Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle - The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes

Starring:Ian Richardson, Sean Wightman, Robin Laing (II), Dolly Wells, Charles Dance, Ralph Riach, Aly Bain, Andrew John Tait, Alan Sinclair, Alec Newman, Tamsin Pike, Joel Strachan, David Walker (III), Sarah Collier, Bernard Horsfall, John Bett, Matthew Macfadyen, Eric Barlow, John Malcolm, Dolina MacLennan
Director: Paul Seed
Studio: Bfs Entertainment
Product Type: DVD

Description

1911 London is the setting for this dark drama of sexual obsession and murder.

Customer Reviews:

Young Arthur Conan Doyle works with the "real" Sherlock Holmes.......2007-05-20

I have read most of the original Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, but I have avoided "new" Holmes stories by other writers. However, I have enjoyed the creative cinematic efforts that have dealt with the master detective, from "The Seven Percent Solution" to "The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother," albeit with varying degrees of respect and affection. In that spirit I sought out "Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle: The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes." The sub-title is necessary for those who do not know that Doyle's inspiration for Holmes came, in part, from Dr. Joseph Bell, one of Doyle's teachers.

Bell was a lecturer at the University of Edinburgh's medical school, where he taught students the importance of close observation in making a diagnosis. This made him a forerunner in forensic pathology at a time when science was not yet a crucial part of solving crimes. Today we live in the world of what is called the "C.S.I. Effect," where juries demand the same sort of detailed forensic evidence they see on television, but Bell was breaking new ground. Doyle met Bell in 1877 when the future author was a medical student, and served for a while as his clerk at the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. Much of Sherlock Holmes was clearly inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's creation, C. Auguste Dupin, but it was Dr. Bell's cutting edge work in deductive reasoning that gave the master detective his chief skill.

The conceit of "Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle" is that the young Doyle (Robin Laing) does more than study with Dr. Bell (Ian Richardson), becoming, in this fictional narrative, the "Watson" to the good Doctor's "Holmes." That should be enough to whet your appetite to check out this British made for television movie, originally shown as "Murder Rooms: "The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes." The biggest the literary creations and the "real" Bell and Doyle is that even though Bell is called upon as a consultant the police find his every hypotheses to be preposterous and the young Doyle has trouble believing Bell's deductions are anything more than cheap parlor trips. Another key elements in the initial story are the admittance of women to the University of Edinburgh's medical school. Doyle becomes enamored with one of the new students, Elspeth Scott (Dolly Wells), who is a target of the Bible quoting misogynist, Crawford (Joel Strachan). Meanwhile, Lady Sarah Carlisle (Ruth Platt), the wife of Sir Henry Carlyle (Charles Dance), has become ill and Bell's diagnosis becomes another point of contention between the student and his would be mentor. These plot elements underscore the critique of Victorian society as having little regard for women, whether they are prostitutes or the wives of members of Parliament. So there are myriad ways in which Bell is swimming against the tide.

Having thoroughly enjoyed Ian Richardson as Francis Urquhart in the "House of Cards" trilogy, seeing him play a more traditional hero rather than one more reminiscent of Shakespeare's Richard the III is an absolute treat, even if it means Laing's Doyle has a hard time being near the same playing field. The game afoot in this 2000 BBC production is within the Holmes tradition, although my favorite moment is when Bell makes the mistake of offering some devastating deductions regarding Doyle's pocket watch. I round down on this one only because the ending was too reminiscent of "Young Sherlock Holmes" for my taste. I was also at a loss to explain why the minimal framing device for the story was Doyle's decision to kill off his creation in "The Final Problem," and the angry reaction of his readers. But now that I am aware that this is but the opening gambit in a series of mysteries to be solved by Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle, I will defer judgment on that score until the others are available on DVD on this side of the pond (although I certainly share the impulse to just get a new toy that can handle PAL-discs so that I do not have to wait for shows that might never become available in the U.S.

Dr. Bell is Sherlock Holmes.......2007-02-25

Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle - The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes is one of two DVD's I have featuring Ian Richarson as Dr. Bell. Both DVD's are fantastic. The story is intriging and actually takes place before the Holmes stories were written. The film features Dr. Arthur Conan Doyle and his teacher Dr. Bell. Bell was the basis of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes character and was one of the first to use forensics to help solve crimes. I highly recommend this DVD to any Sherlock fan. I hope more are coming.

A must have for Sherlock Fans.......2007-01-11

Good movie but a bit to gruesome for young audiences.

