It is interesting to note that several reviews describe this episode of Jeremy Brett's Holmes series as particularly embodying melodrama rather than the detective story. However, both ingredients are part of Doyle's original Holmes formula, and in some ways each relies upon the other to flesh it out.
Holmes' repeated condemnation, throughout the canon, of Watson's "florid, romantic" storytelling is not just stereotypical grousing; it reflects, meta-narratively, the structure of Doyle's stories. In order to craft puzzles that intrigue the reader and show off Holmes' detective skills, we need some sort of story stringing together the deductions and observations with human interest. From the Speckled Band to the Baskervilles to Moriarty and all points in between, Doyle's stories are full of fanciful motifs, larger-than-life characters, and broad--if concise-- expressions of enduring themes and human dilemmas.
Whether we're dealing with an Indian swamp adder, magical monkey glands, or an Andaman islander armed with poisoned arrows, these stories would have thrilled Strand Magazine readers not just with Holmes' seemingly superhuman powers, but also with many shades of passion and exoticism.
Peter Hammond's entries in the Granada series succeed particularly well, for me, because they consistently capture in visual and dramatic terms this distinctive style. Granted: the "Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" cycle, which turned out to be Granada's last season of Holmes adaptations, turns this melodrama factor up to 11 at times, but it was always present--and sometimes pretty overt--in the source material. Yet the broad, vividly colored presentation does not in any way diminish the human truths being conveyed in these stories.
The Three Gables does have some particularly lush trappings, with its continental backdrop of courtly love, masquerade balls, and almost impossibly cruel rejection leading to grand gestures of heartbreak and revenge. Yet the whole enterprise is staged with such panache, such stylistic acuity from the director, designers, and stellar cast, that the excesses make sense and form a vivid, ensconcing story experience when all the artistes are in sync and the production choices working in sympathy with one another.
Although not a perfect production, The Three Gables strikes the right tone more often than not, with Hammond's dynamic, vivid cinematography treating perfectly a teleplay that could hardly have been visualized as anything other than florid. Dazzling wardrobe design in keeping with the period settings joins forces with the camera to fill out the episode's bold palette. And as always in Hammond's entries, the camera becomes or evokes our (mind's) eye: drawn to shape, color, and movement like the human eye, but with a diegetic capacity to immediately and consciously train those impulses in the interests of constructing and following a narrative.
Holmes' repeated condemnation, throughout the canon, of Watson's "florid, romantic" storytelling is not just stereotypical grousing; it reflects, meta-narratively, the structure of Doyle's stories. In order to craft puzzles that intrigue the reader and show off Holmes' detective skills, we need some sort of story stringing together the deductions and observations with human interest. From the Speckled Band to the Baskervilles to Moriarty and all points in between, Doyle's stories are full of fanciful motifs, larger-than-life characters, and broad--if concise-- expressions of enduring themes and human dilemmas.
Whether we're dealing with an Indian swamp adder, magical monkey glands, or an Andaman islander armed with poisoned arrows, these stories would have thrilled Strand Magazine readers not just with Holmes' seemingly superhuman powers, but also with many shades of passion and exoticism.
Peter Hammond's entries in the Granada series succeed particularly well, for me, because they consistently capture in visual and dramatic terms this distinctive style. Granted: the "Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" cycle, which turned out to be Granada's last season of Holmes adaptations, turns this melodrama factor up to 11 at times, but it was always present--and sometimes pretty overt--in the source material. Yet the broad, vividly colored presentation does not in any way diminish the human truths being conveyed in these stories.
The Three Gables does have some particularly lush trappings, with its continental backdrop of courtly love, masquerade balls, and almost impossibly cruel rejection leading to grand gestures of heartbreak and revenge. Yet the whole enterprise is staged with such panache, such stylistic acuity from the director, designers, and stellar cast, that the excesses make sense and form a vivid, ensconcing story experience when all the artistes are in sync and the production choices working in sympathy with one another.
Although not a perfect production, The Three Gables strikes the right tone more often than not, with Hammond's dynamic, vivid cinematography treating perfectly a teleplay that could hardly have been visualized as anything other than florid. Dazzling wardrobe design in keeping with the period settings joins forces with the camera to fill out the episode's bold palette. And as always in Hammond's entries, the camera becomes or evokes our (mind's) eye: drawn to shape, color, and movement like the human eye, but with a diegetic capacity to immediately and consciously train those impulses in the interests of constructing and following a narrative.