Review of The Crucifer of Blood

A very enjoyable edition of wondrous Paul Giovanni's play, with a great Charlton Heston(it was one of his great theatrical successes) as an Holmes based more on Frederic Dorr Steele than on Sidney Paget,and very possibly on Gillette's mould.Watson is a great Richard Johnson,very truthful and highly human as an old man hoping for an impossible romance,and Susannah Harker is a very good and alluring damsel-in distress-cum-dark lady à la Maltese Falcon.Simon Callow is perhaps the better Lestrade ever seen,but the real show stealers are Clive Wood as a sinister Jonathan Small,John Castle as an opium addicted " captain Morstan", chanting wide-eyed his loony and highly poetical lines, and great Edward Fox as an highly malignant and evil "major Sholto".The movie is highly theatrical,but ,as other reviewers told,is a precious memento of one of the best stage-play Holmes.And the script by Giovanni is a real gem,arriving directly to us from the great Agra treasure's chest