Pipes And Sherlock Holmes

[coffinmaker]

I have been watching the old movies of Sherlock Holmes and Dr.Watson. What a bunch of pipe smokers! Sherlock smokes a bent pipe and all other actors smoke a straight stem. This is the way I enjoy my pipes, stuff the bowl full and smoke. One of the movies Dr. Watson asked Holmes what he was smoking, seaweed? That cracked me up. I like the simple approach to the pipe.

 

[jpmcwjr]

I just re-watched "Mr. Holmes" last night, and sad to see Sherlock didn't light up anything.

 

[drwatson]

I love watching the older Sherlock movies and seeing what kind of pipes they smoke. Or any older movies with pipes. The old Invisible man had some great pipe smokers in the INN scene.

 

[coffinmaker]

My wife and I just finished watching "The Woman In Green", only two pipe smokers in that flick. @drwatson - I will find that movie, INN, thanks for the tip. What pipe does Holmes smoke in these movies?

 

[bigpond]

Rathbone smoked a Dunhill LC for the first two films and a Peterson 4AB for the rest.

 

[coffinmaker]

Thanks!! Business is dead today, so I'll fire up the pipe and do a little coffin polishing, very little.

 

[davet]

Business is dead today

:rofl:

 

[shutterbugg]

LOL the femme fatale in "Woman In Green" was Hillary Brooke, most well-known for her long run on The Abbot And Costello Show on TV in the 50s.
I love those old Rathbone-Bruce movies, even the ones where SH is incongruously transplanted into the WWII-era and Moriarty is now working for the Nazis :D The first Thames series with Jeremy Brett was probably the closest to Conan-Doyle's Holmes though. Sir Arthur would vomit in his grave if he saw the recent series or the Robert Downey movies.

 

[JimInks]

I wish I had a Peterson 4AB. For more on the pipes used in the Rathbone-Bruce series, check out these links:
http://www.neatpipes.com/blog/the-pipes-of-basil-rathbones-sherlock-holmes-a-visual-essay/&id=65

http://www.neatpipes.com/blog/the-pipes-of-basil-rathbones-sherlock-holmes-a-visual-essay/&id=68

http://www.neatpipes.com/blog/the-pipes-of-basil-rathbones-sherlock-holmes-a-visual-essay/&id=69

http://www.neatpipes.com/blog/the-pipes-of-basil-rathbones-sherlock-holmes-a-visual-essay/&id=70

 

[didache]

Interestingly, Hillary Brook was in two other Rathbone pics: Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror and Sherlock Holmes Faces Death.
Personally I rather like the modern incarnation with Benedict Cumberbatch - and this is from someone who owns the DVDs for ALL of the Rathbone, Brett and Cumberbatch episodes.
Mike

 

[mayfair70]

I feel the Robert Downey Jr. movies could have been MUCH worse. Any reason to watch Rachel McAdams !! Oh and nice pipes in the old movies as well.

 

[foggymountain]

I saw the 7% Solution the other day. It was just as bad as when it was released in the 70s. What a stinker. Holmes was holding a calabash so clumsily it was clear that he was not a smoker. Robert Duval as Watson handled what looked like a Dunhill billiard with saddle bit more easily, but clenched most of the stem inside his mouth. Alan Arkin tried to play Freud but made a mess of it and the story was ridiculous.

 

[mso489]

Sherlock Holmes and Arthur C. Doyle scholars correct me as needed, but as I recall, Basil Rathbone smoked a big bent gourd Calabash pipe as a movie prop decision, but I believe the actual books had Sherlock smoking a much smaller straight pipe. Things always get jiggered around between literature and movie making.

 

[leacha]

From Wiki***ia:

William Gillette's 1899 play Sherlock Holmes, or The Strange Case of Miss Faulkner was a synthesis of four Conan Doyle stories: "A Scandal in Bohemia", "The Final Problem", "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches", and A Study in Scarlet. In addition to its popularity, the play is significant because it, rather than the original stories, introduced the key visual qualities commonly associated with Holmes today: his deerstalker hat and calabash pipe.

 

[didache]

The actual books: There are half a dozen references to an old, black or oily clay pipe, a couple of references to a briar ('brier' in some texts) and a solitary mention in The Copper Beeches of a long cherry-wood, though Watson does go on

to say that Holmes was wont to smoke the cherrywood, when in 'a disputatious rather than a meditative mood.' (source: 140 varieties - the tobacco of Sherlock Holmes). Although there are references to 'a litter of pipes' and a pipe rack, these are the only specific pipes mentioned in the stories themselves. Certainly no calabash! Mike