Sign of the Four / Hound of the Baskervilles (Second Sight) 1983

[bigshot]

Tonight I screened the recent blu-ray release of Sign of the Four with Ian Richardson as Holmes. The film looked decent, but not terribly spectacular. The shadows were pretty opaque and there was quite a bit of grain and not a lot of sharpness, but it looked good for what it is.

I was very impressed with the actors... Holmes and Watson were perfectly balanced (one not overly serious and the other not too bumbling). The locations were great, especially the carnival where the villains hide out. The chase on the Thames was very suspenseful too, which is quite a trick for a steamboat race. Overall I thought it was an awful lot of fun.

They handled the story more as an adventure tale than a mystery. We see what is happening before Holmes is even brought in, and he is deducing things we already know, rather than having us deduce along with him. That worked very well for the film. Everything was clear and well paced.

I had one question for people familiar with this film... Is 16:9 the correct aspect ratio for this? I wondered because in the beginning of the film, there were a lot of heads being cut off at the forehead, and there seemed to be commercial breaks built in.

I'm eager to watch Hound of the Baskervilles now. I think Ian Richardson is an excellent Holmes, and the film felt very similar to the Jeremy Brett series in fact.