The Unfortunate Tobacconist & Other Mysteries: The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Volumes 1-6
by Anthony Boucher, Denis Green
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Book Summary Information
Author: Anthony Boucher, Denis GreenReader: Basil Rathbone
Reader: Nigel Bruce
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Format: Abridged, Audiobook
Published: 2003-10-01
ISBN: 074353395X
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio
Book Reviews of The Unfortunate Tobacconist & Other Mysteries: The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Volumes 1-6
Book Review: "People have such difficulty with my name"
Summary: 3 Stars
By 1945 the "Sherlock Holmes" radio series starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce relied mostly on original stories written by Anthony Boucher and Denis Green, interspersed with a few Conan Doyle adaptations. The episodes on this first set of CDs are entirely original stories. As was inevitable when a writing team was commited to creating a new Holmes adventure every week, some of the stories are disappointing, but a few rank alongside the better prose pastiches that have been written over the years.
"The Unfortunate Tobacconist" is reminiscent of such Canonical tales as "The Engineer's Thumb" in that it presents an effective and memorable central situation, the resolution of which tails off at the end into offstage confusion in which Holmes and Watson are not directly involved. Nigel Bruce's Watson is even dumber than usual here, never having heard the expression "kick the bucket" and having to be told by Holmes to hide behind a counter rather than under it!
"The Paradol Chamber" is based on one of Watson's references in the original stories to unrecorded cases Holmes investigated. I had always imagined the Paradol Chamber to be a room in which someone was killed or in which Holmes and Watson were trapped and in danger of suffocating. The radio version fulfills both of these expectations, but the story constructed around them is extremely unsatisfactory in every other way. Mary Morstan Watson is depicted at the outset as far less than the intelligent woman she was in Conan Doyle's "Sign of Four", before suddenly becoming a deductive genius and saving Holmes and Watson at the end.
"The Viennese Strangler" is a highly enjoyable, campy story, especially memorable for the over-the-top character of an Italian opera diva. Unfortunately, it shares with "The Notorious Canary Trainer", the other story on the same CD, the device of Holmes frightening a confession out of the criminal in an unbelievable way. Conan Doyle himself actually left unwritten a Holmes story he had outlined -- "The Adventure of the Tall Man" -- apparently because it would have forced him to use such a denouement.
"The April Fool's Day Adventure" is unusual in being an extremely early case for Holmes and Watson, occurring less than a month after "A Study in Scarlet". The newness of Holmes and Watson's friendship is demonstrated by Holmes seriously considering Watson a potential suspect at one point. The climactic twist is lots of fun, although I saw it coming ten miles away. Rathbone seems to be making an effort to sound younger, but Bruce sounds as old and stuffy as ever; thus one must think of the story as being filtered through the elderly Watson's remembrance. "The Strange Adventure of the Uneasy Easy Chair" suffers from its plot being somewhat given away by its title, which is not actually mentioned on the radio broadcast, presumably for that reason.
"The Strange Case of the Demon Barber" involves an actor playing the role of Sweeney Todd. Holmes himself is more likeable than usual in this episode. "The Mystery of the Headless Monk" is an unusually dark story, particularly in its conclusion, which features some of the most chillingly effective acting in the series. One suspects that the reference to William Hope Hodgson's supernatural investigator character Carnacki sailed over the heads of most 1940's American listeners, let alone the modern-day audience.
"The Amateur Mendicant Society" -- another unrecorded adventure mentioned in the Canon -- is profoundly disappointing. Its first half is one of the best openings to a Holmes pastiche I have ever encountered, but the second half is a major letdown in which the story turns out to be about something entirely different from what it seemed. "The Case of the Vanishing Elephant" takes place in India. The episode implies that Holmes -- wildly uncharacteristically -- has made the long, dangerous journey from England **without knowing what his client wants him to investigate**.
"The Case of the Limping Ghost", like "The Headless Monk", is a tale of debunking the supernatural. Amusingly, an American character seems to be voiced by Harry Bartel, the series' announcer, who is usually heard delivering the commercials for Petri wine! "The Girl with the Gazelle" is a Professor Moriarty story in which, as in Conan Doyle's "The Valley of Fear", Moriarty himself remains off-stage. It is a highly satisfying story of an ingenious scheme inspired by the Professor's love of the French artist Greuze.
Overall, this is a fun collection for anyone willing to countenance further adventures of the Great Detective beyond the sixty tales of Conan Doyle, and whose teeth are not instantly set on edge by Bruce's somewhat inauthentic (but loveable) characterization of Dr. Watson.
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Summary of The Unfortunate Tobacconist & Other Mysteries: The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Volumes 1-6
Welcome to the Golden Age of Radio and the best in classic mystery.
From 1939-1946 Americans gathered around their radio to listen to The New Adventures of Sherlock Holmes -- featuring Basil Rathbone as the high strung crime solver and Nigel Bruce as his phlegmatic assistant, Dr. Watson.
Witty, fast-paced and always surprising, these great radio plays -- written by the prolific writing team of Anthony Boucher and Denis Green -- are as fresh today as they were then.
The latest audio technology was employed to bring the best audio quality and fidelity to the original performances, which feature nostalgic war-time announcements, original commercials and radio narrations.
This special CD edition includes 12 of the series' best episodes:
. The Unfortunate Tobacconist and The Paradol Chamber
. The Viennese Strangler and The Notorious Canary Trainer
. The April Fool's Day Adventure and The Strange Adventure of the Uneasy Easy Chair
. The Strange Case of the Demon Barber and The Mystery of the Headless Monk
. The Amateur Mendicant Society and The Case of the Vanishing White Elephant
. The Case of the Limping Ghost and The Girl with the Gazelle
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