For the unfamiliar, a "reveal" in screenwriting parlance is the placement of key, revelatory information in a story. Most times, the last reveal is the most important revelation of all.
FADE IN:
INT. CABIN B - DAY
The curtains have been pulled over the porthole, and it is semi-dark. In bed is a youngish couple. They are motionless, naked, and covered up to their necks with a sheet. On the night-table is a tray with three empty champagne bottles, two glasses, and a couple of swizzle-sticks. On the dresser is a bridal bouquet, a bit wilted by now, and a grey top hat. Against the wall is an open steamer trunk, plastered with labels from various hotels. Male and female clothes are strewn around.
WATSON
Be careful not to touch anything.
Clues, you know.
He pulls the curtains slightly apart to let in some daylight.
The porthole's open. Then he steps to the bed, lifts the sheet, inspects the
naked bodies.(CAMERA is in such position that he can see but we cannot.)
WATSON (CONT'D)
(a small note of
triumph)
I was correct. They are definitely
of opposite sexes.
HOLMES
I'm willing to accept that.
WATSON
(studying the naked bodies)
No wounds, no blood, no signs of
violence -- The porthole's open, so
it can't be suffocation--everything
seems to point to death by poisoning.
He lowers the sheet, draws it over their heads.
WATSON (CONT'D)
Let's see. We can immediately eliminate
the possibility that the poison was
self-administered.
HOLMES
How so?
WATSON
My dear Holmes, people who are about
to commit suicide don't
put their shoes
out to be shined.
HOLMES
Good shot.
WATSON
We are therefore faced with a clear-
cut case of murder. Poisoned
by a
person or persons unknown.
HOLMES
I would be inclined to suspect the
chef. Did you taste the
Lobster Thermidor
last night?
WATSON
Quiet, Holmes. I'm concentrating.
HOLMES
Sorry.
WATSON’S eyes travel around the cabin, come to rest on the champagne
set-up.
WATSON
(an inspiration)
The champagne!
He picks up one of the glasses -- there is a drop of champagne left. He holds it against the light, then he dips his finger in, tests it with
the tip of his tongue.
WATSON (CONT'D)
(holding out glass)
What do you see, Holmes? What do you
smell?
HOLMES
(sniffing glass)
Nothing.
WATSON
Exactly. It was a colorless, odorless,
crystalline alkaloid
of the belladonna
family.
HOLMES
An inescapable conclusion.
WATSON
Now suppose the poison had been
introduced into the bottle –
HOLMES
It's possible.
WATSON
No it isn't. Because once you remove
the cork, the champagne
would be flat,
and they would send it back.
HOLMES
Right you are.
WATSON’S face, agonized by concentration, suddenly lights up.
WATSON
Aaah!
HOLMES
Ah, what?
WATSON
Holmes, you're going to be very proud
of me. The victims
stirred their own
fatal potion.
HOLMES
But you said it couldn't be suicide.
WATSON
It wasn't. Here are the murder weapons
--these two innocent
swizzle-sticks.
(picks them up,
holds them out)
They were coated with belladonna,
which dissolved as they
were stirring
their champagne.
HOLMES
How devilish.
WATSON
You agree, then, that we have
established the method --
HOLMES
Bravo.
WATSON
Not yet. We must now look for a
motive. Exactly what do we
know
about this ill-fated couple?
(wandering around
cabin)
Observe the man's hat. Those white
specks--how would you
explain them?
HOLMES
A careless sea gull, perhaps.
WATSON
Hardly. You will find that they
are grains of rice.
HOLMES
Rice?
WATSON
That, taken in conjunction with
the wilted bouquet, would
seem to
indicate that they were recently
married. I would further surmise
that
they are on their honeymoon
--judging from the labels on the
steamer trunk.
HOLMES
Not to mention the rapturous
expression on their faces.
WATSON
Quite. Now let us ask ourselves--
who could conceivably
have such
fiendish designs against a young
married couple?
HOLMES
Who?
WATSON
A jilted lover, of course.
HOLMES
I can't argue with that.
WATSON
Now then! Since we are
in mid-
Mediterranean, and since I assume
the culprit is not amphibious, it
stands to reason that he is still
on board.
HOLMES
Irrefutable.
