Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler - an appreciation

[mrs_emma_peel]

Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler (Jeremy Brett and Gayle Hunnicutt) – an appreciation



Jeremy Brett - my favourite Sherlock Holmes … (Douglas Wilmer comes a close second) and

Texas born Gayle Hunnicutt, who has never looked lovelier than as the beautiful, bewitching adventuress and opera singer, Irene Adler – the woman … play formidable adversaries in A Scandal in Bohemia - an absolutely superb first episode of the definitive Sherlock Holmes ITV Granada series.



“She has the face of the most beautiful of women, and the mind of the most resolute of men …”



"Let me see!" said Holmes. "Born in New Jersey in the year 1858. Contralto! La Scala! Prima donna Imperial Opera of Warsaw … yes! Retired from operatic stage … ha! Living in London … quite so!

Your Majesty, as I understand, became entangled with this young person …"



“My Dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes:

You really did it very well. You took me in completely. Until after the alarm of fire, I had not a suspicion. But then, when I found how I had betrayed myself, I began to think. I had been warned against you months ago. I had been told that if the King employed an agent it would certainly be you. And your address had been given me.



Yet, with all this, you made me reveal what you wanted to know. Even after I became suspicious, I found it hard to think evil of such a dear, kind old clergyman. But, you know, I have been trained as an actress myself. Male costume is nothing new to me. I often take advantage of the freedom which it gives …



Well, I followed you to your door, and so made sure that I was really an object of interest to the celebrated Mr. Sherlock Holmes. Then I, rather imprudently, wished you good-night …



We both thought the best resource was flight, when pursued by so formidable an antagonist; so you will find the nest empty when you call to-morrow. As to the photograph, your client may rest in peace. I love and am loved by a better man than he.



The King may do what he will without hindrance from one whom he has cruelly wronged. I keep it only to safeguard myself, and to preserve a weapon which will always secure me from any steps which he might take in the future.

I leave a photograph which he might care to possess; and I remain, dear Mr. Sherlock Holmes,

Very truly yours,

Irene Norton, nee Adler”



“To Sherlock Holmes she is always the woman. I have seldom heard him mention her under any other name. In his eyes she eclipses and predominates the whole of her sex. It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler … there was but one woman to him, and that woman was the late Irene Adler, of dubious and questionable memory.”



The Way You Look Tonight

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1poGwiA9P8&feature=related]YouTube - Sherlock Holmes-The Way you look Tonight[/ame]



“This "memory" is kept alive by a photograph of Irene Adler, which had been left for the King when she and her new husband took flight with the condemning photograph of Irene and the King.

Holmes asked for and received this photograph of Irene as his payment for his part in the case.

This photograph is one of his most prized possessions.



And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom of Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a woman's wit. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late. And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the honourable title of the Woman.”



- A Scandal in Bohemia - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

[Panavision]

Aaaah, Mrs Peel...Gayle Hunnicutt and Jeremy as Irene and Holmes! You couldn't better the casting, could you? And at the end of the episode, when offered a reward for his work, all Holmes wanted was her piccy. Awwwww!



My favourite bit is when he's in trampy disguise, talking to her at the carriage (like Beauty and the Beast!) and she slips him a coin.



In the 80s I went into a tobacconist's in Manchester, near Granada Studios, and they maddeningly told me that I'd just missed Jeremy, who'd had just been in to buy a churchwarden-style pipe, presumably for his role as Holmes!



Johnny

[mrs_emma_peel]

I agree, Jeremy’s tramp disguise is absolutely brilliant – a superb encounter with the beautiful Gayle at the carriage – so beautifully done

Jeremy was the definitive Holmes