The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

In Billy Wilder's cinematic homage to the spirit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, British stage luminary Robert Stephens plays Holmes, while Colin Blakely is his friend and chronicler Dr. Watson. This self-described "hitherto suppressed and thoroughly fascinating" tale concerns Holmes' search for a ...more

Mellow and romantic, Billy Wilder's mutilated late masterwork is more an intimate portrait of Arthur Conan Doyle's famed coke-sniffing, violin-loving, super-rational detective than a straightforward mystery. Shooting elegantly in England, Wilder and longtime co-writer I.A.L. Diamond mine humor from Holmes's suspect sexuality and make plain his drug habit. As played by Robert Stephens, their Holmes is a figure of melancholy and regret. His impossible romance with a woman who is his intellectual ...more