DIRECTOR: Billy Wilder
BOTTOM LINE: Billy Wilder’s affectionate, slightly parodic look at the Holmes-Watson relationship. It’s August 1887, and Holmes is approached by a famous Russian ballerina, Madame Petrova, who wishes to have a child. She proposes that Sherlock Holmes be the father, hoping their offspring will inherit her beauty and intellect. Holmes extricates himself by claiming that Watson (Colin Blakely) is his lover, much to the doctor’s embarrassment. At 221B, Watson confronts Holmes about the reality of the ensuing rumors. Holmes only states that Watson is “being presumptuous” by asking Holmes whether he has had relationships with women. This is, without a doubt, the underrated gem in the Wilder canon. Excellent work by Robert Stephens (his best screen performance) and Colin Blakely, and Geneviève Page gives a gorgeous melancholy performance as a German spy secretly in love with Holmes. The Russian Ballet/Tchaikovsky sequence is a classic and represents Wilder at best.
Director Billy Wilder has said he originally intended to portray Holmes explicitly as a repressed homosexual, stating:
I should have been more daring. I have this theory. I wanted to have Holmes homosexual and not admitting it to anyone, including maybe even himself. The burden of keeping it secret was the reason he took dope.
Billy Wilder: Gemünden, Gerd (2008). A Foreign Affair: Billy Wilder’s American Films. Brooklyn: Berghahn Books. p. 147. ISBN978-1-78533-475-7.
65 Queer Films Made Under the Hays Code (1934-1967) Part One. – TheBrownees
65 Queer Films Made Under the Hays Code (1934-1967). Part Two. – TheBrownees
65 Queer Films Made Under the Hays Code (Table) – TheBrownees
45 Queer Films from 1967-1976: Queer Cinema Comes Out – TheBrownees
