Movie Review: 'The Seven-Per-Cent Solution'

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution is not a Sherlock Holmes movie. It's a movie about Sherlock Holmes. That's different. - Nicholas Meyer, When Sherlock Met Sigmund

Before the mid-1970s, most moviegoers' memories of Sherlock Holmes centered on the 14 films that featured Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as his friend and biographer Dr. John Watson. Starting with 20th Century Fox's The Hound of  the Baskervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - both made and released in 1939 - and continuing with 12 more films produced by Universal Pictures, Rathbone and Bruce created a stereotypical version of Holmes and Watson: the former being the pipe-smoking, violin-playing great detective, slim and taciturn beneath his deerstalker hat, while the latter was the rotund, jovial, and easily amazed sidekick. 

Below is a sample from one of those old Basil Rathbone Sherlock Holmes movies:

Sherlock Holmes: There are still some gaps to be filled, but all in all, things are becoming a little clearer.

Dr. Watson: Not to me, I assure you; it's all a hopeless jumble. Stapleton, Franklin, the Barrymans - put it all together and what have you got?

Sherlock Holmes: Murder, my dear Watson. Refined, cold-blooded murder.

Dr. Watson: Murder?

Sherlock Holmes: There's no doubt of it in my mind. Or perhaps I should say, my imagination. For that's where crimes are conceived and they're solved - in the imagination. 

In 1973, a 28-year-old screenwriter named Nicholas Meyer (and self-described Sherlockian) decided to write a pastiche of a Sherlock Holmes adventure titled The Seven-Per-Cent Solution: Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of Dr. John H. Watson, MD. Published in July of 1974, Meyer's novel tells how Holmes was able to recover from his addiction to cocaine with the help of Dr. Sigmund Freud. He also, of course, solves a sinister kidnapping scheme and helps prevent a European war before setting off on his famous Great Hiatus. 

Meyer's novel became a bestseller (it was on the New York Times bestseller list from September 1974 to June 1975). This popularity attracted the attention of producer-director Herbert Ross (Footloose) who, impressed with Meyer's fealty to the original depictions of Arthur Conan Doyle's cast of characters, decided to adapt it into a motion picture.

(C) 2013 Shout! Factory and (C) 1976 Universal Pictures

Sherlock Holmes Meets Sigmund Freud!

Get ready for a mystery adventure like no other when Sherlock Holmes meets Sigmund Freud in The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. The world's two greatest masters in the art of detection, Sherlock Holmes (Nicol Williamson) and Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin) join forces for the first time with the persistence of Dr. Watson (Robert Duvall), which leads to a thrilling investigation into a kidnapping case. With a supporting cast including Academy Award winners Laurence Olivier and Vanessa Redgrave, this refreshingly amusing take on Sherlock Holmes is an ingenious tale of detection, addiction, and abduction. - from the Shout! Factory Special Edition Blu-ray/DVD set

Although the movie begins on a dark, somber tone - Holmes (Williamson) is suffering from the effects of his addiction to cocaine, which he injects intravenously in a seven-per-cent cocaine, 93% saline solution - and stalking Professor James Moriarty (Olivier), who he accuses of being a criminal mastermind. 

Professor Moriarty: Doctor Watson, Mr. Holmes is convinced that I am some sort of criminal mastermind of the most depraved order. I know he is a great and good man. All England resounds with his praise. But in my case he fosters a ghastly illusion and I come to you as his friend rather than turning the matter over to my solicitor.

Concerned for his friend's well-being, former British Army medical officer John Watson (Duvall) decides to save Holmes' life by taking him to Vienna, where Dr. Sigmund Freud (Arkin) has agreed to try and cure Victorian England's greatest detective.

But Watson fears that Holmes won't leave London willingly, so he enlists the help of the meek Moriarty and asks him to "flee" to Austria so that the master of detection will be compelled to track him down. Professor Moriarty agrees - and sure enough, Holmes and Watson, with a bloodhound named Toby in tow, set off to the Continent in hot pursuit. 

