YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES - CRITERION CHANNEL

This review originally written for DVDTalk.com in 2003.

...after all these years, Young Sherlock Holmes is still a good bit of entertainment. Produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by Barry Levinson (Bugsy [review], Wag the Dog) from a screenplay by Chris Columbus (who went on to direct the worst of the Harry Potter franchise [review]), this is the kind of adventure romp for all ages that Spielberg was regularly producing throughout the 1980s. Young Sherlock Holmes came out in 1985, a year after his own Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and in a way, this is like the more cerebral version of that film: less gore, more mystery, and a loving wink to the literature of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle rather than pulp serials.

In this gentle reimagining of the story of Holmes and Watson's first meeting, the future detective is played by Nicholas Rowe (at the time of this writing seen as Rivesh Mantilax on Dr. Who). He meets the nervous and portly Watson (Alan Cox) when the boy comes to his boarding school. They quickly bond, and the relationship dynamic of forward-thinking adventurer and his bumbling pal is established immediately. Holmes is a bit of a misfit at the school, beloved by some teachers, annoying others, and finding jealous rivals amongst the students. An eccentric old professor (Nigel Stock) who keeps trying to build a flying machine is his mentor, and that professor's niece, Elizabeth (Sophie Ward), is the sleuth's sweetheart.

When the kooky professor ends up dead, Holmes realizes that this is one of a string of murders. The local police chief, a fellow named Lestrade (Roger Ashton-Griffiths), doesn't buy the boy's crackpot theories, and a school prank has gotten Holmes expelled. So, he must work in secret with Watson and Sophie, looking for the connection between the deceased and searching for the source of the poisoned thorns that have caused them all to hallucinate their way into a nasty demise.

The hallucination sequences are some of the more famous from Young Sherlock Holmes, alongside Levinson's homage to his producer, when Holmes and Watson pilot the rickety flying machine past the moon. Most of the delirium is shown as stop-motion animation, and though less smooth than we might be used to today, the old-school quality makes it kind of neat. One could even argue that since they are the delusions of dying men, they need not look real, the way dreams often don't look real. One absolutely stunning effect, though, is a knight who steps out of a stained-glass window. This is credited as the first-ever completely CGI effect in a motion picture, and it was overseen by no less than Pixar-hero John Lasseter while he was still with Industrial, Light and Magic. It's a cool looking creation, and the quality of the achievement extends beyond the historical.

Levinson's direction and Columbus's script are both expertly handled, though at times maybe with too much expertise. Seasoned viewers will be able to spot the technique in both men's work. Levinson's mis en scene for the suspense sequences is lifted straight out of old Val Lewton creepfests, and the twists and turns of the plot offer very little that is surprising. Still, it's the kind of stuff that has worked for decades for a reason, and it's no less effective here. Younger viewers who aren't as familiar with storytelling devices will be totally enraptured. Rowe provides them with a stalwart, intellectual hero they can wish they could be, Cox gives them a sidekick they can identify with, and well, it's hard to imagine a teenage boy not getting a crush on a cutie like Sophie Ward. I know when I was 13 I wanted to hop in the flying peddle-bike and carry her off to our own adventures. Kudos, as well, for the filmmakers not pulling any punches with the ending. There are some dark things here, but ones that make sense in the context of making Sherlock Holmes the man he will become.

ONE-EYED JACKS - #844

In the lore of One-Eyed Jacks, it’s said that Marlon Brando’s character Rio was supposed to be Billy the Kid, and was even identified as such up through a draft of the screenplay by the great Sam Peckinpah. The only problem was that, in historical contexts, Billy the Kid was inarguably a bad guy, and Marlon Brando never plays the bad guy. And so it was that the character’s name was changed, paving the gray way on a gray road where the bank robbing, lying Rio could be the hero of his own story.

A pretty good story it is, though a cynical one. Even in western terms, it takes a healthy dose of existential awareness to draft Rio as a hero. An anti-hero, maybe, despite the fact that he seems to stand for less than even Brando’s Johnny in the The Wild One [review], who you may recall was ready to rebel against anything you’ve got. But One-Eyed Jacks was Marlon’s show, and he fired not only Peckinpah but also Stanley Kubrick, who was set to direct the picture, and stepped behind the camera himself, enlisting Paths of Glory-screenwriter [review] and RamblingRose-author Calder Willingham to give him the morally ambiguous western he sought. An extended production followed, and a delayed release, and an eventual studio re-edit to get this thing out in 1961, allegedly excising some three hours of equivocation and nuance. Brando disowned it; your mileage may vary.