Worth it........2006-11-10

On its own, or combined with the follow-up series Murder Rooms, 'Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle' is well worth the price. While I was already familiar with the follow up series, I was sadly unaware of the telefilm that started it all. I'm very pleased with the purchase.

Fine sound and video quality, though lacking in other features. You get what you pay for, it seems. I recommend it as I recommended the Murder Rooms DVD. If you like Holmes and Victoriana, it's a sure bet. If not, look elsewhere.

Dr. Bell, meet Sherlock Holmes. A fine production starring Ian Richardson and with assorted corpses.......2006-09-05

If you were a medical student at the University of Edinburgh in 1876, be prepared for cold, gray, grimy days, complacent and pompous professors, class consciousness and the occasional dissection. If you were lucky, as the young Conan Doyle was, you might wind up as a clerk assisting the brilliant Dr. Joseph Bell, a forensic surgeon and one of the professors. In Dr. Bell and Mr. Doyle (subtitled, The Dark Beginnings of Sherlock Holmes), Bell, played by Ian Richardson, believes that one must "observe the small facts upon which large inferences depend." He can take a man's pocket watch, even though newly cleaned, and determine that the owner was poor but had come from a well-off family, that he had periods of income but they never lasted, that he was an alcoholic and that he was descending into madness. Bell can study a poorly clad man standing on stage in front of a classroom of students and determine, among other things, that the man was recently discharged from the army, earned a living as a horse driver and who drove two horses, one bay and the other white. This all comes in handy for two reasons. First, Bell uses his powers of observation and deduction to find criminals of the worst sort who otherwise would have been missed by the police. Second, and this is true, the real-life Bell served as the inspiration for Conan Doyle's great creation when Doyle gave up medicine for writing...Sherlock Holmes, of course.

Young Doyle, played by Robin Laing, initially doubts Dr. Bell's methods. Gradually, observing Bell in action and being challenged by Bell to use his own powers of deduction, Doyle becomes a believer. "You see," Bell says to Doyle one afternoon at the Edinburgh morgue, "I believe that crimes can be diagnosed in the same fashion as disease if we use the same techniques. So...what can you glean from the late Mrs. Canning here?"

While Doyle is learning from Bell, Bell and Doyle are caught up in several crimes which might be related. They involve a nobleman who often visits a house of ill repute and whose wife becomes ill; a mute street beggar who plays the violin for coins, and who dies in convulsions; a room bespattered and filled with blood, and then slaughtered sheep are discovered with their eyes gouged out; a woman who dies in a locked room with a husband who is perhaps too helpful; a pair of severed human ears placed in a box and delivered to one of the few women who are studying, with great opposition from most of the teachers and many of the male students, to be doctors; a woman of the streets who was given herbal pills and now is vomiting her life out. In fact, some of these cases truly are related, and the suspects include a moralistic, furious fellow student and an unknown psychopath who believes in simple, straight-forward evil. Bell, with help from Doyle, eventually pulls the pieces together. The conclusion, however, is not entirely satisfactory. There is loss and the promise of retribution. Even more, there is a sense that a part two was waiting to be filmed and, for whatever reason, wasn't made. Eventually there were four additional mysteries featuring Ian Richardson as Dr. Bell and a different actor as Conan Doyle.

Through it all, Doyle and Elspeth Scott, one of the women students, hesitantly discover a mutual affection that could easily grow into love. Their recognition of a possible romance comes while she dissects a corpse's right knee. One of the attractions of the production is that it doesn't shy away from depicting the reality of autopsies and forensic experiments. We first encounter Dr. Bell while he is whipping the buttocks of a corpse, prior to firing a bullet into the dead man's chest. Throughout we see the reality of how the poor live in Edinburgh, the damp, cobbled streets, the constant chill, the smeared faces of the children and the grubbiness of the prostitutes. Even the medical students don't look too well washed at times. The production values are high and there is a solid depth of acting.

Ian Richardson makes the production work. Laing does a fine job as the sincere and somewhat callow Doyle. Richardson, however, gives us a complex character who can at times be impatient, even irascible, but who has a sense of humor and irony and who has a strong feeling of humanity for those who are unfortunate, sick and poor. We can see how Bell slowly grows to feel affection for Doyle and how, in a moment of tragedy, Bell can provide comfort and strength to his student.

The DVD transfer is first rate. There are one or two inconsequential extras, such as cast lists. One of the pleasures of this production, if you are a reader of the Sacred Texts, is to identify references to some of Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. I found two, but I've been told there are several others. The affair of the watch references The Sign of Four. The severed ears are a key element in The Cardboard Box.

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