WATSON
But where? --- He can't be a member
of the crew -- it’s too
much of a
coincidence for the honeymooners
to
wind up on the same ship. On the
other hand, he can't be a passenger,
either -- too much danger that they
would recognize him before he could
strike.
HOLMES
Splendid. You've just ruled out
all the possibilities.
WATSON
Not quite. What you have failed to
consider, my dear Holmes, is that
he could be a stow-away.
HOLMES
(reaching up)
I tip my fez to you.
WATSON
So! He sneaks aboard -- spies on
them -- learns that between bouts
of lovemaking, they have lashings
of champagne. And then, last
night --
(breaks off)
But how does a stow-away lay
his hands on belladonna? I'm a doctor
-- and I don't normally carry it.
However, you know who would have
an unlimited supply available to
him? An eye-doctor.
HOLMES
Eye-doctor?
WATSON
They use belladonna to dilate the
pupils.
HOLMES
That must be it.
WATSON
Which leaves us with only one
problem unresolved -- that
business
with the swizzle-sticks -- How did
he manage it?
HOLMES
Don't keep me in suspense, Watson.
WATSON
(casually)
I think when we track him down,
you'll find that we are
dealing
with a rather corpulent man.
HOLMES
How did you arrive at that?
WATSON
(pointing through
open doorway)
Observe the narrowness of the
passage way. Now picture a
steward carrying the tray toward
the cabin. You or I would have
no trouble
passing him. But if a
man were pot-bellied, they would
have to squeeze past
each other
sideways. The tray would be between
them, and he could easily substi-
tute
the poison swizzle-sticks for
the harmless ones.
HOLMES
Watson, are you sure this is your
first case?
WATSON
(winging by now)
To sum up, therefore. We must
look for a stowaway, who is in
love with the bride, weighs at
least sixteen stone, and is a
practicing
optician -- that's
our man.
HOLMES
A classic example of deductive
reasoning.
WATSON
Nothing to it, really. When you
eliminated all the solutions,
however improbable, whatever is
left must be impossible.
(frowns)
No, that doesn't sound right --
HOLMES
Close enough.
WATSON
Now, if my theory about the cause
of death is correct--poisoning by
belladonna--palpation should now
reveal a marked extension of
the
stomach.
He throws the sheet back, disclosing the
man and woman, naked to the waist. With his fingers outspread, he presses down several times on the woman's abdomen. She stirs, moans, turns sleepily towards her husband.
BRIDE
Can I have some more champagne?
BRIDE
Can I have some more champagne?
From
“The Dreadful Business of the Naked Honeymooners,” a lost segment of the
roadshow version of Billy Wilder’s and I.A.L. Diamond's screenplay of THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK
HOLMES, never formally released in this form.
Recently,
after a long search, I finally managed to read a copy of a screenplay of the
original full (roadshow) version of
Billy Wilder’s and I.A.L. Diamond’s THE PRIVATE LIFE OF
SHERLOCK HOLMES (hereafter referred to as TPLOSH). This was a script I’d
been hunting for decades. Having seen the released film and knowing there was
more, in fact, well over an hour more, I wanted to know what was cut out.
As
some may know, the original film as shot ran over 3 hours and included an intermission.
This type of release was referred to in the business as a “roadshow” picture.
Others have included many biblical epics, novelty films like CINERAMA, AROUND
THE WORLD IN 80 DAYS, and various historical epics like LAWRENCE OF ARABIA. The
roadshow film of TPLOSH was seen by only a few audiences in test showings, and,
thanks to the climate within the film industry in 1969-70, not to mention, the
disastrous release of the Julie Andrews-starring roadshow film, STAR, withdrawn
by the studio and reduced to standard length. The rumors were that it lost well
over an hour. Since it was a compilation of six segments encompassing a
prologue and five “tales,” cutting was simply a matter of taking out a few
segments in favor of a few surviving others. No plot material from the
surviving segments would be damaged. The studio had, in TPLOSH, the perfect
victim for something it did routinely with many less than “ideal” prospects
whose sole, single, and only plots
were unceremoniously gutted in favor of exhibitors having an additional show or
two per night. It seemed never to occur to them that the story, once reduced to
fragments, might lose the audience that would have filled the single showing,
but now avoided the twice-per-night showing because it “isn’t any good.”