One-Eyed Jacks is a solid western, and a dark precursor to the revisionist history to come for the genre as the studio system crumbled and cinema evolved. Set in Mexico and California, One-Eyed Jacks has a decidedly Latino presence, and a pronounced racism to match (and that’s without considering whether or not Brando is intended to be a Mexican). The whites in the movie mingle with the people of color, but they don’t view them as equals. Not even Dad Longworth (regular Brando sideman Karl Malden), who married a Mexican woman (Katy Jurado, Under the Volcano [review]) and plays step-dad to her daughter Louisa (Pina Pellicer), is all that convincing as a progressive dude. Not with the way he orders his wife around. Not with how he reacts to Louisa’s dalliance with Rio, the man he betrayed once upon a time. It’s tough to tell if the character is named “Dad” ironically or appropriately. As Rio’s father figure of record, Dad has a lot to answer for.

It’s the older man’s betrayal that sets the plot of One-Eyed Jacks into motion. After the pair rob a bank in Mexico, only to be chased down by federales, Dad takes advantage of Rio’s sense of honor and hangs him out to dry. Five years later, Rio escapes from prison and goes looking for the man who betrayed him. The search leads him to Bob (Ben Johnson, The Last Picture Show [review]), who is planning to rob the bank in the California hamlet where Dad has taken up residency and assumed the role of sheriff. If Rio helps Bob, he can also take his revenge. As it turns out, though, the job is not a simple smash and grab. The gang first settles in town, mingling with the locals while Rio makes a fake peace with his enemy--and woos the man’s stepdaughter. Then things go wrong, and everyone turns on each other.

Comparisons have been drawn between One-Eyed Jacks and film noir, and there are certainly thematic similarities. Plot-wise, one could compare this to Robert Siodmak’s Criss Cross, with Brando taking Burt Lancaster’s role of the gangster who took the metaphorical bullet for the team and Dad playing the classic noir fall guy who looks to leave his past behind and set up a new, straight life away from his previous misdeeds. As any student of noir knows, however, the past never stays buried. The only problem is, Rio is not a clean crook whom you can root for the way Lancaster is in Criss Cross or Robert Mitchum in Out of the Past. Brando plays the outlaw with a quiet menace, his smirk ready to turn to a sneer at a moment’s notice, and real nasty mean streak simmering behind those piercing eyes. He appears to always be thinking more than he’s saying, and yet his expression is inscrutable. Is he pondering philosophy or simply dreaming of tearing the wings off of flies? Ironically, Rio is the worst to women, whom he outright lies to in order to get what he wants, but yet who also serve as his Achilles heel. He can’t stand to see them abused, and so he stands up for any female he sees getting pushed around, including an intense brawl with the eternally creepy Timothy Carey (The Killing). The anger blinds Rio to consequences. It brings to mind a rival to Brando’s The Wild One character in terms of teenage angst; Rio’s pathological need to act out has a similar cartoonish quality to James Dean going gonzo over being called “chicken” in Rebel Without a Cause.

Of course, we also can’t dismiss the other men in the movie in any easy fashion, which at least gives Rio some moral ground. Everyone here has troublesome motivations. Some are cut and dried, like Bob, who is just racist and cruel, or Slim Pickens’ Deputy Lou, the comical “good guy” who is really a sexual predator obsessed with his namesake, Louisa. (The humiliation he suffers at the hands of Rio is borderline grotesque, and yet all too fitting.) Dad ends up being the most complicated. On one hand, he is a father looking to care for his family and a lawman with an eye on his community; on the other, he’s a petty cheat suffering a terrible case of imposter’s syndrome. Malden’s clear eyes show conflict...and fury. His showdown with Rio will have to be primal. Biblical.

These characterizations are the notable standout in terms of One-Eyed Jacks being a “different” kind of western. Unlike the more convention-busting cowboy pictures that were soon to come, One-Eyed Jacks largely looks and feels like a traditional western. As an actor, Brando may be an entirely unique presence, but as a director, he is beholden to the trappings of the genre. In both look and plot, this is no different than a big-budget Hollywood western of previous decades. It’s more Vera Cruz [review] than The Hired Hand or McCabe and Mrs. Miller [review]. Which isn’t a knock. I really loved One-Eyed Jacks, and can only appreciate how even though Brando put on a familiar cloak, he used it to smuggle in a subversive message. The languid pace of some of the more typically California scenes, and the wounding and redemptive healing process Rio suffers through, predict some of the aesthetics and tropes of spaghetti westerns, the next big thing in horse operas.

Which is probably why the movie garnered such champions as Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, who contributed to the restoration of One-Eyed Jacks that made this splendid re-release possible. As Marlon Brando’s sole directorial effort, it perfectly encapsulates his position as a movie star, one foot in the old studio system, one foot in the new cinema school, but his head entirely in the clouds, above it all, pursuing his own dream.

This disc was provided by the Criterion Collection for purposes of review.