I won't divulge any more plot twists in this review, since this is a mystery movie, after all. I will say, though, that The Seven-Per-Cent Solution is a smartly-written, witty, and stylish comedy-suspense film that takes details out of the established Arthur Conan Doyle canon - such as Holmes' use of cocaine (a legal drug in the Victorian era) - and sets up the three-year long Great Hiatus that began with the "death" of the great detective at the Reichenbach Falls (in "The Adventure of the Final Problem") and ended with the publication of Conan Doyle's "The Return of Sherlock Holmes."

Meyer, in the When Sherlock Met Sigmund interview, says this about The Seven-Per-Cent Solution:

This is a movie about the inside of this man’s character and how he got to be who and what he is. You’re not meeting Holmes in a normal, high-functioning, operational mode. 

Meyer also says that though he had to change a few things around from his original source novel to keep the audience's sense of tension more or less intact, Herbert Ross told him to keep as many scenes from the book as possible. These include the tennis match between Sigmund Freud and the story's antagonist, a scene that Meyer wanted to cut because he believed it was not cinematic enough and had no payoff. Ross got his way and the tennis match stayed - and Meyer found a way to make it pay off.

I'm not really acquainted with Sherlock Holmes - either as a literary character or a screen incarnation - beyond a few hazy memories of watching the old Basil Rathbone movies on Miami's then independent TV station WCIX (Channel Six) and the two Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes where Data and Geordi play Holmes and Watson in the holodeck. 

I am, however, a fan of Nicholas Meyer's Star Trek II and Star Trek VI movies, and I have been curious about both the print version and the movie of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution for years. So, yeah, I recently bought the novel and the 2013 Shout! Factory Blu-ray/DVD set with Ross' 1976 adaptation. 

As you probably guessed, I watched the movie first in order to review it. (Yes, I did start reading the novel a few nights ago, but books take a while to get through, so the movie review got done first.) And without giving away anything - I think that viewers who have not seen this movie should get a spoiler-free critique - I gotta tell you....this film earned its reputation as being one of the best Sherlock Holmes-themed stories ever made. 

First, it's obvious from the start that Meyer loves Sherlock Holmes and the Victorian era. He and Ross don't try - as Universal did back in the 1940s - to bring Holmes, Watson, and the cast of supporting characters to the 20th Century. Though the Holmes-meets-Freud twist is Meyer's unique twist, most of the other dramatis personae come from the Conan Doyle canon. These include Mrs. Hudson, Holmes' housekeeper, Mycroft Holmes, the detective's older brother, and Watson's wife Mary. 

Second, the story is carefully written so it will match the established Holmes canon; the beginning of the film seems to take its cues from "The Adventure of the Final Problem," and the main title credits makes references to other Holmes stories in which some of the featured characters originally appeared.

The Seven-Per-Cent Solution may not appeal to every viewer. Meyer's Academy Award-nominated script has a lot of dialogue that is written - and delivered - in Victorian era English, so the movie is talkier and a bit more leisurely-paced than some people may find pleasing. Everyone in this movie talks with a foreign accent, too; even American actors such as Robert Duvall and Alan Arkin portray European characters here. So if late 19th Century London and Vienna are not your favorite settings for movies, you may want to skip The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. 

Nevertheless, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution is a fun (if perhaps a bit strange) comedy-thriller. It's not a spoof or parody, but it is a comedy of manners with a nicely suspenseful mystery at its core. I liked it, and I think many viewers will, too. 

Blu-ray/DVD Set Specifications

 Video

• Codec: MPEG-4 AVC
• Resolution: 1080p
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Audio

• English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0

Subtitles

• English

Discs

• Blu-ray Disc
• Two-disc set (1 BD-50, 1 DVD)
• DVD copy

Playback

• Region free