I
already knew the essentials of the missing material from seeing the
re-construction in the special features on the latest TPLOSH DVD. I think I
also once read the novelization by Michael and Mollie
Hardwick from 1971 (though I no longer have a copy, and can't recall if it was
the full version). At 154 pages, it was probably not the roadshow version.
Having a background in book publishing, and seeing the pub date, I suspect the
original novel manuscript might have reflected the full roadshow film, but it
was, as a result of the studio cuts, delayed and, itself, cut to match the
released film, yielding an uncharacteristically short fiction paperback for the
era (they all used to strive for 180 - 300 pages back then).
The commonly available copy of the script for TPLOSH runs 140 pages,
and the released film runs 125 minutes. On the other hand, the text of the
roadshow version of TPLOSH runs 223 pages (with 6 more for a complete studio
credit list), and, at the back, along with the credit list, it states the original
roadshow running time as 200 minutes (at the prevailing page-per-minute
benchmark, certainly that does not include the intermission). So, the cuts
amounted to 80+ pages or 75 minutes. The number of segments went from 6 (a 10-page
prologue plus 5 stories) to 3 (a 2-page prologue plus 2 stories). While,
ordinarily five stories in a 3+ hour movie was odd, it was exactly right for
Sherlock Holmes, who “lived” originally in 56 short stories, but only 4 novels,
2 of which were more novellas with long introductions setting up the back
stories. So Holmes works best in the short tale.
For
the record, the original five stories in the roadshow version included: “The
Case of the Philandering Singing Teacher” (7 pages), “The Curious Case of the
Upside-Down Room” (43 pages), “The Singular Affair of the Russian Ballerina” (32
pages), “The Dreadful Business of the Naked Honeymooners” (17 pages), and “The
Adventure of the Dumbfounded Detective” (113 pages). The difference that makes
the total 223 pages amounts to partial pages and/or transitions from one to the
next. Of these, only the “Russian Ballerina” segment and the “Dumbfounded Detective”
segment survived in slightly reduced versions (30 and 100 pages, respectively; and
the prologue went from 10 pages to 2; the rest is re-worked connective material).
I much preferred the
excised material over the stuff that was retained (which, of course, I'd seen
several times in the final release version). This was not due to
over-familiarity with the existing released film. The two stories left in the
film do not hold up well for several reasons. “The Russian Ballerina” story
“dates” for reasons I will go into in a moment, and it re-works an old
non-canonical idea done to death in the Holmes movies of the ‘40s. “The
Dumbfounded Detective” fares even worse as it re-works an idea from the
original short stories, and fails to end strongly.
“The Russian
Ballerina” segment seemed daring and heretical (to "the
establishment") in 1969, playing, as it did, with the idea of Holmes and
Watson being gay--it was still okay back then for otherwise politically-correct
progressive types to openly refer to gays with the 6-letter "F" word
(I listened to a "hip" comedy album from someone, circa 1970, a while
ago, and that's what the comic did--it was genuinely surprising; I'd forgotten
how things have evolved). But today, for audiences, it amounts to "been
there done that," and ultimately it’s unfunny and simply boring.
The Loch Ness segment
(“Dumbfounded Detective”) had always been disappointing to me because the
ending was anti-climactic and Holmes is bested by a woman who is NOT Irene
Adler (whom A.C. Doyle had intended to be the only person to ever beat S.H.).
Why not use Adler as a freelance agent working for the Germans, something for
which her experience qualified her, rather than the freshly-created German agent
Ilse von Hoffmanstal? So it was just imitative of Adler without giving us the
real (fictional) thing (she never really out-thinks him in Wilder’s film--compare
it to the version of Adler in the BBC SHERLOCK series, for example where she is
a true opponent). She, then, dies off-screen (compare that to the BBC SHERLOCK
re-take of much the same idea where the scenario is transplanted to the
middle-east). And her execution, then, sends him back to the cocaine (validating
its use in a time when illegal drugs were almost becoming an acceptable thing).
To me, as with the homosexuality, Wilder and Diamond were pandering to their
1969 audience, trying much too hard to become "hip" themselves. As a
result, just as with that "comic" described above, they "dated"
themselves and their film, and they failed to satisfy the audience with the
expected “rollicking good time” from a “game” well “afoot.”
