The Return of Sherlock Holmes (TV Series) The Man with the Twisted Lip (1986) User Reviews

Beware the jug of water and sponge....

[Sleepin_Dragon · 8/10 · 27 July 2016]

Fellow Agatha Christie fans may agree with me, when I say I see parallels between this outing for Holmes and Watson, and Poirot's 'The disappearance of Mr Davenheim.' Lots of parallels between the two.

I am a fan of this episode, I really like the story, it darkens as it deepens. Also there was an energy, an exuberance in these early episodes, it's slick and fast paced. Great performances all round, from the supporting cast, Eleanor David and Clive Francis are on fine form. Francis steals it.

As always the production values are sublime, the costumes and sets, even the opening credits, the music player being robbed etc. There is a depressingly grim realism about the scenes in the opium den, the accompanying music works well, so dark.

Another Gem in this Series

[lewis-51 · 8/10 · 25 May 2010]

It is hard to imagine that any other actor will ever come close to Brett's interpretation of Sherlock Holmes. More than that, the production values of this series are just fantastic.

In this episode, we are transported away to a different time and place, London 130 years ago. Obviously I wasn't there, but this, and almost all the other shows, are fantastic at creating a sense of realism and evoking a marvelous mood. I just can't praise them enough. Staging, photography, acting, all first rate.

As to this particular episode, the plot is very good, though certainly not the best of the series. The ending is a surprise (I can't imagine anyone guessing it), and the denouement wonderful. It has some of that special emotional kick that the best of these have.

• henry

What a Corker!

[trimmerb1234 · 8/10 · 29 January 2010]

It had been Holmes' painful duty to inform a loving, loyal and utterly determined wife that all hope was gone - her beloved respectable husband was dead, murdered in all probability by a crippled filthy beggar in some loathsome Thameside shack.

Of all the episodes in this famed TV series, the denouement to this story stands alone. Inspector Bradshaw of the "Yard" is forced in that moment to review his full 27 years of service and unable to find its like, Holmes cusses himself as a fool for failing to see what stood before his face and Watson - and the viewer - can merely stare in silent amazement. The equipment necessary for Holmes to reveal the true culprit was of the simplest kind, to be found in every household yet only Holmes could have revealed the secret and saved an innocent man from the gallows.

The very best

[Ppeterlinda · 10/10 · 30 May 2016]

The series was in my opinion the best that British television has ever produced. Brett,Burke and Hardwicke were just brilliant in their portrayal of the key characters. Jeremy Brett was simply peerless in the role of Holmes. This episode is the very best of them all. Having read all of the stories this episode translates to screen better than most. The genius of the series is the investment in time that Brett,Burke and Hardwicke gave to their characters.Here Brett's Holmes demonstrates the full range of emotions.To fully appreciate this episode and the rest of series simply buy the DVD collection sit down and be mesmerised by what in my opinion is the very best TV ever.

A Sad Portrayal of the Drug Situation in England

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 11 February 2014]

When the British resisted an end to the Opium Wars with China, they brought to their world a host of terrible results. The opium den became a fixture in the poorer streets of London and other cities and there was an open toleration. Even citizens, mostly me, found recreation in attendance of these places (this was true of prostitution and child neglect as well). The poor were victimized for economic reasons. In this episode, Watson is engaged by a young wife to find and bring home her husband, who has probably fallen into this habit. As he investigates, he finds his friend Holmes disguised, attending one of the worst of these places. He tells Watson he is on a case. They move forward in pursuit of clues as to the whereabouts of this man and at one point assume him dead. This is a story of persistence and faith. What it doesn't address is the ultimate price of all this. We sometimes speculate in amusement about Holmes cocaine use and Watson's seven percent solution. We are of a different time and place; hence, we cannot totally judge a culture on its terms. This is certainly unique among the original canon and very engaging.

For me, not one of the best but still a solid episode

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 25 May 2012]

I do love the Granada Sherlock Holmes series to death, they are so well made and acted as well as interesting and most of them only get better on repeated viewings. Of the Returns series(if we were for a minute to exclude the feature length adaptations Sign of Four and Hound of the Baskervilles, both of which are superior in my opinion to this one), the best of that series is The Devil's Foot, followed by The Empty House. The Man With the Twisted Lip is not one of my favourites of the series like The Crooked Man, The Blue Carbuncle, The Dying Detective, The Final Problem, The Cardboard Box and The Devil's Foot, but it is still a solid enough episode. There have been more compelling stories of the series and perhaps more swifter-paced ones too, but The Man With The Twisted Lip is memorable for a wonderful denouncement and a scene in an opium den that is an all too haunting reminder of what drugs then and now could do to you. It is as always a splendidly made episode, it not just looks great though but also the atmosphere actually makes you feel you were there. The music is hauntingly beautiful and the writing has been stronger before but especially with the reflective and powerfully written final fifteen minutes or so it does show evidence of thoughtfulness. The acting is fine. Eleanor David of the support cast is the one who captivates, though Dennis Lill is an excellent Inspector Bradstreet and Clive Franis is good as St Clair. Edward Hardwicke is a subtle and composed Watson, contrasting wonderfully with the ever commanding Holmes of Jeremy Brett. All in all, solid enough but not one of the better episodes of the series. 8/10 Bethany Cox

No Mere Wig

[tedg · 16 July 2007]

Some of these episodes are barely tolerable. This is one of the worst ones, and the blame isn't completely the fault of the adapters. This is simply a bad Sherlock Holmes story.

It shouldn't come as a surprise. The author hated writing them. He had a few templates, some more engaging than others. One template simply played with disguise. Holmes or some nemesis would put on makeup and create a story within the story. Since Holmes' talent was to be deeply introspective, this could have worked better than it does.

