A young woman Mary Morstan (Jenny Seagrove) visits a snappy Holmes with a story of her father's disappearance some years earlier and how she later started receiving a precious jewel each year.
This leads to an encounter with the quirky nervous Thaddeus Sholto (Ronald Lacey) whose father served in India with Mary's father. He tells Mary that her father did die in an accident.
As Holmes and Watson are taken to see Thaddeus's twin brother Bartholomew regarding a box of treasure that has been found. The brother has been slain and the box containing he treasure is missing.
Holmes looks for clues and reckons a poisoned dart was used to kill the Bartholomew in a room that looks impossible to scale from the outside.
Before long Holmes and Watson are hot on the heel of Jonathan Small (John Thaw) and ex soldier who served in India, now a one legged man who is taking revenge in those who cheated him and his fellow convicts.
This was the first feature length movie of the Granada Sherlock Holmes series. It does look beautiful with some filming taking place in Malta which doubles for India. There is also a wonderful chase scene in the river. Norfolk being used to double for the River Thames.
John Thaw enter the proceedings rather late in the day, initially with a dart blowing pygmy by his side played by the legendary Kiran Shah. As in the book, A Study in Scarlet. Small tells his story in flashbacks and giving reasons why he is out for revenge. It is a strong intimidating performance from Thaw.
This was also the best of the feature length adaptations in the Brett series.
This leads to an encounter with the quirky nervous Thaddeus Sholto (Ronald Lacey) whose father served in India with Mary's father. He tells Mary that her father did die in an accident.
As Holmes and Watson are taken to see Thaddeus's twin brother Bartholomew regarding a box of treasure that has been found. The brother has been slain and the box containing he treasure is missing.
Holmes looks for clues and reckons a poisoned dart was used to kill the Bartholomew in a room that looks impossible to scale from the outside.
Before long Holmes and Watson are hot on the heel of Jonathan Small (John Thaw) and ex soldier who served in India, now a one legged man who is taking revenge in those who cheated him and his fellow convicts.
This was the first feature length movie of the Granada Sherlock Holmes series. It does look beautiful with some filming taking place in Malta which doubles for India. There is also a wonderful chase scene in the river. Norfolk being used to double for the River Thames.
John Thaw enter the proceedings rather late in the day, initially with a dart blowing pygmy by his side played by the legendary Kiran Shah. As in the book, A Study in Scarlet. Small tells his story in flashbacks and giving reasons why he is out for revenge. It is a strong intimidating performance from Thaw.
This was also the best of the feature length adaptations in the Brett series.