By today’s standards,
the script seems "talky," almost a soap opera, especially when Watson
throws his tantrum over Holmes choosing to get high. It re-surfaces when Watson
blames Holmes for casting them as a gay couple to get out of marriage to the
Russian Ballerina, Watson self-absorbedly perceiving it as a threat to his own
reputation, with Holmes’s and his own careers (idiotically) forgotten.
The submarine plot of the
final segment was a weak take on something Doyle had already done with his
"Bruce Partington Plans" short story. It starts out well enough, but
once it has to pay-off all the mysteries already set up, it has no good
solution, and instead opts for a sort of “Deus ex machina” in the form of Holmes’s (“smarter”) brother, Mycroft, who “acquaints” Sherlock with what’s
really going on. This effectively neuters the hero. To validate it and avoid a
complete humiliation of S.H., Mycroft, himself, is trumped by the appearance
and regal fiat of Queen Victoria. With the truth finally out, and the villains
unmasked and defeated, the effect is to further disappoint the audience with an
unequivocal downer of an ending: Holmes loses his status as hero, and he loses
the new love of his life. What’s left but the needle? And, to boot, all that
does not improve the original pre-existing short story’s approach. So, why
should we bother?
Because the segment
runs 113 pages--longer than all the
others combined (!), it was placed last. But that made the film end on a
melancholy note. And that, in turn, conspired with the poor ticket sales of
STAR to prompt the studio to judge it a potential disaster. So, the whole thing
seems to have been a "fait accompli." Wilder and Diamond had a bunch
of strong ideas for a take on the Holmes characters, but half of them were
insufficiently re-warmed Doyle, and the other half were doomed by their
"hip" approaches, or their unsatisfying endings. Despite all that,
there were lots of great moments in the script, and one genuinely feels for
Holmes at the end when Mycroft delivers the news to the detective.
So, there was in
evidence, certainly, great affection for the characters. It’s almost tragic
that the writers couldn't get away from the "Watson as buffoon" trope
that had been dogging the character ever since Nigel Bruce and the Rathbone
films. Too bad, as, other than in a few rare moments, it was never really true
of the original stories. Sure, Holmes always had to show Watson the light, but
Watson was portrayed with a level of respect missing in the Bruce films.
Though the
“Philandering Singing Teacher” was mere fluff, the “Naked Honeymooners” segment
was good unclean fun. It was clear the writers were again after that 1969
audience, then becoming accustomed to ever-more nudity appearing before the
larger adult audience, a phenomenon that culminated with DEEP THROAT and LAST
TANGO IN PARIS, and thereafter declined until we rarely see full frontal nudity
anymore. So, Wilder wanted to shoot his first nude scene in order to stay
relevant. For the record, it only exposed a woman’s breasts, hardly daring by
the standards of a few years later. But, for me, at least, even this was a
little "shrill" from a director who never needed to be.
Billy Wilder had been
a master of the mystery with DOUBLE INDEMNITY and WITNESS FOR THE PROSECUTION,
and with the Doyle characters, he need only have rendered them faithfully to
have another classic. But he apparently felt his grasp of the audience
slipping. It is not surprising, given the changes going on in the film industry
(EASY RIDER, THE GRADUATE, the arrival of the youth audience, the collapse of
the studio system, the decline and/or deaths of many of the stars and moguls
from the classic period of the '30s and '40s, etc.). Like Hitchcock (MARNIE,
TOPAZ, FRENZY, FAMILY PLOT) during the same period, Wilder never really
"got it back."
The “Upside-Down Room”
was also fun, even though Watson was made the idiot for, perhaps (I hope), the
last time in films. To me, the Watson-as-buffoon thing always seemed a
back-handed slap at the audience because we were usually only as
"in-the-know" on Holmes's cases as Watson was. So if he's an idiot,
then so, too, are we. There's an old rule: never underestimate (or insult) your
audience. The Rathbone films got away with it because Bruce was played even
broader than Blakely had played him, so the audience could see the pure comedy
as just that. But Blakely's character was portrayed and played as seriously
stupid; ditto, us, therefore, in the eyes of the storytellers.
