Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Series
by Various
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Howard Marion, Ronald HowardDirector: Various
Brand: Digital1stop
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Box set, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 1170 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-09-01
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Model: MV50494
Studio: Mill Creek Entertainment
Product features:
- There were 39 specially written, thirtyminuteTV Sherlock Holmes filmsmade starring Ronald Howard asHolmes and Howard MarionCrawford as Watson. They wereproduced by Sheldon Reynolds andfilmed and scored in France. RonaldHoward was the son of the actor LeslieHoward, with whom he appeared inPimpernel Smith. Howard Marion-Crawford is one of those rare Holmes-Watson actors. This delightful collectionof
Movie Reviews of Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Series
Movie Review: An extremely rare find, worth owning :-)
Summary: 5 Stars
Since Amazon did not have a picture of this item at the time this review was originally written, and the "marketplace client" who was selling it for next to nothing did not respond to my email for 2 weeks where I requested to know if this set is what I NOW know it is, being the "Sherlockian" I am, I did some "reason by deduction" and bought this set new from BBC America on January 14th, they shipped it on the 17th from near Philly, and it was handed to me by a UPS man as I walked into my building coming home from work on the 18th (despite their claim it would take 10-14 days to get to me). So now I can review it for y'all. This is a 5 dvd set of a 39 half hour b/w series syndicated during the 1954-1955 tv season. It stars Ronald Howard (son of Leslie NOT Ron "Happy Days" Howard) as Holmes and Howard (billed by his first initial "H" so not to be confused with his costar's last name) Marion Crawford as Watson. Some of the stories are based on actual Doyle stories, but most are not. They are still very entertaining. I called this "a rare find" because to the best of my knowledge this is the only dvd set of the FULL series. The only other time I saw a complete copy was a 10 VHS set many moons ago (thank God now I didn't buy it). A number of inexpensive DVD manufacturers offer it installments, the best being Alpha Video's 4 episode per disc copies that (as of my last birthday in 2005) have only released 7 discs for a total of 28 episodes, and another set of 5 discs I saw at Best Buy for the same 20 bucks I bought this for with only 20. (Update: there's yet another incomplete set coming out now (November 2006: 27 episodes for 10 bucks). So this could very well be the only complete version out there. Now for you technical geniuses out there here's the ups and downs.
The good side: 1) As I said all 39 episodes of this rare series are in here at 8 episodes a disc except disc 5 which has 7. 2)On the disc labels and the back of the jacket is a list of all the names of the episodes and their original air date (that's US air date not England).
The bad side: 1)There are no "chapter stops" during individual episodes. If you go from 1 segment (chapter) to another on these discs, you start another episode (as MPI does with Classic Dark Shadows, not that I mind since they are only half hour shows). 2) The "Red Headed League" episode has a hiccup in it where you hear Holmes read a line of Jabez Wilson's ad twice. So therefore they are not PERFECTLY remastered. My guess is they made this set from a set of par for the course tapes made from kinescope which (again like Dark Shadows) could not be repaired without cutting the episode (you'd think Mill Creek would be nice like MPI and put a mesage about this on screen, so you are "warned" in advance". 3) The "intros" by Christopher Lee mentioned on the cover are not what you would expect. Rather than 39 intros dedicated to each episode, it is 1 intro of him saying how much he thought it was one of the best roles he played, and then proceeds with a general description of Holmes as written by Doyle (in the first person as Watson in the books). This same intro appears at the beginning of ALL 5 discs. Personally, with all due respect to the I hope someday "Sir Christopher", once is enough for this set.
All in all, it is still a good set. Not quite what one expect if you grew up watching the Rathbone/Bruce movies from the 40s (I have all of them on MPI discs) or the Granada/PBS series from the mid 80s to the 90s with Brett and Burke (and later Hardwicke) (I have those too), but still a nice series and hard to get all at one time for a great price.
Summary of Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Series
The 1954-55 television series. Studio: Digital1stop Release Date: 08/19/2008 Starring: Ronald HowardSimilar DVD Movies
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