| Doctor Watson and the Darkwater Hall Mystery | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Crime Mystery |
| Written by | Kingsley Amis |
| Directed by | James Cellan Jones |
| Starring | Edward Fox Elaine Taylor Christopher Cazenove |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language | English |
| Production | |
| Producer | Mark Shivas |
| Running time | 70 minutes |
| Original release | |
| Network | BBC |
| Release | 27 December 1974 |
Doctor Watson and the Darkwater Hall Mystery is a 1974 British made-for-television mystery film directed by James Cellan Jones and starring Edward Fox as Doctor Watson.[1]
While Sherlock Holmes is away on holiday, Watson journeys to Darkwater Hall in the Cotswolds to protect a woman's husband from harm.
Filmed at Stow-on-the-Wold,[2] Watson was portrayed as competent and intelligent[2] as opposed to the popular idea of a bumbling character as Nigel Bruce portrayed him in an earlier series of fourteen films. He is also portrayed as a virile womanizer as the character claims to be in The Sign of the Four.[1][3]
The film references A Study in Scarlet, "The Adventure of Black Peter", "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual" and "The Adventure of the Speckled Band".[4] Fox would go on to play the character of Alistair Ross in another Sherlock Holmes pastiche, The Crucifer of Blood.[4]
According to author Kingsley Amis, "the reviews were excellent."[2] Alan Barnes calls the film "part-deconstruction, part-parody of Doyle" that "ends up resembling a long drawn-out shaggy dog story."[4]