This film, directed by Thom Eberhard from a script by Nicholas Meyer presents Sherlock Holmes in a new perspective. The discovery of Cocaine in the 19th century originally seemed like a perfect drug and many doctors perceived it as an ideal cure for everything. Even Freud used it extensively and prescribed it for his patients until he became dependent on it. There are those who say that the same thing happened to Conan Doyle, who eventually kicked the habit, but used in as a part of the Character of Sherlock Holmes, at least in the earlier stories, who claimed that the boredom that set in when his mind was not occupied on a case was only relieved by a seven percent solution of the drug that he would inject himself with.
In this film it is realized that he has begun to be overly effected by the drug as he sees incidents of his youth in a distorted view, until Watson is forced to trick him into going to Vienna to see Sigmund Freud. Nicol Williamson is a very sympathetic Holmes, and Robert Duvall, surprisingly essays a very likable Dr. Watson. Laurence Olivier ha a small role as James Moriarity, who is no villain but a former tutor of the brothers Holmes, who had had an affair with their mother years before, and had been hounded by Holmes since. Alan Arkin is an excellent Freud, and the film is a great adventure and touching drama, as Holmes, in the middle of his cure, once again brings his great intellect to bear on a baffling case.
In this film it is realized that he has begun to be overly effected by the drug as he sees incidents of his youth in a distorted view, until Watson is forced to trick him into going to Vienna to see Sigmund Freud. Nicol Williamson is a very sympathetic Holmes, and Robert Duvall, surprisingly essays a very likable Dr. Watson. Laurence Olivier ha a small role as James Moriarity, who is no villain but a former tutor of the brothers Holmes, who had had an affair with their mother years before, and had been hounded by Holmes since. Alan Arkin is an excellent Freud, and the film is a great adventure and touching drama, as Holmes, in the middle of his cure, once again brings his great intellect to bear on a baffling case.