Dr. John Watson stars in a case of identity
Sherlock Holmes’ friend has been played several ways, some frustrating to fans.
It’s a mystery worthy of Sherlock Holmes — you might call it “The Doltish Doctor of Baker Street” — and the scene of the crime was in Hollywood the day before April Fools’ Day 1939.
That’s when 20th Century Fox released “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” the first of 14 films starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Doctor Watson, that daring duo from Arthur Conan Doyle’s famed books. Doyle has deeply devoted fans across the globe and through generations, and the ones who went to see “The Hound of the Baskervilles” in 1939 were surely shocked when they realized there was something different about this new Watson: The man was a complete idiot.
Doyle readers since 1887 had known John Watson as a bright, handsome man of the world, a battlefield surgeon and former rugby player who had yet to reach his 30th birthday when he set out for adventure with his eccentric and brilliant friend. But that hale and hearty Watson never made it to the screen with the plump performance of Bruce, who played the sidekick as an endearing but daft uncle whose primary functions were to express baffled amazement and get into trouble. Doyle purists jeered at the parlor nitwit (they nicknamed him “Boobus Britannicus”) but moviegoers adored the elementary appeal of the character, as did the radio listeners who tuned in to hear Bruce (paired at first with Rathbone, then later with other Holmes actors) put on jolly good shows in 259 weekly episodes.
Over the last seven decades, Bruce’s portrayal of Watson has maintained more traction in the public imagination than any other version in any medium. That may change, however, with the unfolding success story of director Guy Ritchie’s revival of the great detective and his physician friend, played now by Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, respectively. “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows” opened Dec. 16 and has grossed $254 million worldwide, which adds to the $545 million brought in by the first installment in 2009.
Today’s young moviegoers mayhave bought into the franchise’s Victorian Era adventures because they connect with Downey’s dark, bratty charisma and Ritchie’s trademark slo-mo / fast-mo mayhem, but it is Law’s Watson that has created the biggest stir among silver-haired Sherlockians.
“For years, Sherlockians have wrung their hands and bemoaned the fate of poor Watson on screen in films and television and told anyone who would listen that this wasn’t the real Watson,” said Leslie S. Klinger, the editor of “The Annotated Sherlock Holmes” and an advisor on both Ritchie films. “The thing that Sherlockians say is, ‘Why would a genius like Sherlock Holmes want to hang around with a fool like Nigel Bruce’s Watson?’ It doesn’t make any sense.... The way we have always thought of him is as an intelligent person, young and certainly not older than Holmes, someone who is stalwart and courageous, a little bit physical. He’s someone who can mostly give back as good as he gets from Holmes.... I’m on the payroll so I am not unbiased, but I think Jude Law is probably the finest on-screen Watson ever.” Doctor evaluations
Naming the best Watson in film or television would lead to spirited debate for members of the Baker Street Irregulars, the invitation-only literary society with a name inspired by the Doyle detective’s famed street address, and many would point out that the redemption of a capable Watson has been achieved in the past. In the 1980s and 1990s, for instance, first David Burke and then Edward Hardwicke played Watson with distinction in the highly regarded Granada productions for British television.
Still, when Law took on the role, many Sherlockians felt that Hollywood had finally delivered a Watson who was more buff than buffoonish.
In “A Game of Shadows,” Holmes most certainly wants Watson around, but the doctor’s impending marriage threatens to smother their adventures. There’s also a rising danger as Professor Moriarty, played by Jared Harris, sets in motion a plot to create massive strife for all of Europe and massive profits for himself. Stephen Fry joins the cast as Mycroft Holmes, brother of Sherlock, and at one point in the film, right after meeting Watson, he finds himself impressed by the doctor’s incisive deductions. Turning to his brother, Mycroft points out that Watson is not nearly “as slow-witted as you’ve led me to believe” — a fitting sentiment for the celluloid career of Watson.
There have been more than 200 movies featuring the character of Sherlock Holmes (and more than 75 actors), and by most citations he is the most persistent fictional character in film history, ahead of Dracula, Tarzan and old Ebenezer Scrooge. And, Klinger points out, Dr. Watson is in almost every one of those Holmes films. With each new portrayal, the creative team and the actor have looked at the past (with Doyle’s writings and Bruce’s performances looming most large there) and decided what to leave in and what to leave out. André Morell, Robert Duvall, James Mason and Colin Blakely are among the actors who have played Watson on the big screen. The stories continue
There’s no end in sight. CBS announced in September it was moving forward with plans for a prime-time Holmes series from the producers of “Unforgettable.”
The Holmes and Watson canon not only endures, it has just expanded. In November, “The House of Silk” by Anthony Horowitz became the first new Holmes adventure to be sanctioned by the late author’s estate and became an official addition to Doyle’s 56 short stories and four novels featuring the detective, whichwere first collected and published in 1930 as “The Complete Sherlock Holmes.” The new bestseller earned strong reviews for its macabre tale that opens years after the death of Holmes with aged Watson revealing for the first time details of a shocking early case.
To Lionel Wigram, a producer of the Ritchie films, there was no great mystery to solve in the salvation of Watson — it just required a good reading of Doyle.
“This is the 115th anniversary of the first Sherlock Holmes story and it all comes down to the brilliance of Arthur Conan Doyle,” Wigram said. “In Watson we see ourselves, the reader or the audience, he is our way into the adventure, and in Holmes we see the very best of all of us, the power of intellect. The friendship and the writing of Doyle, which is underrated, is why Holmes and Watson still matter and will continue to matter.”