The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes: The Dying Detective

 "Mr Holmes, you are the very worst tenant in London!"

Sigh. This second episode is better than the first. Jeremy Brett is, of course, superb as the strangely indifferent and, eventually, ill Holmes- or seemingly so. The cast is unusually strong, even if a very young Hugh Bonneville is going by "Richard" here. Roy Hudd is delightful as a ne'er-do-well. It all looks very good. And yet... it's all fundamentally misconceived.

The Dying Detective works well as a short story, but the short stoty works only because it essentially consists of what we see as the final scenes here, as Holmes pretends to be dying so the gullible Culverton Smith can, like a Bond villain, confess. To fit a fifty minute episode we need to have a long, awkward, preambe to establish the context. This is unfortunate, and not only because the denoument becomes rather obvious if we understand what has led up to it. Holmes behaviour, too, in refusing to suspect Culverton Smith (until he does) feels awkward and too blatantly plot driven. It's odd, too, that he would take up the case of yet another opium addict husband; the apparent encouragement of hs cousin would not make the case sufficiently interesting.

As a result, the episode may be well-made but fundamentally doesn't work. The short story needs to be a short vignette in order to work. Expanding it to a full fifty minute episode simply doesn't work.

Still, I'm glad they kept in Homes' apparent fear of oysters...

The Blood Beast Terror (1968)

 "They'll never believe this at the Yard!"

There were many non-Hammer, non-Amicus little horror films starring Peter Cushing in the late '60s, essentially because he needed the money to go private with the pressng mecical needs of his very ill wife, who was unfortunately to die a couple of years later. This is a fairly anonymous example and, objectively, you can't exactly say it's particularly good. But you can't help but enjoy it.

The plot is a mess, of course. It's not entirely clear why the professor's daughter ends up as a man-eating moth, why he so suddenly turns against her or, indeed, whether he's a professor or a doctor. Also, the moth costume is rubbish, but Vernon Sewell at least has the sense to only show it in glimpses.

Yet the Victorian sets are glorious- including a wonderful chemistry set. There's a play within the film, loosely based on Frankenstein, which lasts for quite a while and is gloriously bonkers. Peter Cushing, although clearly phoning it in, is incapable of being less than excellent. We have Kevin Stoney as a sinister butler, and a couple of splendid comic cameos from a shockingly young Roy Hudd as a cheerful morgue attendant..

And Victorian tropes and references abound. Cushing's daughter has her blood sucked and is mesmerised to remain under the baddies' control- all very Dracula. There's a colonial scene featuring a pith helmet. The police are splendidly Victorian, and the sergeant has a truly magnificent moustache. This may be a very silly film, and not intentionally so, but it's eminently watchable and rather good fun.