The Master Blackmailer (1992)

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote a series of short stories for a London periodical, based on the character of Sherlock Holmes, and master detective, and Dr Watson, his close friend and partner. These stories were sensational in their popularity at the time, and Conan Doyle went on to write some full length books.

A series of films were made with Basil Rathbone in the role of Holmes, and Nigel Bruce as Watson, from 1939, and these revived interest in the already famous character. Those films were intentionally overacted, and come across as camp nowadays.

In the 1990's, Granada, a British television station, commissioned a series of films based on Conan Doyle's stories; some of these were an hour long, and some about two hours. All of them were lavishly filmed, with quality actors, well written scripts, excellent costumes and good outdoor shots giving a proper feel of Victorian London. This was no mean feat and they must have cost a fortune to make.

The Master Blackmailer was one of the two-hour films, and it is perhaps the best. An upper class blackmailer is at work, buying incriminating love letters and the like from unscrupulous servants, and then blackmailing the authors or the recipients with exposure of infidelity -- or worse.

Colonel Dorking has been in the habit of attending a travesty club. We see the performer, played by Simon Fogg, in an extended singing routine, which I thought was exceptionally well done. During the performance, Dorking is all eyes, and we see him mouth "I Love You" to the singer. S/he comes off stage and a trio does a routine, Three Little Girls At School Are We from The Mikado.

Our blackmailer gets documentary evidence against Dorking, and he ends his life with his service revolver, as an officer and gentleman must.

The film is remarkable for seeing Holmes (Jeremy Brett) in a screen kiss too; Holmes is always portrayed as asexual; in this story he was pretending to be a plumber and was wooing the housemaid to get illicit access to the blackmailer's house.

The film was faithfully taken from Conan Doyle's story, The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton and is sometimes considered to be an episode of the series, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes. It is also sometimes titled, Sherlock Holmes: The Master Blackmailer. Although Colonel Dorking is referred to in Conan Doyle's original story, the romance with the drag performer is not mentioned.

Most highly recommended.

HF May 2006

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