Young Sherlock Holmes: A Forgotten Gem From 1985
Photo credit: Paramount Pictures
Young Sherlock Holmes follows Sherlock and Watson from their first meeting to their first adventures together at school. It also explains how Sherlock became the emotionless and shrewd detective he grew up to be. The movie pioneered CGI and the post credits scene decades before Marvel.
The Premise
A mysterious figure in a cloak is using a blow dart to poison Londoners with a powerful hallucinogenic. The drug brings about frightening, realistic visions that drive the victims to unwittingly kill themselves.
Photo credit: Paramount Pictures
Young John Watson(Alan Cox) has transferred to a new school. He meets Sherlock Holmes(Nicholas Rowe), who deduces where Watson is from, his love of writing, and that he loves custard tarts. Watson is impressed. Holmes and Watson quickly become friends.
At a fencing lesson, his instructor and friend Professor Rathe(Anthony Higgins) bests him in a class demonstration. He tells young Sherlock that he lost because he gave over to his emotions.
Watson meets Holmes’s eccentric inventor friend, Waxflatter(Nigel Stock), and his young niece, Elizabeth(Sophie Ward). It is obvious that Elizabeth and Sherlock are in love. The trio become inseparable.
Photo credit: Paramount Pictures
Sherlock eventually links the blow dart deaths, but Detective Sergeant Lestrade(Game of Thrones’s Roger Ashton-Griffiths) doesn’t believe him.
Taking matters into their own hands, the young trio stumble upon an ancient Egyptian cult operating in the middle of London. A cult with revenge and murder on their minds.
Watson, Elizabeth, and Holmes must unravel who is leading the cult, and stop them from their plan to kill more innocents.
The First CGI
Photo credit: Paramount Pictures
One of the hallucinations is that of a stained glass knight coming to life and attacking the Reverend Nesbitt(Donald Eccles). It was the first time a full character had been built via CGI, and it still looks pretty good today. And I am not a fan of CGI, as y’all know.
Post Credit Scene
This movie pioneered the end credit scene long before Marvel and even predates Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. A few movies did the post credit scene before, but few added a surprise. Young Sherlock Holmes’s end scene is actually closer to the Marvel films that followed. The scene introduces a major nemesis in Sherlock’s adult life.
Photo credit: Paramount Pictures
Honors Canon, But Does Not Adhere To It
Before the end credits, there is a quote on screen that acknowledges that it did not follow the canonical stories by Arthur Conan Doyle:
Although Sir Arthur Conan Doyle did not write about the very youthful years of Sherlock Holmes and did establish the initial meeting between Holmes and Dr. Watson as adults, this affectionate speculation about what might have happened has been made with respectful admiration and in tribute to the author and his enduring works.
I highly recommend Young Sherlock Holmes. Even though there are some canonical errors(the biggest being when Watson and Holmes met), it is no canonically worse than the popular BBC show starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman(Episodes with Irene Adler[the lovely Lara Pulver]) annoy me no end. And it does get some things right, or at least gives reasoning as to why Sherlock does what he does as an adult.
Young Sherlock Holmes is available on some streaming services and on DVD.
