Murder by Decree

When Watson is arrested by the police after being conned into a small courtyard with only one entrance two policemen enter but three policemen leave Holmes later refers to the cab that ran him over as a "hansom".

Those were two-wheeled vehicles, and Holmes was attacked by a four-wheeler.

(Sure, he's entitled to be a bit confused here, what with being injured, but then again, this is the master of observation and he would have been particular about the distinction between a hansom and a brougham).

The piper at Catherine Eddowes's funeral is not playing any notes on the chanter and in one sequence and has both hands totally still whilst a musical sequence is played.

In the final dialogue scene between Holmes and Watson after the Whitehall interview, Holmes is depicted using his right hand to bow four notes on the free-standing upright violin on the desk.

He purports to play middle B, E and D followed by treble E on open strings - but it is impossible to play a B natural on an open A string.

The A string's pitch must be raised to B by a finger stop for the dubbed sound to be physically possible.

The open string pitches are tenor G, middle D, middle A and treble E.

When Watson questions the ladies in the Black Horse Tavern a Salvation Army band is playing "Onward Christian Soldiers" in the street.

But the tune "St.

Gertrude" was not composed and published by Sir 'Arthur Sullivan (I)' (qv) until after the purported time setting of the film (1888).

When Holmes is going to the meeting in the masonic lodge at the end, he first passes Buckingham Palace, which may have been on his way from Baker Street.

He then seems to have crossed the Thames, because in the next picture he approaches Westminster Palace from the south side of the river, effectively re-crossing it.

This detour hardly makes sense.

The Jack the Ripper murders took place in 1888, and yet we can see Tower Bridge which was not opened before 1894.

When Holmes is sat at the window at the end his hand is bandaged but when he walks to Watson a minute later the bandage magically disappears with no indication of him having taken it off.

Near the end of the movie Sherlock Holmes is in a Hansom cab going over Westminster Bridge.

There is scaffolding on one of the Houses of Parliament towers and a modern yellow line (indicating parking restrictions) painted by the kerb.

What more could you ask for in a film: Christopher Plummer, James Mason, Anthony Quayle, John Gielgud, Frank Finlay, Donald Sutherland, and Geneviève Bujold, and a great supporting cast? That's two Oscar winners and four nominees a great cast!

What more could you ask for in a film: Christopher Plummer, James Mason, Anthony Quayle, John Gielgud, Frank Finlay, Donald Sutherland, and Geneviève Bujold, and a great supporting cast? That's two Oscar winners and four nominees a great cast!

Out of the twenty-six Sherlock Holmes films I have seen, "Murder by Decree" is my personal favorite. There are certainly some that come close: the superb Hammer version of "Hound of the Baskervilles" from 1959 starring Peter Cushing, and the unbelievably entertaining Rathbone/Bruce film "House of Fear", a film a lot of serious Holmes enthusiasts like to scoff at, but which works beautifully on its own terms.

Murder By Decree falls into that interesting category of "Bad but good" films - bad because the allegedly non-fictional storyline is nonsense from beginning to end, but good because it makes convincing viewing as long as one doesn't worry about the facts. Production values are very high for a made-for-TV film, and Christopher Plummer (a minor-league film star who had a really wooden screen presence) and James Mason (a true star who never had as many big roles as he deserved) are pitch-perfect as Holmes and Watson.

I have studied the Jack the Ripper crimes since I was eight years old. It is my opinion that this movie is easily the best on the subject of the Whitechapel Murders.

I rated this movie as a 6 for several reasons: 1) a very talented cast, 2) some excellent cinematography, and 3) a noble attempt to characterize the 'decency' of people not often associated with that notion. Beyond that, it is a solid 4-5 at best.

I bought the Blu Ray expecting to see something special. Instead, I was treated to an average "whodunnit" with the very capable Christopher Plummer playing "Sherlock Holmes" with very few of Sherlock's patented idiosyncratic tendencies.

A serial killer is on the loose in the Whitechapel area of London. Leaders of the community come to Sherlock Holmes (Christopher Plummer) and his assistant Dr.

Bob Clark's "Murder by Decree" (1979) is an interesting movie. You could almost describe it as Sherlock meets Jack the Ripper.