As a film,
unfortunately, TPLOSH's casting was weak, and the direction may have suffered
from Wilder's insensitivity to the mood and tone of the 19th Century Victorian
mystery setting. Robert Stephens and Colin Blakely seemed to lack the necessary
chemistry to get the film going. Blakely couldn't approach Bruce's buffoon, and
Stephens lacked the charisma of Rathbone. So the roadshow version of the film,
for me, probably would've always been something of a disappointment.
And yet, somehow the
film has always held a special place in my heart. I’m an unabashed Wilder fan,
and I so wanted his Holmes film to be great. So it stays in my memory as a work
that can be. It was mutilated by the studio, so it is, effectively,
un-finished. And that, in turn, means, that in another place, another reality,
it could be what he envisioned, if we could only find a way to get it right.
Now for some
interesting speculation:
I once wrote a
Sherlock Holmes pastiche, THE PANDORA PLAGUE, which combined S.H. with magician, Harry
Houdini. Among the research assembled for that book, was HOUDINI: A MIND IN
CHAINS, by Dr. Bernard C. Meyer, a prominent New York City psychiatrist.
It was, and still is,
not uncommon for celebrities and VIPs to be invited to advance screenings of
important films. New York would very likely have been one of the cities granted
a screening of the roadshow of TPLOSH. It’s possible Dr. Meyer and his family
were in attendance. So...
At one point in the
roadshow version (pp. 31-2) Watson tells Holmes that drug addiction is being
cured in Vienna with a high rate of success. Watson suggests Holmes go to
Europe and give it a try. He even offers to go with him. Holmes dismisses it,
and the story moves on.
Some four years later
a book appeared that went on to become a huge bestseller. THE SEVEN PERCENT
SOLUTION told the story of Sherlock Holmes being tricked by Watson into chasing
Professor James Moriarty to Europe, and all the way to Vienna. Moriarty was, in
this novel, Holmes’s former mathematics teacher, a man whom Holmes believed to
be the greatest criminal mind in Europe, but who was, in the novel, merely a
math tutor. When Holmes, as a boy, found Moriarty and his own mother in “flagrante
dilecto,” and then witnessed her murder by Holmes’s father followed by his own
suicide, it sent the young Holmes over the edge. Though he recovered,
thereafter, he believed Moriarty to be a blackguard of the first rank. To deal
with his memories, Holmes takes cocaine. So says the novel. But when they get
to Vienna, all is revealed and Holmes discovers Watson tricked him and he is to
undergo a cure of his cocaine addiction by none other than Sigmund Freud. Freud
had recently cured himself of the same addiction. So, half-way through the
book, Freud cures Holmes. Thereafter, the story switches gears as otherwise,
the tale would end short and flat. So the author tacks on a case that gives the
audience that expected “rollicking good time.” And because it’s good and fun,
we forgive him for it. Everybody wins.
Interestingly,
however, the idea that Moriarty was Holmes’s mathematics tutor was proposed in William
S. Baring-Gould’s essays and book, “Sherlock Holmes of Baker Street.” And the idea
that Moriarty had had an affair with Holmes’s mother that led to Holmes’s
parents’ murder-suicide was posited in Trevor Hall’s book, “Sherlock Holmes: Ten
Literary Studies.” So, that implied that the author of THE SEVEN PERCENT
SOLUTION had read Baring-Gould’s and Hall’s books, uncommon volumes unless one
was especially interested in the world of Sherlock Holmes. Of course, an author
of a Holmes pastiche would be, I
would think. Or... he might become such
an author after becoming acquainted with such powerful ideas as these.
But how to make use of
them? They happen long before young Holmes becomes the Sherlock Holmes of the
stories. So, naturally, they are of the past, something Holmes must certainly
have found painful, even psychologically devastating. How, then would it all manifest
in Holmes as an adult? Would it, perhaps, account for a drug addiction problem?
But, then how would that generate a story? If Holmes’s addiction was rooted in
a massive psychological injury, then it would take, not a seven percent, but rather a psychological
solution. Enter Sigmund Freud. It happens that prior to the appearance of the
Holmes-Freud book, there appeared an article in the “Journal of the American
Medical Association” by psychiatrist Dr. David F. Musto that connected Holmes
with Freud through cocaine. An article in “Elementary, My Dear Watson,” by
Irving L. Jafee, added to it. These were mostly arcane works to the average
person, but they might be familiar to someone with an interest in Holmes and
access to medical magazines, perhaps through his father. All that might be
needed was a spark that brought them all to mind, a spark such as is found on
page 31 of the roadshow version of TPLOSH.
