I don't know why I find this one of the more enjoyable cases of Sherlock Holmes. Maybe it's because it's really so simple -- the motives, the characters, the mystery and its solution.
Maybe it's the hilarious way Dr. Grimesby Roylott storms unannounced into 221B Baker Street and threatens and insults Holmes -- "Sherlock Holmes, the Scotland Yard jack-in-office!" Then he bends a steel poker before rushing out. What the hell is a jack-in-office?
Maybe it's the snake -- "a swamp adder, the deadliest snake in India." The quirky characteristics of Holmes' character is nothing compared to those of the snake.
First of all, there is no such snake. None called a swamp adder, at any rate.
Second, here is a snake who drinks MILK from a saucer.
Third, the snake is trained to do tricks that none has ever learned before. I mean, think of it. Snakes don't actually DO anything except lay around the house. They don't roll over or sit up and beg. Have you ever known a snake to do anything but act like a brain-damaged piece of garden hose? No. You have not.
Fourth, the snake has learned to return to his home when he hears a whistle. But snakes have spent so many eons underground that they've lost their ears and are deaf.
No -- this is SOME snake, trust me. You wouldn't want to arouse "its snakish nature," as Holmes puts it.
I've always like Jeremy Kemp too, and he's fine here as the villain. What a versatile actor he is. Watch him as an aristocratic German flier in "The Blue Max" -- all restraint and reserve. Or in that spoof of Nazi movies where his role is comedic.
Rosalyn Landor is the lady in distress and she's very comely and vulnerable. I like that in a woman. Any normal snake would enjoy even the prospect of biting her, as would any normal man.
This ranks high among the fifty-some stories that Conan-Doyle penned.
Maybe it's the hilarious way Dr. Grimesby Roylott storms unannounced into 221B Baker Street and threatens and insults Holmes -- "Sherlock Holmes, the Scotland Yard jack-in-office!" Then he bends a steel poker before rushing out. What the hell is a jack-in-office?
Maybe it's the snake -- "a swamp adder, the deadliest snake in India." The quirky characteristics of Holmes' character is nothing compared to those of the snake.
First of all, there is no such snake. None called a swamp adder, at any rate.
Second, here is a snake who drinks MILK from a saucer.
Third, the snake is trained to do tricks that none has ever learned before. I mean, think of it. Snakes don't actually DO anything except lay around the house. They don't roll over or sit up and beg. Have you ever known a snake to do anything but act like a brain-damaged piece of garden hose? No. You have not.
Fourth, the snake has learned to return to his home when he hears a whistle. But snakes have spent so many eons underground that they've lost their ears and are deaf.
No -- this is SOME snake, trust me. You wouldn't want to arouse "its snakish nature," as Holmes puts it.
I've always like Jeremy Kemp too, and he's fine here as the villain. What a versatile actor he is. Watch him as an aristocratic German flier in "The Blue Max" -- all restraint and reserve. Or in that spoof of Nazi movies where his role is comedic.
Rosalyn Landor is the lady in distress and she's very comely and vulnerable. I like that in a woman. Any normal snake would enjoy even the prospect of biting her, as would any normal man.
This ranks high among the fifty-some stories that Conan-Doyle penned.