SuperHeroBooks - Sherlock Holmes - The Master Blackmailer
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List Price: $14.98
Our Price: $9.33
Your Save: $ 5.65 ( 38% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Mpi Home Video
Starring: Jeremy Brett, Edward Hardwicke, Gwen Ffrangcon Davies, Tony Broughton, Lee Clarke
Directed By: Peter Hammond
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 9780788604645
Format: Color
ISBN: 0788604643
Label: Mpi Home Video
Manufacturer: Mpi Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Mpi Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: 2003-03-25
Running Time: 102
Studio: Mpi Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1993-05-06
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Disappointed
Comment: I love Jeremy Brett and I love the Sherlock Holmes stories. I really love many of Jeremy's performances as Holmes. But not all and sadly not this one. It's not really the acting, it's the screenplay. Granada was in its artsy phase I guess and took quite a few liberties. I'll admit I was intrigued by "the kiss" between Holmes and the maid, but the way it was staged was just awkward and totally out of character for Holmes. All in all I think the early Granada episodes such as those from "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," or "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" are where Jeremy really shines.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Does this come with a Libretto?
Comment: It's curiously lyrical. It wasn't Directed so much as it was Conducted. Especially the final confrontation between The Veiled Woman and Milverton with its counterpoint/overlay of dialogue "duet."
Cinematography is wonderful - like a series of paintings. The interesting angles and use of reflections are Director Peter Hammond at the height of his technique. Who else would have thought of doing the ending as an Opera? (Ironically, he appears to have ended his career with this series.)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Holmes the human -- almost.
Comment: THE MASTER BLACKMAILER is arguably the best of the five feature-length Sherlock Holmes films made by Grenada TV. It lacks the convolutions of THE LAST VAMPYRE, the occasional sluggishness of the THE SIGN OF FOUR, the weird mystical elements of the THE ELIGIBLE BACHELOR, and the overly experimental cinemetography that undermined the otherwise excellent HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. The story shoves Holmes out of his comfort zone of cold deductive reasoning and poses with brutal frankness the old Nietzscheian question: 'How many lines can the hero cross before he becomes a villain himself?'
BLACKMAILER pits Jeremy Brett's Holmes Edward Hardwicke's Watson against
Charles Augustus Milverton, their most formiddable opponent since Professor Moriarity. As the name suggests, Milverton, played with sniggering, loathsome villainy by Robert Hardy, makes his living obtaining compromising information about London's elite and threatening to ruin them unless paid fortunes in hush money. His long history of blackmail has left a wreckage-trail of scandal and suicide all over Victorian England, but his precautions are so thorough, and his intelligence so keen, that his victims have no choiue but to pay up or endure the consequences.
When Lady Eva Brackenwell becomes Milverton's next target, however, she employs Holmes to recover old love letters which, if made public, will foil her upcoming marriage to a young lord. And herein lies the story's main departure from formula: instead of a conventional mystery for the consulting detective, we have a problem better suited to a noirish private investigator. How can Holmes prevent a master blackmailer from spilling his illicit goods with the wedding only a few days away?
The late and extremely great Jeremy Brett always played Holmes as being either a bit less or a bit more than human depending on his mood and the case at hand -- he was often ill-tempered, arrogant, bad-mannered, and insensitive to the point of cruelty, and even in his best moments he seemed to be approximating human feelings rather than actually experiencing them; yet he was also courageous, brilliant, dogged, loyal, and imbued with a fierce sense of justice and a terrifying resolve to see the mystery solved and the evildoer punished. It is this last category that the writers chose to explore in BLACKMAILER, in which an increasingly desperate and frustrated Holmes finds himself posing as a plumber and seducing (in chaste Victorian fashion) Milverton's naive housekeeper, Agatha, so as to gain access to Milverton's home. To what extent Holmes feels anything for Agatha, if at all, is unclear, but Brett's subtle acting shows that while Holmes may not be capable of experiencing affection, he is certainly capable of feeling shame -- shame encouraged by a disgusted Watson, whose gentlemanly sense of honor is revolted at this ultraMachiavellian move.
Hardy's Milverton, far from being a foil for Holmes' genius, proves to be a full match for our hero, who grows to hate his antagonist and finally throws aside the subtleties of espionage for brute force and thievery. The story's resolution, one of the most violent in the history of the series, is simultaneously satisfying and humbling -- in the end, Holmes and Watson serve as little more than accessories after the fact to the world's most unlikely vigilante. The only real down note in the whole production was the decision by the director to edit Inspector Lestrade's role in the story to a glorified cameo -- a potentially classic scene where he is talking to Holmes and Watson about a crime without realizing he is talking to its perpetrators unfortunately did not make the final cut.
THE MASTER BLACKMAILER stands as one of the more disturbing and poignent of all the Grenada TV Holmes outings. Normally it is Holmes who gives the lecture and those around him who are the pupils. Here, it is the detective who learns one of the hardest of life's lessons -- that the means used to defeat evil are often as bad as the evil itself.
Customer Rating:
Summary: not as good as "sign or Hound of the baskerville" however
Comment: If you're a Brett fan you have only so many choices. The master blackmailer, filmed late in his career, still holds up. It's a nice story with Holmes flirting, in disguise, with the scullary maid. And outwitting the master Blackmailer.
It's better then The Eligible Bachelor and The Last Vampyre but the best two hour productions are The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Sign of Four.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Very Dramatic and Suspenseful Film
Comment: For years this was the only Sherlock Holmes mystery in the Jeremy Brett collection that I had never seen. I put off buying it because of the many mediocre reviews I had read. This month I decided to purchase it and finish off my collection. In brief, I was pleasantly surprised. I found it to be a very suspenseful and interesting film. Holmes must bring down a "professional" blackmailer (Charles Milverton), who has destroyed many lives through his tactics. There is much debate over whether Holmes falls in love in the episode. I don't think so. In order to infiltrate the Milverton household, he disguises himself as a plumber and, in the process, draws the romantic attraction of the house maid. They have a couple of "romantic moments" together, and even kiss at one point. However, although the maid is attracted to him, I don't think Holmes was truly attracted to her. It was merely an act as part of his undercover operation. Needless to say, he breaks the girl's heart. At the end, he even says there are aspects of the case that he was not proud of. This was no doubt one of them.
But I would definitely recommend this film. It is more dramatic and suspenseful than other Sherlock Holmes episodes, and the acting is fantastic. And even though it is close to 2 hours in length, it will keep your attention throughout.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Based on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's story "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton," this two-hour 1991 adaptation for the most part sticks close to the details of the original. Holmes (Jeremy Brett) takes on the reputed king of all blackmailers, Milverton (Robert Hardy), who has made a fortune extorting money from the famous and the blueblooded and who routinely ruins others' lives when not pleased. Unable to talk Milverton into turning over letters belonging to Lady Eva Brackenwell, Holmes decides to steal them, going undercover as a plumber and even romancing Milverton's housemaid, Agatha (Sophie Thompson), to gain better access in the house. (The ethical Watson, played by Edward Hardwicke, is upset to hear of Holmes's deception of an innocent woman.) The story builds to a surprisingly violent finale, but the real hook is Brett's performance as the disguised detective and the startling suggestion that Holmes's close contact with Agatha truly moved the bachelor sleuth. --Tom Keogh
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