Tuxedo Inn

I don't buy DVDs much anymore.  I watch everything at the drive-in during the summer or On-Demand on cable.  As much as I love having a big movie library, my house is struggling to hold the material possessions I have now.  So it was sort of unusual to get the bug to see last year's Sherlock Holmes movie again.  It's gone out of rotation on "On Demand" on cable.  It's been out long enough they dont' carry the DVD in the BJs mega mart.  I had to wend my way from the drugs & decor sections of Target to the media department and snag a copy  from the "intermediate" price bin. 

I originally saw Robert Downey Jr as Sherlock Holmes in the theater when I took Love Monkey to the show for his birthday. (He is a devout Sherlockian.)   The movie rippled my sensibilities  and left me a bit on an unpleasant mood.  On the big screen Irene Addler's dresses looked like they'd been garnered from a Halloween costume store's trash dumpster.  Watson looked like he was wearing a refitted 1970's polyester leisure suit.  Holmes looked like he stank.  The steam punk contraptions were OK.  Sherlock debunking a charlatan's sleight of hand was OK. The acting was great.  (Even the constables were fleshed out.)   But overall it bumped against something in my Sherlock circuit and it rattled it. 

The Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson I love live in an upper class Victorian world. The  Holmes that lives among the pages is fastidious with his appearance, even if slovenly in his digs.  Mrs. Hudson would never allow the front of her house to be filthy or the transom to be covered with soot.  Dr. Watson is a dapper man with infinite patience for his friend.   That world is clear, bright, and well defined each time I pick up the books.

That world popped into three dimensions when I saw Jeremy Brett as Holmes in the television series.  His Sherlock Holmes was bright eyed, lithe, physical, emotional, and gently peculiar.  The twinkling of an eye or the curl of a smile sent "just to the camera" was the touch that brought Brett's  Holmes to compassionate and human life.   I fell completely in love with the portrayal.   The Granada Television series' two Dr. Watson's were both vital, smart, steadfast, quick, courageous, energetic, and right with Holmes at every turn.  In the screen adaptations smoking pipes, furnishings, carriages, gas lights, lanterns, and clothes were matched to those mentioned in the original stories.  The whole series was a succulent visual adventure into Victorian England and the lives of Holmes and Watson.

After singing such a love song to Mr. Brett and his Sherlock Holmes, it  may sound strange to espouse a yen to revisit Guy Richie's take on the tale.  None the less the inkling came upon me and I found I liked the movie better on the small screen. 

The costumes that tweaked nerves on the big screen receded into the background on the television screen.   Perhaps being at home with a cold beverage and other distractions kept me from paying too much attention.  Whatever the reason for my revised opinion, I'm finding myself fascinated by the bare knuckle fighting ring scene.

Mr. Brett gave his Sherlock a pub brawl victory in "The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist".  He was spry over fences and rooftops in "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton".   But his version of Sherlock never went to the ring looking for an afternoon's recreation.

Robert Downey Jr's Sherlock is in the fight ring and detached from it at the same time.  We hear the fight strategy as monologue.  We see Sherlock reel from blows and jump back up applauding.  He is in a physical fight and out of his body all at once.

That's the part of the performance that catches me.  I watch that section over and over.  It is telling, perhaps more about me than about Robert Downey Jr. as an actor.  I sense there is something that I need to take away from those few frames of film as they repeat.  Something about boundaries, disassociation, or concentration perhaps?   When I find the nugget I need to know from Robert Downey Jr's Sherlock Holmes, the DVD will go into the slipcase until I need it again.  Meanwhile I will be watching Mr. Downey and working on a mystery of my own.