On Sunday, December 28, 2014, we saw the first episode "Acquaintance" of the TV program Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson produced by Soviet television in 1979. I believe it had only recently been made available in the United States and Canada. We watched it at the home of David and Terry Haugen, the President for Life (PfL) and Secretary of the Sound of the Baskervilles (SOB), the Sherlockian Society in the Puget Sound region. In addition to us and the Haugens, four other SOB's attended. Another Sherlockian had sponsored a contest awarding the first person who spotted something or some things out of place in the episode that came from the United States.
Episode 1 is around 80 minutes long and based on two stories from the canon: Sherlock Holmes' and Dr. Watson's first meeting in A Study in Scarlet and "The Adventure of the Speckled Band." It stars Vasily Livanov as Sherlock Holmes and Vitaly Solomin as Dr. Watson. Most of the titles on the DVD case are in Russian Cyrillic. Even the menu choices on the DVD are in Cyrillic. We selected the one entitled English Subtitles and it began playing the episode. The DVD also has Episode 2: Bloody Inscriptions that is based on the case in A Study in Scarlet. But we only watched Episode 1. It beings with an introduction in Cyrillic type though translated with subtitles followed by the opening credits also in Cyrillic. They looked like holes cut out of black paper and placed over a set of many Cyrillic letters.
The plot is very faithful to the canon stories. My wife liked how they handled Holmes not caring to know that the earth revolves around the sun and keeping only the most useful information in his "brain attic." Both Livanov and Solomin do great jobs with their roles. Livanov has the Holmes look down pat and a distinctive powerful Russian voice. Solomin gives Watson a humorous and fun-loving side. Their interactions with each other are very humorous while still true to the canon. Mrs. Hudson seems more curmudgeonly than I'm used to but still appropriate for the role. Maria Solomina plays Ellen Stoner (Helen Stoner in "The Speckled Band.") We wondered if she was married to or otherwise related to Vitaly Solomin.
The settings were fairly limited. The episode opens with a small curved lane labeled as "Baker Street" by a sign on a building. The interior of 221B Baker Street is actually quite dark in the episode. The windows don't provide much light. The spread for breakfast is quite impressive. There's an interesting scene in a park with Dr. Watson and Stamford (mistakenly called "Stanford" by the subtitles). The nicest setting is the estate of Dr. Roylott, mistakenly called "Stock Moron" rather than the true name Stoke Moran. This mistake brought us a lot of laughter. But it was beautiful countryside. Though it's supposed to be England, I believe all the scenes were filmed in the Soviet Union. I later read that the exterior of Baker Street was shot in Riga, Latvia.
The dialogue and subtitles provide much humor. It's all in Russian but they still say phonetically "Mr. Sherlock Holmes," "Dr. Watson," and "Mrs. Hudson." I've mentioned "Stanford," "Stock Moron," and Ellen rather than Helen Stoner. Another very funny mistranslation is "motley ribbon" for what should be "speckled band." At other points, Holmes is subtitled as saying "absolute crap" and "Manilla cigars." I could understand just the most obvious words: "da" for yes, "nyet" for no, and neeyez-nayo for "I don't know."
We watched the episode once all the way through and then again to try to find the things out of place from the U.S. We think we found them. I look forward to seeing more episodes of the Soviet Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
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