There’s a great parody of Holmes (three different Holmes’s, actually) from the Russian sketch show Big Difference (Большая Разница). I gather the translation for the English subtitles is - serviceable, but loses something in the translation.

It’s funny to think that we’re farther away in time from the Universal films and their then-contemporary setting (75 years) than the first Universal film was from the first appearance of Holmes in 1887 (65 years).

Sherlock Holmes in Washington, the third of the 12 Universal films. The first ten minutes or so, with Gerald Hamer as a British spy trying to conceal some microfilm before the bad guys kill him, are quite good; after that you can give it a miss, although George Zucco and Henry Daniell are always worth a watch.

I first saw this film in 1976, when I was 12, and I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen it in the intervening years. They say your first Holmes is your definitive Holmes, and yes, to me Rathbone is Holmes.

‘When we think of Sherlock Holmes, the image that tends to come to mind is Basil Rathbone: the hat, the pipe, the capelet, with Watson as a slightly drunk, buffoonish sidekick.’

‘Definitive’ Sherlock Holmes is so subjective. If you’re with a group of die-hard Sherlockians - as in they can tell you how many brothers Moriarty had and what their names and occupations were - and want to have some fun, just casually say ‘Jeremy Brett has to be considered the definitive Sherlock Holmes,’ then step…

I have so often wished that someone involved with one of the Rathbone films had contrived to get a sword into Rathbone’s hands. It’s canonical, people!

It’s only in the first three Universal films that Holmes’s hair looks unkempt. Starting with Sherlock Holmes Faces Death, the fourth installment (and a top-notch adventure) Holmes’s hair is back to normal.

“They’re still hammering in Hilltop. What they’re building? Who knows. But they’re still pounding away on something.”

As someone who’s been a Sherlockian since I was 12 (42 years now, for those keeping score at home), I love Without a Clue; something that can’t be said for all Sherlockians. When it came out I went and saw it in the theatre with a bunch of other Sherlockians - we had all just formed a Holmes society in Vancouver - and…

The difference is that Shakespeare’s plays and Greek tragedies were written as plays; To Kill a Mockingbird wasn’t, so has to be adapted. In that process, changes will have to be made, because what was written for (and works in) another medium won’t necessarily translate into a stage version.

All Quiet on the Western Front is one of those films that holds up after - Jesus, almost 90 years. The final scene, with Paul reaching out for the butterfly, always has me holding my breath, hoping that maybe, this time, he lives. And then the closing scene with all the boys marching to war: damn, I’m crying just…

Haven’t heard this for years, since my son discovered John Bird and played these broadcasts all the time.

You might want to stop watching the show, then, because that reaction doesn’t seem entirely rational.

Yeah; couldn’t she have enjoyed her moment presenting the Best Actor Oscar as per tradition, and Mirren and Fonda could have presented something else?

An eighth-grade dropout who has an Oscar and is worth millions. Your point is - what?

Also in 1939 (and not nominated for Best Picture) is The Hunchback of Notre Dame and possibly the best big-screen Sherlock Holmes film ever made, The Hound of the Baskervilles with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce.

Subscribe to your local newspaper (if you have one). I’m the editor of (and sole reporter for) a local newspaper serving several small (less then 1,500 population each) communities in the Interior of British Columbia, so this might sound self-serving; but no other media outlet is going to cover the stories that are…

Re: Brief Encounter (which I absolutely agree with as a choice) Mike writes: “Happily married woman (Celia Johnson) meets attractive single man (Trevor Howard) and they fall passionately, miserably in love.”

Fun fact: George MacDonald Fraser, creator of Flashman, wrote the screenplay for Octopussy.