SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE CASE OF THE SILVER STOCKING (2004)
I usually enjoy watching mystery or detective stories, especially if they are very smartly built around a murder case and not too bloody. I hate horror movies, in fact. So, when I bumped into a 2004 TV movie , starring Rupert Everett as a convincing Sherlock Holmes last night, I was caught up in its foggy intriguing atmosphere and forgot all I had to do. I remained there, sitting still till the end, trying to conjecture who the serial killer murdering teenage girls might be. It was broadcast on BBC PRIME, a satellite channel I sometimes watch because it proposes British programmes from BBC (old series of Spooks, Dr Who, The Vicar of Dibley, Doctors, Eastenders among others) .
I'm not a very good detective but I guess I could be an excellent helper, like Dr Watson (Ian Hart , below, in this version).
So, I tried to guess and infer from the clues ... I got the right culprit but I wasn't able to ... solve the case.The culprit had an alibi which had to be denied. Fortunately, Holmes was as brilliant as ever and saved, with the help of loyal Watson, the last chosen victim from the murderer. Just a second before it was too late, of course!
THE PLOT
November 1903. Fresh from an opium den in London's East End, Sherlock Holmes relaxes with green tea and a book on beekeeping, paying no heed to Dr Watson's plea for help with a baffling case. The corpse of a shabbily dressed young woman has been discovered in the mud flats of the Thames at low tide. Police assume she's a prostitute, but Dr Watson suspects something more and goes to his old friend Holmes, now retired and at very loose ends. The original screenplay - not an adaptation from Conan Doyle - by Allan Cubitt re-unites an estranged Holmes and his friend Watson in a desperate bid to solve a case which threatens to overwhelm the privilege and tranquillity of Edwardian aristocratic society. The victims are in fact chosen among girls from ancient aristocratic families. The murderer uses the girls' silk stockings to torture and finally kill them.
