness Monster' plot sounds like a Scooby-Doo episode, Wilder and Diamond handle it adeptly enough to keep the fun and stave off the folly. Robert Stephens' work as Holmes is capably amusing and eloquent, but more fey and extravagantly emotional than one would hope for. Colin Blakely is similarly hammy but more gruffly entertaining Dr. Watson, taking notes from Nigel Bruce, but thankfully nowhere near as bumbling and incompetent (the man is a military doctor, after all, wot wot). Geneviève Page is a bit too flat to much endear herself as a hysterically determined woman with secrets of her own, but the always superb (and former Holmes himself!) Christopher Lee is excellently clipped and debonair as Holmes' enigmatic brother Mycroft. The regular players of the Holmes pantheon are iconically watchable enough that the characters themselves outperform the actors or story that ensconce them: pleasant but vaguely irksome, and overall mediocre. As such, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes is neither the witty, revisionist take you'd expect from Billy Wilder, or much of a gritty postmodern exposé. What it is is a perfectly passable trifle. And are trifles overall worth it? Elementary. -6.5/10

secondtake The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)Billy Wilder is one of Hollywood's greats, and I love his best movies with a kind of awe. They are technically great but also filled with human feeling. And they are well written.But I've always had trouble with his later comedies in the 1960s, which aren't all that funny to me, and which are filmed with odd, professional indifference. So if you like "Kiss Me, Stupid" you might like this. For me this one falls even a little flatter than the others.I do love Sherlock, the character and the stories. And it's fun to see another interpretation of him--this time with Sherlock being quietly gay, or possibly gay. The actor, Robert Stephens, is not really quite right, though of course this is a personal preference. We all have our idea of what Sherlock should be like, and you do have to account for the idea that the director is trying to make him homosexual in the late 1800s in England, altogether a fantasy of invention, cinematically.But let's say this is really fabulous for you, this reinvention of the detective. Now what? A plot would be nice, and there is something of a series of events that go in order, but it's nothing like essential or dramatic. Wilder's great collaborating writer, I.A.L. Diamond, seems to have a more nuanced version of events than suits me. I put it that way because the movie gets pretty good reviews. For me it's nearly a bomb. It doesn't do Holmes justice, and it isn't an interesting mystery story on its own--slow, unconvincing turns of events, etc.It is on some level a continual farce, and I like its humor, which is sometimes self-deprecating. But this isn't a substitute for other storytelling elements.What's even more surprising and disappointing is how it's all filmed. Scenes are brightly and even lighted, actors are placed at convenient places rather than surprising and terrific ones, and it is pieced together functionally. I gave it a shot and you might be able to tell from this whether you should, too. If you want a short answer, there are better Holmes movies. If you love Wilder, you owe this at least a half an hour.

jm10701 I am not entirely comfortable giving this movie just three stars, because I cannot say that I did not like it. But I also cannot say I did like it or even that it was okay, so I am stuck in the middle. I have chosen three stars because what I do not like about it I dislike much more than I like what I do like.First of all, I should say that although I like Sherlock Holmes well enough, I never was a big fan. I much prefer other fictional detectives. So the fact that this movie takes great liberties with him, the stories about him, and the other characters in those stories matters to me not at all. My comments relate to the movie as a movie, not to its faithfulness to Doyle's stories.The problem is that I am gay. If I were straight, I might be in hog heaven watching this movie, with all the squirmy, slimy gay jokes and innuendos, the female nudity and leering thereat, etc. But I AM gay, and I love being gay and am genuinely proud and delighted to be gay, so portraying what I am as something undesirable and shameful does not entertain me.Robert Stephens is marvelous, as he always was, particularly when he was young; Christopher Lee is a charmer at any age; and Colin Blakely is fine as Watson. I am thinking my problem is Billy Wilder. I have not seen Some Like It Hot in a very long time, but I suspect the comical cross-dressing and the potential horrors implicit in it would bother me now too.Evidently Wilder was none too fond of homosexuality and other alternate ways of being except as opportunities to leer and squirm and make wisecracks. Too bad. Not for him - he's dead - but for me. I used to like him, but no more.I can forgive Some Like It Hot because Marilyn is in it, and she is without question the loveliest human being who ever stood before a camera; but she is not in this movie, so down it goes.