Conan Doyle just never found the right way to exploit the idea, even though he often had his disguised villains be actors. Here he is someone with actorly training who spouts Shakespeare. So the raw material for connected folding of the story within is possible.

Anyway, we have a reoccurring fascination with the hallucinogenic drug scene. We find Holmes in disguise. This is mirrored later in what we discover of the suspected murderer. He is in fact the presumed victim in disguise.

This possibly was enough of a plot twist in its day to carry a weak story. It is not today.

What saves this adaptation is the enhancement of the missing man's wife. The Holmes stories understand the iconic value of redheads. In Victorian Britian, this would have been a stronger type than in the modern west, simply because redheads are more numerous and associated with "colonies;" Scotland and Ireland.

A redheaded woman in society carried a story about class, origin, behavior, that is not so apparent today. Nevertheless, every adapter of Holmes understood this and here we have a very compelling redhead, played by Eleanor David.

She completely drives this story, handily eclipsing Holmes, who is reduced to one of those Scooby Doo moments where Watson casually says something and Holmes jerks straight in his chair. Its an excrescence.

But the woman was fine, and her presence shows that the adapters struggled with the thing.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Intriguing episode with a good twist

[grantss · 9/10 · 6 December 2022]

While extricating a friend from a notorious opium Dr. Watson runs into Sherlock Holmes, in disguise. Holmes then explains his reason for being there: the husband of his client has disappeared and was last sighted at the den. Holmes fears the worst.

An intriguing episode of Sherlock Holmes. Good set up, started off in original fashion by segueing from a Dr Watson adventure. Some good plot developments, a good twist and the usual impeccable, wonderfully quirky and nuanced performance from Jeremy Brett make for a very interesting episode.

Not perfect though. The twist is maybe a touch predictable. The backstory is maybe a bit implausible. Still, a great episode.

Opium, the religion of the masses.

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 30 July 2012]

You know something? If you buy a boxed set of these episodes and watch them seriatim, as I'm doing, you might wind up feeling strangely discomfited. This story begins with Watson retrieving a dissolute friend from an opium den and being waylaid in this dump by Holmes, who happens to be in make up, playing the part of an addict, as part of his investigation into a crime that sounds as if it has taken place at one of those huge and forbidding country estates with which the series is populated.

I begin to squirm in my chair as I sit at this keyboard because, looking around me, I realize that this abandoned railway car I live in looks much more like the opium den than it does like any of those stately country homes. I don't have any opium. I don't even have a beer in the place, come to think of it, yet I'm surrounded just as these junkies are by beaded curtains, candles, and joss sticks and am all wrapped in pipe dreams. Well, as a beggar announces at the beginning of the story, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for they shall inherit the earth." (He got that quote wrong, didn't he? They're supposed to get "the kingdom of heaven." I had to look that up in Wikipedia.)

Briefly the facts in the case are these. Mister Neville St. Clair maintains a modest home in Kent, where he lives happily with his wife and two children. He disappeared some days ago, just after being seen accidentally by his wife at the window of a shabby flat over an opium den. The police investigate and find the house is managed by a Malay and a Lascar -- that's an Indian seaman -- and the flat is the lodgings of a filthy and deformed beggar who quotes Shakespeare and Tennyson as he plies his trade. The only sign of Neville St. Clair are his clothes. Has he been murdered or what? Holmes finally unravels the mystery of St. Clair's whereabout and I can tell you there are some pretty weird assumptions behind the story. The only one I can believe is that a literary beggar makes more money than an adjunct professor. I know THAT much for sure.

Actually, it's a fine entry in the series. Holmes doesn't pull off any dazzling feat of deduction after examining a hat or a watch, and he doesn't shoot up, and no Master Villain is involved. It leaves Neville St. Clair, who survived after all, with no means of paying his bills. Yet it's well written and interesting. The improbability of the plot almost adds an air of fantasy.

A Scholarly Beggar

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 30 January 2010]

I can't explain the idea behind The Man With The Twisted Lip since that in itself would give the whole thing away. I only wish the story had been better developed as the idea was an original one.

Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke as the intrepid Holmes and Watson are called in on a missing persons case in which foul play is suspected. More than suspected because the woman who requested aid from Holmes and Watson actually saw her husband from the second story of an opium den in a seamy part of London. But by the time she got up there, he was gone and articles of clothes were later found in the Thames.

A rather scholarly beggar is arrested for the crime of murder, but it all doesn't add up. In other words it all isn't quite so elementary, even Dr. Watson is suspicious.

Eleanor David is the woman who hires Holmes and Clive Francis has an interesting role as the beggar with a knowledge of the classics.

I think Sir Arthur Conan Doyle had the kernel of a good idea, but he didn't develop it all that well. Still Baker Street purists will like it.

The Man with the Twisted Lip

[Prismark10 · 5/10 · 11 June 2019]

The Man with the Twisted Lip is a scholarly beggar earning a good living in the city of London. Even Holmes has come across him several times.

The story begin with Dr Watson going to an opium den to find an errant husband only to bump into Holmes who is in disguise in the same drug den. He is also looking for altogether another missing husband. Neville St Clair, a genteel respectable businessman in the city whose wife spotted him in this very drug den a few days earlier.

Holmes fears that St Clair is dead and the police think that the scholarly beggar is the prime suspect.

Unfortunately this is an adaptation that does not leap out from the page to the screen. It seemed laboured and slow. It saddens me to say that I expected more from the legendary Alan Plater.

This was a difficult short story to portray on the screen without giving much of the twist away. It was still easy to work out.