Last night "The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes: The Creeping Man" aired on the Biography Channel. It started out scary but with a typical British flair for understatement. But it ended up amazingly! Charles Kay, a marvelous character actor if ever there was one, played a widower with a daughter engaged to his assistant. One morning she tells her father she has seen an intruder at her window. Her father gives her the "there-there" treatment, saying she was only dreaming because her bedroom is too high up for an intruder. But when the truth comes out, the story becomes a feat of sheer amazement, especially the end which I shall not spoil by giving it away here. All I can say is Charles Kay should have gotten the British equivalent of an Emmy for that performance. I think he even surpassed the (late) GREAT Jeremy Brett, whose Sherlock Holmes is so wonderful. Mr. Kay, if you can read this, I hope you know how much I enjoyed that scene last night and how much I've enjoyed all your works. And I wish with all my heart I could tell Jeremy Brett how marvelous I always thought he was, whether he was playing a toy soldier in 19th century Russia (Nicholas in "War & Peace,"), a martinet in "My Fair Lady" (even if he didn't really sing "On the Street Where You Live" to Audrey Hepburn) or as Sherlock Holmes. I used to think there was only one Sherlock Holmes - Mr. Basil Rathbone. Now I see there are 2. And I hope they're in heaven, talking to one another about Sherlock and talking with the "discoverer" (author) of Sherlock Holmes, namely, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Anyway, if you didn't see the episode last night, then wait until it comes back again or if you don't want to wait, then order the Casebook of Sherlock Holmes. This was a marvelous episode in a truly marvelous series.
