My biggest surprise after completing Arthur Conan Doyle’s “Sherlock Holmes” literary canon is that he lays the groundwork for bigger stories more so than writing them himself. An area left unexplored is Holmes’ romantic relationships; it’s so underexplored that fans have embraced his love for Irene Adler even though she only appears in one story and they don’t so much as go on a date.
Leave it to Billy Wilder and co-writer I.A.L. Diamond to give us “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” (1970), which completely adheres to the nature of a Doyle story while also taking a big step of exploring Holmes’ bittersweet near-romance with foreign-accented amnesiac Gabrielle Valladon (the alluring Geneviève Page, who died in February at age 97).
I had the wrong idea of “Private Life” in my head, since it’s labeled as a comedy. But the humor is only the mildest smidge beyond Doyle’s own winky tropes, thus landing us in Wilder’s usual comedy zone – pleasant but not uproarious. For instance, Holmes (Robert Stephens) is irked that Watson’s (Colin Blakely) writings of his exploits in The Strand exaggerate his prowess, forcing him to try to live up to it. His distinct brand of hat is for the sake of fitting Watson’s description of him. But he can’t do much about being 6-foot-1 when Watson describes him as 6-foot-4.
“The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” (1970)
Director: Billy Wilder
Writers: Billy Wilder, I.A.L. Diamond (screenplay); Arthur Conan Doyle (characters)
Stars: Robert Stephens, Christopher Lee, Colin Blakely
It’s obvious that Wilder and Diamond speak the language of a Holmes story, through the Holmes-Watson interactions and through their uncovering of clues, plus canonical specifics. Holmes notes that he takes a 5 percent solution of cocaine to take the edge off. Before fans can raise a finger in protest, Watson says “7 percent.” Ah, but Holmes is accounting for the fact that Watson dilutes it further, thinking his friend doesn’t notice.
Often, Doyle starts his stories with a small lark unrelated to what will follow. “Private Life” plays on that with a mini-story wherein the friends attend a Russian ballet, and its star tries to recruit Holmes to have his baby. She desires that her beauty be combined with his brains to create a perfect child.
He’s not merely intellectually invested
Holmes politely declines, and “Private Life” flirts with a cliched idea and then a rare one, before settling down into a normal “Sherlock Holmes” detective story. Holmes implies he and Watson are gay lovers in order for the Russian dancer to firmly dismiss him, and for a moment I feared this would be an alternate-universe tale where that is indeed their relationship. Admittedly, the sequence wherein the Russian troupe mistakes Watson for being gay (without him realizing what they think) is funny.
After that, it’s established that Holmes is not gay, but likewise has not had a lot of relationships. One could argue that Holmes is already one of the most famous asexual literary characters, but briefly Wilder makes the subtext into text.
Appealingly, it’s not the launching pad to an overwrought character study of Holmes, but rather a mystery that’s a tad more personal. His relationship with Gabrielle has sensual underpinnings, but the audience now knows Holmes’ character (even in the unlikely case that this is their introduction to him). Waking the morning after she’s taken into 221B Baker Street as an amnesiac case, the naked Gabrielle hugs Holmes. This sets up a great gag where Watson thinks Holmes “took advantage” of her and Holmes says indeed he did enjoy studying her body; we know it’s for the sake of finding a clue in ink on her hand.
“Private Life” then takes Holmes, Watson and Gabrielle through twists, turns and a jump into war intrigue that Doyle himself could’ve written – fitting with the author’s cheeky notion that numerous exploits were kept from The Strand. The reason? Holmes has asked Watson not to make those cases public; he says it’s because he’s not keen to have his failures chronicled, but it’s suggested these might be his most emotional cases.
A smart framing mechanism takes care of this, as Watson’s will dictates that his files be opened 50 years after his passing, and “Private Life” is among the unearthed tales. Moving on to Wilder’s files: Compared to original gems like “Sunset Boulevard” and “The Apartment,” “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” is mundane; merely another Sherlock Holmes story. But the ease with which he and Diamond operate in this well-worn franchise with respect, accuracy and warmth is easy to take for granted.
Wilder Wednesdays looks at the catalog of legendary writer-director Billy Wilder.