I can even imagine the
conversation on the ride home from the movie:
Nicholas - “Were they
really curing drug addiction back in the 1800s in Europe?”
Dr. Meyer - “Sure,
remember Watson mentioned Vienna? Freud was in Vienna then, and cured himself of it.”
Nicholas - “Wow. No
kidding! What if he and Holmes had met...?”
Dr. Meyer - “There’s a
story in that, Nick.”
Nicholas - “But, he’d
resist. How would Watson get him there? You know, if Moriarty really was
responsible for Holmes’s addiction, but he was not the criminal Holmes thought
he was, what if he tries to atone by helping Watson trick Holmes into going to
Vienna by ‘playing’ Moriarty the criminal and leading Holmes on a merry chase
that ends in the offices of Sigmund Freud?”
Dr. Meyer - “Now
THAT’s a story, Nick.”
So, Dr. Bernard C.
Meyer, our psychiatrist in New York City, attends the advanced screening of Billy
Wilder’s film. With him, perhaps, is his son, a young man with an ongoing
interest in Sherlock Holmes, a young man named Nicholas, who, only a few years
later would publish his first bestseller, THE SEVEN PERCENT SOLUTION, a story
in which three powerful ideas conceived earlier were combined.
Nicholas Meyer built a
career off the Freud premise. The irony is that, at the same time, by the
studio cutting THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES to 2 hours, and thus throwing
the concept away, Wilder might’ve lost one. He never had a great success
thereafter. And we’ll never know if the roadshow version might’ve spawned a
sequel that had Holmes heading for Vienna. Another bit of irony: when Billy Wilder was a young writer in Vienna, he once tried to get an interview with Sigmund Freud. Freud unceremoniously threw him out.
These speculations are not intended as insults directed at Nicholas Meyer, as he did the
work and developed it into a bestseller, two sequels, and a film writing
and directing career. Ideas aren't finished stories, and they can't be
copyrighted. Ideas are "in the wind," and every great work is influenced by ideas from earlier thinkers. But, if this speculation is true, it wouldn't have hurt if Meyer
had acknowledged Wilder and Diamond in the original novel. Nonetheless, it’s
all speculation.
This just in!!! I hadn't re-read Meyer's book in over three years, so I'd forgotten details from it. But in flipping through it, lo and behold, I find a character in the book in the Vienna sections named "Hugo Von Hofmannsthal." So, in 1969 Wilder and Diamond write a movie with a German character named Ilse von Hoffmanstal. And four years later Nicholas Meyer publishes a book using an idea described in the 1969 script and 1970 complete version of the movie with a German character with an almost identical last name. Unless this name has a deeper pedigree from the Holmes stories themselves, this is hard to ignore as a mere coincidence. Curiouser and curiouser.
This just in!!! I hadn't re-read Meyer's book in over three years, so I'd forgotten details from it. But in flipping through it, lo and behold, I find a character in the book in the Vienna sections named "Hugo Von Hofmannsthal." So, in 1969 Wilder and Diamond write a movie with a German character named Ilse von Hoffmanstal. And four years later Nicholas Meyer publishes a book using an idea described in the 1969 script and 1970 complete version of the movie with a German character with an almost identical last name. Unless this name has a deeper pedigree from the Holmes stories themselves, this is hard to ignore as a mere coincidence. Curiouser and curiouser.
For the record, I
wrote THE PANDORA PLAGUE after I read
Nicholas Meyer’s book on Holmes and Freud, and Dr. Bernard C. Meyer’s book on Houdini. And I read
Baring-Gould’s and Hall’s books before both of them.
Nicholas, if you’re
out there, can you clear up the mystery? Did Billy Wilder’s film play a role in bringing all of these ideas
together in THE SEVEN PERCENT SOLUTION? #
FADE OUT
Lee A. Matthias
Quote of the Post:
“Nicholas Meyer built
a career off the Freud premise. The irony is that, at the same time, by the
studio cutting THE PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES to 2 hours, and thus throwing
the concept away, Wilder might’ve lost one. He never had a great success
thereafter. And we’ll never know if the roadshow version might’ve spawned a
sequel that had Holmes heading for Vienna.”
Posts
